Rewards and incentives seem to be an oxymoron in the context of motivating value analysis teams to generate huge savings and quality gains for organizations today. Yet, organizations who embrace “the carrot” to motivate their VA teams have ROIs as high as 30:1 or more for their efforts. Much of the confusion about rewards and incentives is that everyone believes rewards and incentives are all about MONEY, when in fact “money doesn’t motivate – at least not on its own,” says George Kling, an incentives consultant. “Product and (travel) incentives work (best) because they represent the things people would like to have but will not necessarily spend out-of-pocket cash for because that cash is used for necessary things. Products and (travel) deliver opportunity for recognition, trophy value, and lasting reminders.”

Effective rewards and recognition programs don’t just happen. They are carefully planned for maximum impact and results. Yes, money does inspire some people, but the most effective rewards and recognition programs sprinkle money along with merchandise and appreciation to obtain the desired results. To get the utmost from your value analysis teams, however, you need to have a defined process to align your business goals with rewards and recognition as described below.

1. Understand what motivates your VA team members.

Get your value analysis team members together to find out what motivates them, and then personalize your rewards and recognition program to meet their expectations. Since one size doesn’t fit all, find out what they value, personally and as a team. Is it time off, flexible work schedules, autonomy, learning opportunities, challenges, greater freedom, travel to exotic locations, having more money for decorating their homes, tickets to Broadway shows, cheese of the month club, etc? The list of rewards and recognition could be endless, but can be controlled by budgeting 10% of your projected program savings for your rewards and recognition program to start.

2. Establish measurable goals, objectives, and milestones with your VA team members to reward activity that drives results.

Now that you have established the rewards, you need to let your VA team members know how they can obtain their rewards. An easy way to reward activity that drives results is to utilize a point system representing $1 in purchasing power for every point team members achieve.

Typical goals, objectives, and milestones that our clients have used are: Meeting attendance (250 points for 75% attendance, 350 points for 90% attendance, and 450 points for 100% attendance); completing a project on time (350 points for completing project within 90-day cycle); meeting or exceeding savings goals (350 points for meeting savings goal and 450 points for exceeding savings goal), etc.

These accumulated points then equate to dollar rewards that your VA team decided on in step 1. For example, if Broadway show tickets are worth $110 each and a VA team member has achieved 110 points they can now retrieve that reward anytime which keeps the fire burning in your team members.

3. Constantly communicate with team members about their progress.

If you want your reward and recognition program to “sizzle” vs. “fizzle” you will need to constantly reiterate program goals, objectives, and milestones to keep your value analysis team members fired up. A good way to do this is by using a scoreboard showing how each VA team member and team is doing regarding their goals, objectives, and milestones, which generates competition between members and teams.

4. Celebrate success and recognize winners along the way.

Recognition is an integral part of a rewards and recognition program, so don’t wait to applaud achievements. Value analysis teams and individual team members should be recognized for their achievements along the way. One of our members has a quarterly luncheon to honor and applaud both individual and team efforts to keep “the carrot” in front of their participants.

The lesson to be learned with all rewards and recognition programs is that if you truly want to motivate your team to achieve at the highest level possible, then you must change your culture to be more competitive.

Competition pushes team members to even higher levels of performance than the previously self-imposed limits that they have set for themselves. A rewards and recognition program are the engine to light the fire under your VA team to strive together to bring out the best in all of your team members. By doing so, you will change your culture from a passive culture to a winning culture that is interdependent on each other to reach the highest level of performance possible.