“I can live for two months on a good compliment." —Mark Twain
Picture of incentive travel or mark twain?
Tips for Developing a Successful Travel Incentive Program
The companies, from 2 to 2,000,000 employees, are investing in their workforce. But not just in the traditional sense...salary, PTO, 401k match or even having beer in the fridge, which is awesome; I highly recommend.
My last 4 companies all invested in these traditional, almost-expected "rewards" for doing my job. But, of them, only two won highly coveted 'Best Places to Work' awards each year and the same 2 outperformed their competitors at attracting, developing, and retaining top talent. The difference? They invested in Employee Incentive Programs.
Travel Incentive Programs
Travel Incentive Programs can be as simple as putting a sticky pad by the fridge and encouraging employees to post Thank-Yous. Positive recognition is a free and powerful motivator and incentive.
They can also be as sophisticated as travel incentives, where companies align their corporate or department’s key business goals, most commonly individual revenue targets, with an opportunity for employees to be rewarded with an all-expenses-paid vacation. The employee is recognized and rewarded for their success, which is easy to measure a hard ROI, such as increased revenue, employee referrals, and retention. And soft ROI, such as increased employee survey data including engagement, loyalty, and job satisfaction.
There are many effective tools companies can implement to drive motivation and achieve key business goals. For this article we are only focusing on travel incentives, as they are quickly becoming the most in-demand benefit employees expect from their employers in front-line industries and have been proven study, after study, to give you the best chance of influencing your employees to buy-in to company current or evolving goals.
Here are Ten Tips for Developing Your Corporate Incentive Travel Program
1. Determine your corporate incentive travel program goals – what specifically do you want to accomplish? This could be an increase in sales, key measurable behaviors, production output or profits, or a reduction in defective products, sales returns or lost contracts. Be sure to assign a value to the improvement or reduction - a percentage, absolute number of units or contracts, or a dollar figure. Pro Tip – secure buy-in from a committee of key senior leadership to help determine priorities and to drive the success of each step of this initiative.
2. Select a target group for the program. This could be management, employees, salespeople, channel partners, or even customers.
3. Discover what the target group’s values, interests and preferences are through surveys or interviews. Analyze results, budget and goals and collaborate with an incentive program consultant to match up your target group’s preferences with available packages in your budget range. Pro Tip – including spouses can drastically improve the effectiveness of this initiative. Spouses make sacrifices everyday to support your employees’ ability to get their jobs done. Showing that you appreciate the efforts of both employees and spouses will go a long way to keeping your employees interested in working hard, and working for you.
4. Considering past performance, employee behavior, company dynamics and industry norms, establish achievable tasks and outcomes for your target group that align with your goals.
5. Make sure you have a performance tracking system in place with a clear way to measure incentive program results.
6. Identify obstacles that may hinder the success of the incentive program. For example, employee engagement, organizational structure, timing and market conditions.
7. Be transparent. Communicate your intentions to your target group before, during and after launching a travel incentive program to secure their buy-in. This should be fun, motivating and inspiring. Provide ongoing status updates and positive recognition where it’s due. Celebrate successful steps.
8. Understand applicable tax implications. Travel can be taxable to recipients under certain conditions, and special tax forms may be required.
9. When selecting a corporate incentive travel company, make sure it agrees to fulfill what is promised for your budgeted cost and that you understand contract terms and cancellation policies. A clear, “you will do this, I will do this” document can be helpful.
10. At the end of your program, survey winners and non-winners to collect feedback. Measure and communicate objective results to target group. Build excitement for next year!
About Us
Kevin Flink has developed Rewards and Recognition Programs for award-winning small and medium-sized businesses for almost 10 years. With the advent of his travel agency, www.rewarding-travel.com, he blends his expertise in human resources and travel planning to help companies build successful travel incentive programs and Travel Booking services to clients that aspire to attract, develop and retain industry-leading talent.
Ready to plan your next travel incentive event? Schedule a call here for a free consultation so we can learn more about your current travel incentive program - or help you build one from scratch!
954.263.2691 | kevin.flink@cruiseplanners.com | www.rewarding-travel.com
