Ask the Experts: Get the Family Involved!
Including a spouse or other family members in an incentive program reaps rewards.
Does it make sense to try to involve the family – spouse, children or significant others – in a company recognition or incentive program? You bet it does, say industry experts.
Consider the 13-year-old who, when asked where he got that neat mountain bike, answers, “My dad earned this because he’s really good at his job.” Or the spouse who, when her partner says he’s thinking about changing jobs, asks, “Does that mean we won’t be going to Hawaii again this year?”
An award winner is twice as likely to tell his or her family about a prize than to tell peers or friends, and that ratio applies across all categories of awards, according to a Maritz Incentives poll. That statistic speaks to the motivational power that spouses and families bring to reward programs. Conversely, families often pay a price for an employee’s performance efforts, in time spent away from home for business travel, late evenings to fix customer problems, missed ball games and birthdays. “The family is part of the support system for your workers,” says Mark Peterman, vice president of client solutions for Maritz Incentives, “and it’s important to recognize not only the worker but the family -- for their efforts -- and hopefully have them share in the reward as well.”
The issue is employee engagement
One reason to involve a spouse and family in employee incentive programs is to increase employee engagement. According to Chester Elton, vice president of performance recognition for O.C. Tanner Company, “The traditional triggers for workplace engagement were [compensation] and benefits, but now companies are looking at workplace environment. They’re looking to create one of those ‘best places to work.’ They want to create a workplace that’s a little more fun and engaging than the competitor’s down the street. And one of the ways to do that is to use their recognition strategy to get the family involved.”
Even a simple form of recognition, like a hand-written note that addresses the family, can be powerful. “Sometimes all we want is for somebody to notice what we’ve done and to say, ‘Thank you,’” he says. “A hand-written note goes a long way – you’ve taken the time, and it’s personal. And if you want to take it a step further, mail it to the home, so the family can see how much you appreciate that employee.” Elton mentions one manager who not only sent a note home, but addressed it to the employee’s 12-year-old son. The employee’s response: “He came to work and said, ‘I can’t tell you how proud my son was about the work that I do.’”
Elton adds: “If you do something nice for an employee, it goes a long way, but if you do something nice for the employee’s family, now you’ve got engagement on a whole different level. Now the spouse is saying, ‘Hey, don’t be late for work. Those are good people that you’re working for.’”
In some cases, says Louise Anderson of Anderson Performance Improve-ment, a reward program may bring about the first conversation a family has about the work that a parent does. “There’s nothing more powerful than a child, however old, saying ‘Wow, you earned that at work? How did you do that? What work do you do?’ That involves family recognition of what you do and how good you are at it,” she says. “And that’s a very strong form of engagement.”
Designing the family into the program
The most effective programs will invite family involvement through the entire course of the incentive program, from design to reward selection to ongoing communications right through to reward presentation. Anderson says that’s pretty easy to do using a points-based program that allows the winner to choose a reward from a catalog. In that instance, “there’s no way the family wouldn’t be involved,” she says. In fact, many of the programs that her firm administers require the participant to go online to set goals – and not just goals on selling or other performance, but reward goals, so participants can involve the family in selecting the rewards that they will be striving for.
In that situation, it’s important to have a truly broad selection of rewards. Don’t assume that everyone will want the wide-screen TV, or the mountain bike, or the trip to an exotic locale. Rather, a range of family-oriented, “lifestyle” awards will be more engaging than one that is heavy in one specific merchandise category. If your program involves travel, it might also be important to provide some options. “It might make more sense to offer three or four choices around an incentive award trip to give people more flexibility,” Peterman says. “Timing is often an important element for participants with families. The spouse may work. Other family members may have different holiday schedules or different school break schedules. You need to understand that and provide some options.”
Keep communicating
Ongoing communication is very important. Sending the trip destination materials or the awards catalog home is a good first step, but continuing communication home is necessary to keep the family or spouse involved. “A mix of media directed to the home is important in maintaining the family’s interest,” Anderson says. “And the more creative and unique [it is], the more likely the participant will share [it] with family members.” She recalls one client who used e-mail that included flash media with figures flying across the page or dancing bodies on which you could paste photos of some of the company’s top sales performers. “A lot of people sent that home to show their families,” she says.
Peterman recalls a program that sent a treasure hunt puzzle to spouses with a theme related to a particular client. The company wanted to involve spouses in the program while educating them about the company, so the clues required the spouses to learn about different parts of the company to ultimately track down a mystery award. Everyone who participated received a small award, but there was also a larger award for the winner of the treasure hunt, Peterman says.
Involving the family in the award presentation is a nice way to top off a campaign. Some participants will do this themselves. “You would be amazed at the stories we hear about people who receive a merchandise award at home and won’t take it out of the box until the whole family is gathered,” Anderson says.
In the case of more formal recognition or reward programs, invite the family to the presentation event, and plan the event for a time and place where the family is more likely to be able to attend. “That way, the president and the different VPs can schmooze the family and say, ‘I know we’re demanding, but your husband – or your wife, or father – really has performed, and we want to say thank-you not just to him but to you.’ Those types of things work really well,” Elton says. ms
