At Agency Performance Partners, we are big proponents of creating strong incentive programs. Not only are these great ways for the staff to be rewarded but it helps to direct their efforts to the areas on which you want them to focus. Simply telling the staff what you want them to do doesn’t always point them in the right direction when it comes down to prioritizing their day. A three pronged approach of telling them, providing them training, and incenting them on the areas of focus help them determine where to direct their efforts.
The first thing to keep in mind is that not everyone is motivated by money. I’ve seen incentive plans where someone making $30K could make an additional $300 a month in bonuses fail. I’ve also seen dress down days have a bigger impact on units than similar financial bonuses.
Having said that money will help with a great number of people. The hardest part can be determining what incentives will work with which people understanding that not everyone in your office will be identically motivated. A discussion with the team that has them assist in developing the rewards can be very fruitful. Typically a combination of incentives works best unless you have a unique group that are all motivated the same.
The size of the reward typically depends on the timeframe and the value of the goal. For example, a weekly goal is not going to pay off as much as a monthly goals; quarterly and annual goals should be even higher. You also may have a small incentive for collecting emails and cell phone numbers but a larger incentive for sales and retention goals.
A combination of team and individual incentives works well. Typically service goals and incentives are set as a team with sales goals and incentives driving sales. However, it is rare for an agency to be able to separate it this cleanly as there are typically responsibilities of sales and retention for most employees. I like to have both which drives individual results as well as a collaborative team effort.
Sales goals can be set around policy count, premium or revenue depending on the focus of the agency. Additional rewards around getting emails and cell phone numbers, upselling, cross-selling, length of sales process, the carrier where the business is placed, electronic billing plans, or lead source can be used to help drive the type of business that you wish to write and that will retain at a higher level.
Service goals can similarly be focused on client, policy, premium, or revenue retention depending on how the agency tracks retention. They key is to use the same metric for the agency goal as you do for the individual, team, or department goal to make sure that the results line up. Additional goals can also be built along the same lines as the sales goals: email/cell phones, upselling, cross-selling, EFT, paperless are all ways to help the agency drive new revenue and retain existing revenue.
Actual incentives can vary depending on what is going to motivate the team.
Financial incentives are great for many people and work very well with individuals.
Food is a great motivator for many people. Simply bringing in lunch can often push people to hit a goal. As a larger goal, bringing people out to lunch or for an after work dinner is another way to motivate and help with some team building.
Other out of the office events are also a great way to motivate the team. In addition to food, there are fun things to do such as sporting events, or tickets to some type of show. More adventurous agencies could look at indoor skydiving, formula 1 racing, or axe throwing!
Dress down or jeans days are always a big hit.
For larger goals such as crushing an annual sales goal or a dramatic annual increase in retention, larger incentives such as trips or cruises could be utilized.
The reward itself can be a motivating factor. Sometimes it’s just the idea of having a goal and wanting to succeed. For team goals avoiding letting down your team members can be a motivating factor. Figure out what will motivate your team and then line up your incentive program to reward the results based on the agency goals. As part of all of our AppX programs, we help build reward programs based off results. Contact me today to learn more about these programs or comment below with your most successful incentive program!
