In order for business incentives to be effective they need to meet certain criteria and avoid certain pitfalls. Here are the dos and don’ts of planning successful business incentives:

• Do offer the incentives as a competition or drawing in order to get as much benefit from as many people as possible with as little money as possible.
• Don’t consider giving substantial incentives away without a reason.
• Do consider giving smaller incentives away periodically as well as in lieu of winning larger incentives. Coffee mugs with corporate logos are a great incentive for just about everyone!
• Don’t consider giving minor gifts as rewards for great actions. If Bob from the help desk saved the company $8,000 a month by helping set up a new VoIP calling system then giving him a mug as a reward is insulting.
• Do consider offering incentives to employees that find new ways to save money. Some companies do with the best incentive of all: a percentage of the savings for a set period of time.
• Don’t consider altering deals later just because of the bottom line. Trust is an important factor in any business relationship and it is nearly impossible to rebuild once seriously abused.
• Do consider different types of rewards for different types of employees, partners, suppliers, and so on. Incentives that work for employees probably won’t work well for suppliers.

Even if the money is available for corporate travel incentives such as ship charters, this type of travel may simply not be feasible for one reason or another. Oftentimes, trips are complicated to plan due to scheduling conflicts. However, businesses must still hold essential meetings with their employees on an annual, semi-annual, or quarterly basis. To make these meetings more enjoyable and memorable, businesses may want to consider other types of incentives. When the travel itself or the location of the meeting is not necessarily an incentive, there are other ways that businesses can motivate employees and show their appreciation.

Favors can make excellent incentives. As a rule, incentives given to employees at meetings should somehow relate to the task at hand. The majority of items distributed as incentives should be useful and relevant to the meeting. A few of the incentive items should be things that will simply make the employees or meeting participants happy. For example, coupons or vouchers for free coffee or dessert at a local coffee shop is a great way to make employees feel appreciated. Other types of incentive products that are well-received include things such as pens, notebooks, coffee mugs, and shirts. These items should be branded with the business' corporate logo.

Meetings themselves can be incentives, especially when they are held in exotic locations or on group cruise events, but that is not always practical for run of the mill meetings. There are other ways to make average meetings a bit more interesting than they have been in the past with proper incentives. These same ideas have proven to be very popular in meetings that are non-compulsory as well. Here are three ideas for anyone looking into ways to liven meetings up:

Favors or gifts – inexpensive gifts or favors are a great way to keep participants happy and on-task. These favors should probably be a combination of useful items that relate to the meeting or business in general along with one or two gifts that simply make participants happy. Vouchers for coffees at the local coffee shop are great examples as they are inexpensive and appreciated.

Branded products – Pens, notebooks, USB memory keys, shirts, caps, coffee mugs, and other items that are stamped with the corporate logo make for great ways to liven a meeting up and add morale to a room. Consider offering on or two very special branded products to those who perform the best or meet some special criteria.

Offer something tangible – One reason that many people do not like meetings is that many meetings go nowhere. Offer tangible results and check back in on those results and see how the mood can liven when those who are frustrated now feel engaged.

Any planner who wants to specialize in green meetings has some research to do. There are so many ways to “go green” it’s difficult to keep track of them all long enough to decide which ones will apply in each situation. However, there are some basics that can help you keep your ideas organized and give you a way to build a large file on green meetings–paperless, of course.

First, let’s divide ideas into four categories. The three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle), automation, waste impact, and community impact. You can easily reduce waste by requiring advertisers to offer reusable items, like water bottles, grocery sized canvas bags, reusable coffee mugs with lids, etc. This will reduce the use of throw-away plastic bottles and cardboard cups. Ask that the materials used are made from post-consumer waste, and this should also go for any printed material (which will also be recycled locally). You can also request that handouts be delivered electronically as well, or provided on portable digital media. Read the rest of this entry »