When you plan a travel incentive program, what is your objective? To create a motivational tool that will enhance productivity or achieve a certain business objective. As a motivational tool, a travel incentive program rewards your top performers with a trip in a memorable way and meaningfully recognizes their achievements. In order for an incentive program to produce results for the company, it needs to meet this objective. But it takes careful planning to create motivational, memorable and meaningful results. If you don’t take into account the people you are trying to incentivize, you could end up doing the opposite. Travel is a great way to incentivize. According to one study, 95.5% of incentive earners felt motivated by their company’s travel incentive program. Even more telling is that 90.7% of the incentive non-earners felt motivated as well. Another study points out that “When incentive travel programs are planned, measured, and executed with the integrity of the company and industry in mind, there are great benefits both tangible (increase in profits) and intangible (positive organizational culture).” If done correctly, incentive travel programs improves retention, contributes to positive organizational culture, provides networking opportunities, builds motivation, enhances employee recognition and drives desired behaviors to meet or exceed financial and non-financial objectives. We’ve all heard the saying, but do we recognize when our good intentions fail to help us meet our objectives? Many incentive planners and CEOs have the best of intentions when they plan the annual incentive trip to a beach paradise. But their intentions aren’t what gets people motivated. The best way to motivate people is to find out what motivates them. Taking your top performers to an island paradise every year seems like a great idea, but maybe it’s not something your team really wants. Maybe every year, a significant number of people aren’t interested in an island getaway. That means every year, you are dis-incentivizing a good number of your employees. One of the biggest complaints when it comes to incentive trips is that spouses aren’t included. “I feel like my wife has sacrificed a lot throughout the year for me to reach my goals so for me to be going and she’s not is kinda a bummer.” If you have a group of people who would rather include their spouses then go to an expensive paradise getaway, changing the destination to allow for a plus one will increase their motivation. It all depends on who your target group is when planning the right travel incentive program. Before you plan your next incentive trip, take a good long look at your target audience for the program. Survey your target group and find out what motivates them. Discover their values, interests and preferences. Armed with this information, you will be better equipped create a unique, motivational, meaningful and memorable event. Who knows, maybe you’ll discover that 98% of your team has always wanted to go whale watching. How amazingly meaningful would it be for your company to fulfill that dream for your employees? Does your incentive program really motivate your employees? If not, consider taking closer look at your target group. Plan a results driven incentive program with your target’s values, interests and preferences in mind. How? Ask them! For more meeting insights, sign up for Teaming Edge.
INCENTIVE TRAVEL, THE GREAT MOTIVATOR.
“THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS”
GET TO KNOW YOUR TARGET
