| Incentive programmes undoubtedly help to boost employee morale, but in straitened times, companies must ensure they extract maximum value from them.
It’s no secret that the recession has forced companies to re-evaluate every area of expenditure. This was underlined by the record falls noted in the latest Bellwether Report, which charts predicted marketing budgets. However, despite the bad news, the corporate incentives sector may be able to buck this trend and maintain budget levels, if not increase them.
Incentives schemes are generally aimed at one of two audiences; employees or sales teams within retailers. In the case of the former group, redundancies and wage freezes are hitting morale. In the case of the latter, falling footfall and consumer spend on the high street mean many brands need to take a greater market share simply to stand still.
Despite these two very different target markets, incentives generally work in the same way: by offering and giving someone a reward in return for a desired action. Once this reward has been given, its success will depend on whether it has been memorable enough to ensure the required behaviour continues.
Incentive companies that are solid, solvent and financially insulated against a collapse like this have a big selling point for companies looking to use their schemes.
In recent times, incentives experts have dubbed vouchers the next best thing to cash. However, this does not preclude other, small scale rewards from coming into play.
Libby Christie, head of operations at prize and incentive specialist Unmissable, says that items such as spa days, hampers and short breaks will increase in perceived value amid the recession.
“Whereas people might have enjoyed more than one holiday in previous years, short weekend breaks might become the expendable item, and therefore carry all the more excitement, which in previous years might only have been achieved with something as big as a trip to Brazil,” she says.
As predictions about the UK economy grow more pessimistic, brands and companies need to keep their staff working hard, and employee incentives could become a crucial asset to organisations concentrating on maintaining market share.
- ENDS -
|
