Reward the Good; but No Money PLEASE

I remember when I was working on a dock of a trucking company, during my college days, and the Terminal Manager (TM) called me in to tell me the union steward wanted him to get rid of me because I was making the full time guys look bad and causing uproar in the ranks.

I was unaware of the uproar for a couple reasons. One, I was a temp working off the others schedule. My assignment was to set up the distribution runs for the next day anticipating where the deliveries were going based on what I knew from what was coming in. It wasn’t all that complicated because even before the freight was picked up we already had the information of what was going to whom and my job had to do with scheduling the unload and reload it based on pre arranged delivery routes. I worked from 1 to 5 and the guys I was allegedly pissing off -- who had to do the heavy lifting -- were on the 4 to 12 shift.

Rather then get rid of me the TM starting asking me questions related to the detail of the scheduling. How much of what I was doing was still left to redo the next day? Why was the leftover, leftover? Was the information I was working from accurate or not? What assumptions were I making that was unrealistic?

What he discovered was that 20 per cent of his 4 to 12 shift was doing 80 per cent of the work. Surprised? Then, I was; but now (it’s been more then 20 years since I worked on that dock) I’ve learned the 20-80 rule pretty much fits for everything related to success and high achievement.

Instead of firing me or reacting to the union steward, the TM set up an incentive program to reward the 20 percent. He had to be careful so the union couldn’t complain about unequal treatment. But he managed a program that delivered extra rewards

Results? You bet. Not only were the 20 per cent shown appreciation and welcomed the extra gratitude, the production increased even more among that group and many of the 80 per cent soon joined in to get some of the rewards that were available.

Management courses will tell you that rewarding better workers develops a competitive advantage and encourages others to achieve more. Now there are all kinds of scientific ways to get this done and I’m sure someone on your human resources staff can give you the details. My goal here is to give you the idea of what those rewards should be and let me stress ANYTING BUT MONEY is workable. Money is not the reward to use. It gets taxed so people begin resenting the thousand dollars you give them because it ends up being $700. It gets spent, so as soon as it’s gone it’s forgotten. And no matter how much you give, it is never enough!

Think about rewards and incentives like these three ideas:

· Watches
· Clocks
· Cameras
· Electronic “Toys” like scanners, GPS, Golf viewers, MP3, IPODs
· Kits – like first aid or auto repair or bike repair (promote some healthy living!)
· Sports Equipment
· Tool sets

Details of some of these ideas can be found by clicking here .

Personal is always best. So let me help you decide the most appropriate way for you to reward your prospects, clients and fellow workers during these budget cutting times. Contact me at Jay@InnMkting.com or visit our website www.InnMkting.com and type in some “rewards” or “incentives” in the search section and see how inexpensive it can be to tell that 20 per cent how important they are to you especially in these tough times.