The Dos and Don'ts of Giving Rewards
November 17, 2008
There is more to giving a merchandise award than just selecting the right product.
By Spencer Toomey
Most of us have heard the expression "no good deed goes unpunished." While that is not always true, this expression is usually the first thing that pops into your mind every time the good deed that you go out of your way to complete blows up in your face. Sometimes this happens just because, well, stuff happens; and other times it happens because you didn't think things through and you didn't anticipate the worst.
Well, if you're putting together a merchandise award program for your employees, you'd better think of everything in advance. Many years ago I was working for a company and our New York City salesperson had a record year. He not only had the highest sales volume, he made a sale that forced the company to think more creatively than they ever had before—it started a whole new successful approach to the business for the company. The national sales manager decided to give the salesman and his wife a nice gift in recognition of his accomplishments. He sent a case of steaks to the salesman's home for him to enjoy with his family.
Unfortunately, the salesman and his wife were vegetarians and were highly insulted that, after working in the same office with the him for five years, the manager didn’t think about the award and who was receiving it. Instead of a positive and rewarding experience, it had a very negative result.
The Dos and Don'ts of Giving
The temptation is to put items that you like into a program. Many assume that if you like a certain item, then everyone else will also like it. Guess again!
There are many things that you should do when giving a merchandise award. You do not have to do all of these, but you should consider most of them:
• Employee Focus Group: What better way is there to get the real feel for how your programs have been received in the past or what your employees would really like to have going forward? You should include former recipients, as well as new ones, and have a mixture of ages and genders. Do not assume that everyone will like the same thing.
• Hot Ticket Items: If you include merchandise that is the "must have" item of the season, you can usually satisfy most age groups and genders. Items included in this category are GPSs, MP3 players, luxury handbags and briefcases, etc.
• Demographics: Is your group mostly male, female or a combination? Do they have young children or are they empty nesters? What's their economic situation, where do they live, etc.? These are some of the things to keep in mind. For example, snow blowers are not very popular in Florida and a day at the spa may not have the same appeal to a group of construction workers as it might to a female sales force. Remember: Age is not always a determining factor. In one program, toys and gadgets did very well with a group of employees in the farm industry. The workforce was older, but they were redeeming the items and giving the toys to their grandchildren.
• Culture: If the company has a large ethnic population, make sure you consider this when making the product selections. If there is a religious factor to the merchandise or the workforce, keep this in mind as well.
• Safety: Make sure that the merchandise doesn’t have any safety issues, is age appropriate and manufactured in a good environment.
Dave Peer, vice president of client services for Hinda Inc. says, "One of the biggest benefits of merchandise is that people care about it, have an opinion and an emotional connection to it, making merchandise a superior award. Make the award personal, current, fashionable or trendy. Ensure that whatever it is, it matches the lifestyle of the recipient."
The Presentation
You can go through all of the steps and pick out the perfect merchandise award but if you don't give a good presentation or none at all, you are wasting your money.
• A supervisor flips Joe the truck driver a box containing his 30 year watch as he is getting into his truck to make a run. Joe flips the box back to the supervisor and says, "If that's all it means to you, then that’s all it means to me."
• Sally, a customer service rep, reads about the latest company incentive program on her desk computer. She looks up the awards, picks her favorite—a new set of luggage—and plans her attack on earning enough points to get it. She has a successful year and earns enough points for the luggage, goes online, puts in her information and a week later, when she gets home from work, there it is. She sits alone in her living room and looks at her luggage.
• At the company's national sales meeting, the president goes directly from the bar, right on the stage to give out the sales awards. It is a disaster. He tells off-color jokes, mispronounces names and turns a great event into an ugly evening.
All the hard work that went into selecting the right merchandise was not only gone in these instances, it became a major negative. Joe and Sally were not recognized in front of their peers, their hard work went totally unnoticed. The president of the company turned everything positive about the sales meeting into a disaster; and, instead of accomplishing long-term motivation, the presentation became a complete blot on the company's management.
People want to be recognized. They are proud of their accomplishments and they want to feel appreciated. Choosing the right award is the start, presenting it correctly is the finish that makes it valuable to the employee and it is only then, when the reward becomes valuable to the employee, that the return on investment is achieved.
Spencer Toomey is vice president of The Corporate Marketplace, Inc.
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