HARDI: 8 Incentive Trends to Shape Your Current Program

by | Mar 6, 2018 | Blog

At our Annual Incentive Leadership Forum, a guest and partner, Emily Saving of HARDI, approached us with an idea for a top trends in incentives blog article. Together we put together the scope and created the piece for Emily to post on her site.


Below is a summary of the article. 

A Word from Emily:

One of the remarkable things about HARDI is the coalescence of industry expertise from so many points of view. Every time HARDI welcomes a new member we contribute to this body of knowledge, and our industry adds another tool to unlock even greater potential.

One such company was on my mind recently, as the HARDI staff recently closed out our 2017 fiscal year and looks to complete the annual employee goal-setting cycle with a set of performance incentive payouts. Lucky us! Performance incentives, when tied to a strategic employee performance management system, is a topic I am passionate about, and I take great pride in the system HARDI uses to incentivize and reward the fantastic work of our employees. However, there’s always room for improvement, right?

HMI Performance Incentives is an incentive solutions company that joined HARDI in 2017. With such a rich understanding of how incentive programs work, I had reached out and asked for their opinion on the best factors to include in my 2018 program design. Read below for their analysis:

8 Incentive Trends to Shape Your Current Program

Incentives are the force that makes the world go ’round.

Well, maybe not literally, but certainly figuratively.

If you think about it, people tend to make decisions based on what’s in it for them: financial motivation, recognition, a tangible item or experience, access to status or privileges, you name it.

So, whether it’s in pursuit of an explicit reward or under the impression of some subliminal motivator, recognizing this fact and realizing what incentives will drive the people you wish to motivate gives you the ability to shift and adjust business strategy to achieve your goals.

However, like any other industry in the global market, what incents people changes as the years go by. These shifts create trends that can be tracked and following them can greatly assist in the success of a reward program or system.

So, to help you in your incentive success, here are the 8 trends (in no particular order) that we are seeing within the incentive space and how they apply to you.

  1. More Programs Rewarding Steps-of-the-Sale
  2. “Datafication” Helps to Create Profiling and Personalization
  3. Gamifying Your Tactics
  4. Diagnostic Health Checks via Advanced Analytics
  5. Loyalty Hacking via A/B Testing
  6. Creating Memorable Experiences to Drive Brand Loyalty
  7. Mobile and Social Engagement Are Ever Growing
  8. Non-Cash Rewards Are King

This is just a summary! To read the whole thing, visit HARDI’s blog, here.

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

 

Need more incentive insights? Check out these related articles.

Load More

Start the Conversation Now

Ready to start planning your incentive strategy? Get in contact with us!