Who doesn’t dream of sitting on a tropical island, cool drink by their side and enjoying the breeze? What if you were enjoying this with your partner, and your company was paying for everything? This would make the whole experience even sweeter. If your company had an travel reward incentive, would your loyalty to the company and engagement in projects increase? Ours would too. This article talks about the benefits of a travel incentive program, and how companies use it to have higher staff retention and to encourage employee engagement.
What are travel incentive programs and how are companies using them?
Travel incentive programs are exactly what they sound like. You give an employee or employees a goal or target to reach and based on how they perform they receive a paid for vacation. Employee incentive programs can help motivate employees and achieve business goals, while reducing staff turnover. Giving employees something like a travel incentive can motivate them more than a cash incentive. There are multiple reasons for this. Most employees already make a salary or wage to pay their bills, and while bonus’ are helpful, they still receive a paycheck whether they reach their incentive goal or not.
Providing a travel incentive can provide focus and encourage employees to consider exactly what they need to do in order to achieve their goal. In order to receive the goal or incentive employees need to perform consistently, be engaged, hit their targets and gain more business. If they are able to do all these things, they will have the reward of an all-inclusive vacation and be the talk of the office. They will have some public recognition that all their hard work was worth it. Having an engaged workforce can help increase morale and promote teamwork. This can ultimately reduce turnover and increase retention.
Will travel incentives increase engagement and employee loyalty?
Employees who are rewarded with incentive travel are provided with a much needed break that enables them to relax, re-energize and relieve any stress that they could be dealing with. Those rewarded with a travel incentive are very likely to develop a deeper sense of loyalty towards you as an employer because they’ve been recognized and appreciated for reaching their goals and their hard work. When an employee feels appreciated, they are more likely to be more engaged in their work and motivated to produce better results. This results in improved morale and culture throughout your company. Increased morale and productivity will lead towards future sales and profitability and it will help to keep your top performers at your company.
If your employees come back to work feeling mentally and physically refreshed, they will be more equipped to be successful at achieving their next set goal. This shows that the company values work life balance and are invested in providing a healthy environment for their employees. The goals of the program are to provide a healthy company culture, motivate employees to produce their best work, and to increase staff retention for top performers. It also is a great marketing tool to attract top talent in the industry that you are in the market for.
What should you consider when implementing a Incentive Travel Program?
- Ensure that you have a program that aligns rewards with company initiatives and goals.
- Provide clear communication to employees who are eligible about the process and be consistent in your communications with those employees.
- Don’t be afraid to gather feedback from your employees about destinations they would like to travel too but may be unable to on their own. Its an opportunity to help employees check off something on their bucket list.
- Don’t be afraid to customize and tailor rewards that fit along with the culture of the company.
- Tie performance goals with company goals to align to yearly strategic initiatives.
In conclusion, it may seem initially like a lot of work to implement, but the end result is higher morale, increased staff retention and a healthy company culture. Reward your employees with exciting trips, and gain loyalty from high performers.
