The right incentive travel program can mean big returns for your company, but there’s no such thing as perfection. Something can always be changed for better results. With that said, what’s missing from yours? Let’s look at a few areas that may help your program achieve higher results than you thought possible.
1. Did your incentive travel trip actually achieve growth for your business?
The biggest purpose of incentive programs is growth of the company, right? They create a positive Return on Investment. If that growth isn’t happening, you’re just patting your people on the back for work they were already doing. That’s not a problem if that’s what you’re going for, but it most likely isn’t your goal.
Make no mistake, incentive programs do show results. If you aren’t seeing growth, you’re probably not achieving growth-type goals.
For example, if your sales people consistently achieve a 5% growth year-over-year, setting the goal to be 5-6% for the program isn’t going to see much of a push. An incentive travel program isn’t supposed to be easy – otherwise we’d see much higher numbers at some of our incentive events. Instead, it’s supposed to be a reward for outstanding achievement.
Trust your employees to achieve outstanding results by pushing the bar higher.
2. Do you use your incentive travel programs to grow your teams?
If your program is actually achieving business growth, you have an unbelievable occasion on your hands. Your top tier people are all together in one place in a new environment. They’re more relaxed and willing to answer questions.
Now is the time to find out their success secrets and if your company stands in the way of that success. Because, let’s face it, you and your managers can’t be everywhere at once. You don’t know all the bottlenecks and pitfalls awaiting your teams – but these top people do.
Get the feedback you need to better your systems and help your employees succeed. Successful employees mean a successful company and a healthier bottom line.
3. Does your incentive travel program have the same excitement at the end of the program as it does at the beginning?
Many programs are at least a year long. That’s a year of pushing sales, or upping productivity in the plant, or managing client accounts. It’s easy to forget the excitement of the initial incentive announcement.
Incentive programs – of any kind – aren’t just “set it and forget it” campaigns. How do you keep your employees excited about something that’s far in the future?
One of the successful ways we’ve seen is for companies to announce plans as they’re cemented. For example, you might share the venue with the employees, or the hotel you’ll be staying in. By sharing breadcrumbs as they turn into the cake, you can keep excitement going.
4. Did you share the last event with your company?
Did you put up photos on the company network? Did you share them on Facebook? How about creating a brochure of the previous event when the next one is announced, so your employees can see what went on?
The employees that didn’t go may not think it was such a big deal – after all, it was just some trip to Italy, right? But then they hear about (and see photos of) the trip to Milan, where the winners stayed in a 5-star hotel and had a treasure hunt with iPads through the city as a teambuilding exercise. Suddenly it’s not so easy to ignore.
Motivation, friends. Motivation.
You may very well have an excellent incentive travel program. -And, you may very well see good returns with that program. However, there’s always room for improvement, and better programs bring better returns.
