5 Rules for Building an Effective Global Incentive Program

With multi-national corporations employing more than 30 percent of their workforce overseas, global incentive programs are growing in popularity.

They offer a cost-effective way of engaging your workforce and achieving your company's goals.

The fixed cost of incentive programs, unlike other sales and marketing strategies, is 20 to 30 percent of the program, while the remaining 70 to 80 percent is paid when the program's goals are reached, according to the Incentive Research Foundation.

In addition, in-country /in-region sourcing and fulfillment greatly reduces both shipping and tax costs.

What are the fixed costs of an incentive marketing program?

Set-up and communications are the primary fixed costs of global incentive programs.

The costs associated with the rewards are only incurred once your organization's goals have been reached.

The 5 Rules for Success:

Before starting any global incentive program, it is critical to follow these five simple rules:

1. Customize recognition gifts, which allows you to provide awards for your employees that will truly motivate them. In addition, you eliminate the possibility of offering culturally inappropriate gifts.

2. Develop an individualized PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) Index to ensure the reward system is equitable for all locales and demographics so everybody in your organization believes in the goals of the program.

3. Create centralized technology, procedures, program design and administration, which guarantees the program is effective.

4. Build multilingual websites to make sure all employees can easily participate in the program!

5. Distribute ongoing communications to recognize success and continue to build employee morale.

If your program follows these rules, your global incentive program will be a hit around the world.

Visit Taraci.com for daily news on the incentive marketing industry.

Mark Pasetsky is the editorial director of Taraci.com, the leading site on incentive marketing news, as well as the editorial director for CoverAwards.com.

Follow Mark Pasetsky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/coverawards