My 10 golden rules will make your incentive scheme rock

DRAWING on our experience of designing and delivering motivational programmes for many of the big call centres, here are my top tips:

Make it fun  An environment full of buzzy, energetic people with a tough, sometimes repetitive, job thrives on stimulation and excitement.  Give your campaign a quirky theme, a great corporate look and transport your agents to a virtual online world where everyone can play and win.

Make it manageable  Create a single campaign spine which will accommodate all your different motivational  activities, incentives and promotions.  By pulling everything together and streamlining reward, you‘ll have a programme that’s easy to manage, and which builds to encourage ongoing achievement.

Make it fair  Everyone, not just your top performers, must be able to compete.  And check you’re rewarding the performance you really want.  A mix of quantitative and qualitative targets help focus on good practice as well as results. Team and individual elements keep people pulling together.

Make it possible  Do your staff have all the product knowledge they need in order to achieve?  Online quizzes turn essential training into a fun experience.

Make it happen on day one  Hit that launch date so it rocks!  Build suspense with a teaser campaign, posters, flyers.  On the big day, run a campaign-themed floor walk packed with activities,  games, competitions and novelties, all helping communicate campaign information and promote registrations.

Make it buzz  Keep communication coming throughout your programme with things like interactive areas on your campaign website, news, hot tips and coming-ups.  And constant achievement updates for everyone. The award-winning contact centre manager for one of our soft drinks customers, Michelle Smith, says: “We run spot competitions on the floor, using our big screens for online prize-reveals.”

Make it inclusive  Involve staff with a peer-to-peer nominations so the real team players get recognised and rewarded.  Encourage staff to send one another e-thank-you-cards.  Spread a little love!

Make it lively  Keep ringing the changes with quick, one-off activities.  We use a portfolio of campaign “add-ons” -- online games, gimmicks and mechanisms -- to deliver one-off promotions and give programmes a constant buzz.

Make it rewarding.  By using a single reward “currency” for all activities, from short promotions  to ongoing performance targets, staff can save and build to the reward of their choice.  Add a big prize, spot awards, recognition items – spread your budget with different ideas.

Make it measurable  Is it working?  Ask your agency for regular reports.  Check year-on-year performance and staff turnover.  At campaign end, include an online survey – what did your participants think?  What would they change?  There’s always something new to learn.

Don’t try to do it all yourself  We had, of course, to add an 11th recommendation: use an agency who’s done it all before and already knows what works!

Sean Wilkinson, MD, Corporate Rewards; sean@corporaterewards.co.uk