Employee Incentives and Recognition that get Results

According to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times, workplace gamification, which is defined as the introduction of game design techniques and mechanics into a workplace environment for the purposes of improving employee engagement and productivity, will be a 3 billion dollar industry by 2016. This is a 2000% increase from 2011! Snowfly, an employee recognition company, was a pioneer in the area of gamification. Since 1998 their employee incentive and recognition programs have utilized games to motivate employees to improved levels of performance. This webinar will discuss fifteen important discoveries uncovered from analysis of data gathered from Snowfly’s numerous game-based programs and is must-attend for any organization considering the integration of a gamification component into their workplace environment.

This webinar will be conducted by Dr. Brooks Mitchell, a leading expert in the discipline of employee motivation and performance. Dr. Mitchell brings a synergistic blend of academia (University of Wyoming) and practicality (Human Resource Manager for PepsiCo and Texas Instruments). His work has been published and referred to in hundreds of publications, including Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and the New York Times. Dr. Mitchell has also authored two highly popular managerial books, “Bet on Cowboys, Not Horses” and “Games, Work, and Human Motivation.”

Cost to attend is free, but space is limited to the first 200 registrants

By Tyler Mitchell, CEO: Snowfly Employee Incentives

There are several variables that have an affect the success (or failure) of your employee incentives programs. The types of rewards, budget allocation, and communication strategy are just a few. These are all very important; I could go in to detail on each and give my advice based on research as well as my own experience. However, that would make for a very long article and quite honestly, I am not a good enough writer to hold your attention. So that being said, I am going to focus on the most important variable, Average Positive Reinforcement Turnaround Time (henceforth referred to as “APRTT”).

APRTT is the employee incentive program’s average elapsed time from when an employee achieves a program goal (or demonstrates a positive behavior) to the time when the employee experiences a desirable outcome as the result. This is a significant determinant in the success of every incentive program. Your incentive program can be perfect in every other way, but the further your APRTT is from immediate, the less effective your program becomes.

Why? Because if an employee, or anyone for that matter, is immediately reinforced positively following a behavior, then that behavior will almost always be repeated. Conversely, the more time that elapses between the behavior and a positive outcome, the less likely it is to be repeated. Behavioral science has proven this to be true. Consider the research conclusions of Keri Kettle and Gerald Haubl with The University of Alberta. Their study involved students who, as part of a university course, had to give an oral presentation to their classmates. Group 1 was told they would receive their grade several days after their presentation. Group 2 was told they would receive their grade immediately. As you would suspect, group two (immediate feedback) achieved higher grades than their counterparts. This study shows that merely the anticipation of immediate reinforcement influences performance (Click HERE if you want to read the full study.)

So the question is how you can reduce your program’s APRTT. First, your employee incentive program needs to utilize some sort of reward currency (i.e. points that can be redeemed for a reward of the recipients choosing). The best thing about point-driven incentive programs is that receiving points for achieving a goal or demonstrating a behavior IS a desirable outcome on its own. From an administrative point of view, it is much easier to quickly communicate to a program participant that they have received points as opposed to trying to be Johnny-on-the-spot with some sort of prize or “attaboy” every single time an employee is deserving of positive reinforcement. This in turn enables you to reinforce employees more frequently which means you can reward them for incremental achievements towards a bigger objective.

Next, take your point-driven program to the next level. Today’s technology combined with your company’s performance tracking systems makes it possible to create a process that will automatically:

1. Receive raw performance related data
2. Analyze the raw data
3. Convert this raw data to points
4. Place points in an employee’s web-based account
5. Immediately notify the employee of points received via email or text messaging.

Developing and implementing a process like this can be very complex and will most likely require that you bring in outside resources. However the time and money you dedicate to this will undoubtedly result in a reduced APRTT for your workforce incentive program which will in turn result in quantifiable employee performance improvements and a reduction in administrative time.

Build and sustain organizational excellence.

This 2-day event, originally introduced by Dr. Aubrey Daniels through Harvard University is designed to address the systems, processes, and management practices of an organization and is directed towards senior managers and leaders who want a high-level program on designing an environment where people want to improve workplace results.

LEARN MORE AND REGISTER TO ATTEND

FORT COLLINS, COLO. - October 31, 2011—Snowfly, a full-service recognition and incentive company previously based out of the small college town of Laramie, Wyo., has recently moved its operational headquarters to 330 E. Mulberry St., Fort Collins, Colo. 80524. Fort Collins, located 60 miles north of Denver, was named one of the “Best Places to Live” in 2011 by CNN Money, is home to Colorado State University and surrounded by the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

Moving to town with a population of just over 140,000, Snowfly plans to continue to grow and offer positive solutions to businesses. Snowfly is excited to be newly located in a town that has produced other well-known and successful businesses such as Otterbox and New Belgium Brewery .

“We are very excited for this move; we felt that the time was right and hope to achieve a level of success similar to that of Fort Collins-based companies. We will still be keeping some operations in Laramie, but plan to grow the company here in Fort Collins, where we believe we will find much success,” says Tyler Mitchell, president of Snowfly.

After years of researching human behavior and employee motivation, Dr. Brooks Mitchell founded Snowfly in 1999, understanding that organizations should capitalize on the direct link that exists between behavior modification and consistent positive reinforcement.

Snowfly offers and supports a complete workforce incentives system consisting of online programs, motivating rewards and consultative services provided by a team of experts. Snowfly’s incentive system will enable your organization to create, implement, and manage effective incentive, recognition and reward programs that will engage and motivate employees to substantial and sustainable improvements in performance, morale and retention. You can view some more pictures of Snowfly HQ on our Facebook Page