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Motivating Simply at Nielsen
October 09, 2008
The Nielsen Company rewards employees for keeping things simple
By Alex Palmer
When you're in the business of providing complex market research, industry news and insight to everyone from Hollywood moguls to convenience store owners, things can get complicated quickly. Which is why The Nielsen Company, with 35,000 employees spread across over 100 countries, has adopted an incentive program that rewards workers for keeping things simple. More specifically, as the company's senior vice president of human resources, Eric Lange, explained during an educational session at The Motivation Show in late September, the company recognizes and rewards those who demonstrate its three key values: Simple, Open and Integrated.
The Nielsen Company provides global marketing and consumer information, as well as business media products and services (including the Incentive brand) to a wide range of industries. Perhaps best known for its Nielsen television ratings and brands such as Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, the company transitioned in 2007 from VNU to The Nielsen Company. Despite the changes, Lange explains, recognition for model behavior served as "a constant in a time of transition" for the organization. But with the new name and straightforward set of values, the leadership also refreshed the company's recognition program, rolling out "Simply Excellent: Celebrating the People at Nielsen" on July 14th of this year.
Developed by O.C. Tanner and administered through an online platform, the program allows employees to award one another for demonstrating the Nielsen values and achieving results. A manager who translates the company or brand's larger strategy into clear, actionable objectives for her staff might be awarded for living the "Simple" value, while an employee who brings in employees from different areas of the company to better accomplish a larger project may be recognized for his "Integrated" approach.
Nominations are entered on a "nomination wizard" which helps determine the level of award that the performance deserves (bronze, silver, gold or platinum). Each month’s winners are recognized in front of their team members and then get to choose merchandise rewards from an online catalogue, with the value of the award increasing for each level.
"We don't talk about what the dollar value is, but certainly at the higher levels it’s significant," says Lange. "People are coming in with great gifts that they’ve gotten, from jewelry to bicycles, televisions and electronic equipment." He says these have shown to be powerful, memorable rewards, since when companies give cash, the two places it’s most likely to go are 'first to pay your bills, and second is 'I don’t remember.'"
Lange emphasizes other do's and don'ts of recognition, such as "do tell a memorable story" but "don't use jokes." He gives the example of someone he knew at a different company who received a high-priced Rolex watch as a gift, along with a letter from the president letting him know he would soon be receiving a W4 for the amount of the watch. The winner ended up selling the watch on eBay.
Lange explains that since these awards only require a manager at one level above the nominator to approve, it’s easy for the recognition to be made. So far the Simply Excellent program has been rolled out for Nielsen's approximately 18,000 U.S. employees, and the results have been strong, according to Lange, with almost 1,000 nominations after two months. In addition to the bronze, silver, gold and platinum awards, there had also been 236 peer-to-peer thank you cards sent between employees at the time of The Motivation Show.
"This tells me it's being embraced," says Lange. "I fully expect that those numbers will continue to grow as more and more people use the program and recognize how easy it is to use."
Editor's Note: For more coverage from The 2008 Motivation Show, visit www.incentivemag.com/motivation2008.
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