Devoted to Managers and those that seek to improve their management skills

In a recent study concerning best practices and effectiveness in a contact center, it was found that it takes not only incentives but the right kind of incentives to not only motivate performance, but also to determine that type of culture the center would be.

One interesting insight research has shown is that properly prepared incentive plans have a much stronger effect on stopping or encourging certain behaviors, than the consistent influence of coaching by a manager.

A director of a major contact center said:

"Incentives usually work for changing a behavior but should not be used to meet general goals - they should be used for the above and beyond criteria otherwise it becomes an employee expectation to be rewarded for general goals."

Sample key findings from the study include:

     1. One high performing company had a separate budget set aside for all departments to develop and fund their own incentive programs. This helped to encourage teamwork and more customized incentives which ultimately increased motivation.

     2. Two interviewed high performers noted that they were in the process of reducing employee base pay in order to free up more money for incentives programs. The base pay offered was still reasonable, but the extra incentive opportunities helped keep performance at a stable level.

 
Another thought in the first finding above that is very important is the customized incentive comment. In my experience this is one of the most important things we can do when creating incentives for our companies. A lot of people are turned off by being offered something for great performance that they have no interest in. 

It is in a lot of cases better not to create incentives than to offer incentives that are irrelevant to your employees. They may never say anything but they will deeply resent what happened. So your incentive can actually demotivate, rather than encourage.

On the other hand, if you do it right, as it mentions in the second finding, it creates a stable performance among your workers that you can count on being maintained with few surprises along the way.