It's a Good Time of Year to Be a Hero

This is an incentive time of year. Whether you're getting ready to pay out 2012 bonuses, putting the finishing touches on 2013 measures or tracking the Q1 payout for your short term plan, incentives are probably on your to-do list.

My colleagues sure have been thinking about incentives. Derek's suggested ways to key in on what really motivates in, "Bonuses, Perks and Benefits - Finding What Works (and What Doesn't). Dan reminded us that "mo' money" can be a pointless expense if it is not related to increased motivation in, "How Much More Is Enough?" Ann introduced us to "reward sensitivity" as the psychological term to describe how people react to the prospect of rewards in "Extroverts and Introverts, Rewards and Risks."

Now they've got me going. I'm picturing the meetings that go on in February and March about bonus targets and payouts. How perfunctory they tend to be.

    "I want to give you your bonus for last year. The amount is $15,000."

    "Here's how it was calculated. Your rating gave you this multiplier. You had a great year!"

Maybe the employee says something more than thanks. But probably not a lot.

Exaggerating? Well maybe a little bit, but not really. And what a loss of an opportunity. There's no way that you can have any insight into employee motivation given these kinds of interchanges. 

So, why not be a hero this year? Gather some real data about whether your company's incentives are worth the investment. Find out if there are lower cost motivators that would be considered as valuable to your employees.

How do you get the data? Here's what makes you a hero. You'll need to prepare your managers to have a better conversation. Give them a discussion outline and some direct questions to ask. Find out if the employees connect their effort with the size of their bonus (and why they see it that way). Ask them to blue sky it -- "If you had a chance to design the incentives for your job, what would they be?"

How can you motivate them to give you the info? Expect the feedback from the managers before the bonus checks are deposited, for instance. Or ask the employees to input the responses, with the same deal on the check deposit.

Chuck wrote a blog post this month to encourage you to be prepared when leadership asks, "What Do You Think?"  Your execs want you to tell them how compensation is affecting the business. They think you've got the data!

So many incentive plans are based on HR's best guesses/old information about what motivates or delivers. Get some data that will give you real insights on your employees' reward sensitivities. Slay the dragons. Be a hero.

Margaret O'Hanlon is founder and Principal of re:Think Consulting. She'll join Ann Bares and Dan Walter of the Compensation Cafe to speak the unspoken -- Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communication -- in an upcoming book. Margaret brings deep expertise in compensation, career development and communications to the dialog at the Café. Before founding re:Think Consulting, she was a Principal with Towers Watson. Margaret is Deputy Director of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Pacific Plains Region. She earned her M.S. and Ed.S. in Instructional Technology at Indiana University, Bloomington. Creative writing is one of her outside passions, along with Masters Swimming.

Comments

[Dan Walter]

Thanks for the mention Margaret.

I was a nerdy kid who read a lot of SciFi and Fantasy books. I like your idea of being a hero, but think it might be more of a quest that some would expect.

If people haven't already started down the path of data collection and analysis this might be a good time to START the process. The can use what they are learning right now to put together plan for how to get buy-in to fix issues next year.

Be thorough. The quest is never as it seems at the beginning. There are more surprises than you can predict. You may lose a few compatriots along the way and will likely pick up a few people critical to your missions success.

In the end the results will be unassailable and may even change the (your) world.

[Margaret O'Hanlon]

Exactly what I was getting at, Dan. This type of data collection is/should be ongoing (or in the world of heroes, neverending). It's the only way to be thoughtful about our work -- thinking about what's happening now so you can make better decisions for next year.

Thing is, the data collection never gets started. Especially when it comes to incentives. I'm suggesting you get things started. As you said, the intrepid compensator who takes this on will not get unanimous support, but that's the best sign that you are doing something important. (That's where the hero part comes in!)

[John A Bushfield]

While data collection is critical to understanding program effectiveness, I take issue with using bonus deposits as leverage for feedback from the recipients. You may think it a small issue, but that kind of carrot and stick approach to collecting data may compromise the data collected. Moreover, holding (or 'threatening' to hold) something already earned is unsettling to me; it feels like coercion, and seems to undermine the credibility of the program.

If you are having difficulty getting voluntary feedback on incentive programs from managers and/or employees, the real 'hero' will seek to understand why, and not put additional, ad hoc conditions on receiving it's benefits.

[Margaret O'Hanlon]

Hi John. You're right, I got carried away! No need to withhold anything ever. I just was trying to send the message that this could be done in spite of any push back.

Thanks for setting me straight.