March 27, 2003
Turbocharge Your Value Team(s) Performance With A Rewards And Recognition
Program!
___________________________________________
Robert T. Yokl - President -
The HCP Group, Ltd.
“Healthcare Organizations Need To Engage People’s Hearts
And Minds Through Rewards And Incentives, So That Their Value Teams Are
constantly Motivated To Save Money And Improve Quality.”
Rewards and incentives seem to be an OXYMORON in the
context of motivating value teams to generate huge savings and quality
gains for healthcare organizations today. Yet, healthcare organizations
who embrace “The Carrot” to motivate their value teams have ROIs as high
as 30:1 or more for their efforts. Much of the confusion about rewards
and incentives is that everyone believes rewards and incentives are all
about MONEY, when in fact “money doesn’t motivate – at least not on its
own”, says George Kling, an incentives consultant. “Product and (travel)
incentives work (best) because they represent the things people would like
to have but will not necessarily spend out-of-pocket cash for because that
cash is used for necessary things. Products and (travel) deliver
opportunity for recognition, trophy value and lasting reminders.”
Rewards And Recognition Programs Begin With
A Process
Effective reward and recognition programs just don’t
happen, they are carefully planned for maximum impact and results. Yes,
money does inspire some people, but the most effective rewards and
recognition programs sprinkle money along with merchandise and
appreciation to obtain the desired results. To get the utmost from your
value team however you need to have a defined process to align your
business goals with rewards and recognition as described below.
1. Understand
what motivates your value team members
Get your value team members together to find out what
motivates them, then personalize your rewards and recognition program to
meet their expectations. Since one size doesn’t fit all, find out what
they value, personally and as a team. Is it time off, flexible work
schedules, autonomy, learning opportunities, challenges, greater freedom,
travel to exotic locations, having more money for decorating their homes,
tickets to Broadway shows, cheese of the month club, etc? The list of
rewards and recognition could be endless, but can be controlled by
budgeting 10% of your projected program savings for your rewards and
recognition program to start.
2. Establish
measurable goals, objectives, and milestones with your value team members
to reward activity that drives results
Now that you have established your rewards, you need to let
your value team members know how they can obtain their rewards. An easy
way to reward activity that drives results is to utilize a point system
representing $1 dollar in purchasing power for every point team member’s
achieve.
Typical goals, objectives and milestones that HCP’s clients
have used are: meeting attendance (250 points for 75% attendance, 350
points for 90% attendance, and 450 points for 100% attendance); completing
project on time (350 points for competing project within 90-day cycle);
meeting or exceeding savings goals (350 points for meeting savings goal
and 450 points for exceeding savings goal), etc.
These accumulated points then equate to dollar rewards that
your value team decided on in step 1. For example, if Broadway show
tickets are worth $110 each and a value team member has achieved 110
points they can now retrieve that award anytime, as opposed to waiting a
year to get it, which keeps the fire burning in your members.
3. Constantly
communicate with team members about their progress
If you want your reward and recognition program to “Sizzle”
vs. “Fizzle” you will need to constantly reiterate program goals,
objectives and milestones to keep your value team members fired up. A good
way to do this is by using a SCOREBOARD showing how each value team member
and team is doing against their goals, objectives and milestones that they
agreed to, which generates competition between members and teams.
4. Celebrate
success and recognize winners along the way
Recognition is an integral part of a rewards and
recognition program, so don’t wait to applaud achievements. Value teams
and individual team members should be recognized for their achievements
along the way. One of our clients has a quarterly luncheon to honor and
applaud both individual and team efforts to kept “The Carrot” in front of
their participants.
The lesson to be learned with all rewards and recognition
programs is that if you truly want to motivate your team to achieve at the
highest level possible, then you must change your culture to be more
competitive.
Rewards And Recognition Will Positively
Change Your Culture
Competition pushes team members to even higher levels of
performance than the previously self-imposed limits that they have set for
themselves. A rewards and recognition program is the engine to light the
fire under your value team to strive together to bring out the best in all
of your team members. By doing so, you will change your culture from a
passive culture to a “winners” culture that is interdependent on each
other to reach the highest level of performance possible.
