Honor Roll
Giving rewards to prize employees.
Looking for an innovative way to rev up employee
motivation--and show them you appreciate the work they do?
Take a tip from Doug Sears, who thought a good way to keep his
employees' wheels spinning would be to offer a real set of
wheels as an incentive. But instead of choosing a deserving
employee himself, the owner of executive search firm DS&A and
software development company RecruitMAX Software in Orange Park,
Florida, let his 50 employees choose who would win the use of a
1997 Ford Mustang GT convertible for a year.
From June to December last year, employees were encouraged to
recognize positive performance by co-workers with "Dream
Dollars"--forms that looked like dollar bills. Employees noted
the recipient's name, their own name and the reason for the
award on the bill. Reasons ranged from handling a difficult
situation successfully to simply brightening someone's day with
a pleasant attitude. At the end of the contest period, the dollars
were tallied, and the employee with the highest number was handed
the keys to the car at the companies' holiday party in
December.
The one-year lease on the car, plus gas and insurance, will cost
the companies $10,000 to $12,000--an investment Sears believes is
well worth it. During the contest period, the companies posted a
200 percent increase in sales over the same time period the
previous year--from $382,000 to $1.5 million--which easily covered
the cost of the contest with profits left over. In addition, Sears
says the contest created a stronger sense of teamwork because the
employees chose the winner.
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"This contest has instilled something in each and every
employee here," Sears says. "We are a team, and they are
all first-string players."
Jacquelyn Lynn is a business writer in Winter Park,
Florida.
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