Boost Employee Morale: Unexpected Rewards Explained

Navigating the balance of incentives in the contracting industry can be challenging. Understanding the difference between expected and unexpected rewards is crucial for fostering a productive work environment. Expected incentives, like commissions and bonuses, are clearly outlined in job descriptions, while unexpected ones—such as annual trips based on performance—can significantly enhance team morale.

These long-term incentives require consistent reminders from leaders to keep them top of mind. By emphasizing both types of rewards, we can motivate teams effectively and ensure everyone understands their role in achieving collective goals. 

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Transcript

Jim Johnson: 0:01

I see this as one of those challenging things in our industry. How much is too much and how much is enough, right? And there's a concept that I think a lot of people need to understand. There's expected and unexpected. Expected is your first incentive or reward. That's my commissions, whatever bonus structures you have in place, those types of things that are set up that if I achieve this, I get that. Those are expected. It's actually usually in a job description or some kind of job offer. Lined out exactly what that looks like. Then you have the unexpected, these things that aren't in my job offer or job description that can determine the environment within which you work. So for example, one of the ones I really enjoy doing is an annual trip for the people in a company. We call it a mission and it can be revenue based, it could be profit based, it could be a number of customers and a lot of different reasons for these missions. But we're going to go do this. And if we accomplish this, we're all going to go on this trip together. The only problem with that is if you have a group of folks like sales guys that are instant gratification folks, a trip a year from now, they're not really thinking about unless you're a great leader. And this is where that leader applies that encouragement. He keeps reminding them about the effort and activities and work that they're doing. that are all leading to this time together to go and enjoy and be on a trip together. And so we got to be really consistent with long term incentives like that, that we keep it top of mind. This idea that, Hey, I'm keeping it in front of you, reminding you that you are either performing at the expected level or not. And you're at risk of not joining us for this fun trip. One of the best books I've ever read about incentive was Freakonomics. It's unbelievable, but it has nothing to do about business. Really. There's a couple of Steven Levitt and Steven, can't remember the second guy's name, uh, but they are researchers. They study stuff, right? They wonder why people do what people do. And incentive is in everything that you do. You did it because there was incentive. I'm recording this video today because there's incentive that one of you out there. might hear this and might go, this guy knows what he's talking about. So there's some incentive for me to do this. There's incentive for me to brush my teeth because I don't want my teeth to fall out. There's everything in anything you do. There's incentive behind it because you're expecting something, a result to happen from it, whether immediately or longterm. So if we now understand that basic concept that everybody does anything they do based on incentive, how do I determine the right incentive? for the right role in my company, the right person in my company, those things get a little bit more difficult, a little bit more nuance. So I'm going to give my best advice. My best advice is to know your people. If I know my people, then I know how to incentivize them. So if I got a guy that, likes to drive race cars and drive fast and stuff like that. I'm going to apply some incentive to maybe earning a trip to a track and doing a track test day. But that's only because I know him. I'm not going to apply that track test day to everybody cause they might not be on board for that. So there's this concept of the expected and the unexpected that comes into play. It takes a lot of practice to really understand it, but. It's not that hard. Just know your people, ask them what they're about, what they want to achieve, what are they trying to accomplish? And if you really think about it, they're pretty similar. Um, a lot of people are saving up for college funds for their kids. Okay, awesome. Let's set up an action plan that says some of the money you earn aside and maybe we can match. And that's the key to the whole thing is figure out, is that really what they're about? They just lying to you because they might not be telling you the truth and they might say, Hey, yeah, I want to put college money back for my kids. Okay. But the reality is they want a new shotgun. And so you got to dig deep enough to to find what truly is going to push and motivate somebody And then set them up to have that success with that particular thing There's some things to consider when building an incentive program or contest or anything like that the number one mistake that people that do any kind of incentive do is they Lead people to this first second third finisher type thing You You win, you get this, you get a second, you get that third, you get this. And especially when it comes to sales teams and sales teams, you tend to have the same group of people of two to five people that win every contest like that. And it becomes boring to the other 10 or 15 other folks that you have selling for you. And they're just not into it anymore because you say, Hey, for first place, the most number of contracts this week gets this. Thanks. Well, the first guy goes out and he had six of them already waiting and he just went and signed them real quick and puts up a big number right away, takes everybody's will away. And he did it purposely. He's trying to win a contest. He's competitive. There's another guy and he's over there sandbagging for the whole time or whatever your contest link does. And then at the last day, he turns them all in to beat the guy that turned in all the ones up front. It tends to be the same two or three people over and over again. So if you want to fix that, determine what it is that you want. Incentives are about getting not only what they want, but also what you're trying to get out of them. If I wanted a bunch of orders turned in, I'd run a contest about getting a certain amount of orders turned in for anywhere from a week to 30 days, depending on how many I needed. And I would set a standard like everybody that gets this number, it gets this cool thing, whatever it may be. I try to have those be experienced types things that fit the culture of my people. So the example I gave earlier was like the guy Getting the one thing that fit for him really well. I got to know that side of things for sure. But then I also have to understand the environment of my team and the culture I'm trying to create. So if I'm trying to create a really competitive culture, I might say, Hey, everybody that gets this number, we're all going to Topgolf together. We're going to go have a Topgolf day, Topgolf Olympics. We're going to play three of them. We're going to Topgolfer. You're going to get a Topgolf award and all kinds of stuff, right? Like make it really fun, competitive. But if that's not your jam, you've got to just think about, be a little bit creative about what that could look like for you and your business. Here's the one thing I know. This is, this is a no doubter, the absolute biggest mistake we make is we give cash prizes because we think that's what people want. We even go through the effort to ask, Hey, okay, so we're thinking about doing some bonuses and contests and stuff like that. What do you guys want? Money. Money. We want money and they don't really, because here's the thing. We don't remember the money. We get the money. We have a celebration for about an hour or whatever. You might even gloat over it for a week, but then you spend it in all kinds of places and you don't ever relate anything back to like that money was from this, for me doing that. You went and bought a hot dog at the convenience store, put some gas, your gas tank, that kind of thing. What we really remember are experiences. I remember one of the best experiences we ever had was taking my SEALS team to a baseball game. I had contacted the baseball team and said, Hey, I'd like to create an experience for my guys. And they're like, absolutely, we'll get it. We'll get somebody set up for you the whole bit. And like, we got to hit like off in the batting cage, off of like batting practice, pitchers and stuff. Those guys talked about that for years. And it was one of the best experiences they ever had. Those are the things that will really get people. To help you achieve that shared vision that you're looking for.