The smiles on the faces of the Thomas Cook consultants from South Shields said it all. In last week’s Travel Weekly, they were pictured waving their aircraft tickets with delight at the prospect of a trip to New York, courtesy of the company (Travel Weekly June 7).
As well as rewarding the individuals involved in achieving this target, the New York trip award will doubtless encourage other Thomas Cook branches to aim to win the following year.
It is another version of the carrot on a stick method of motivating staff, and as carrots go, a trip to the Big Apple is a pretty nice one.
But staff motivation is not just about directly offering rewards in return for good work. As P&O Stena head of marketing and branding Annette Davies pointed out, one of the most effective motivators is letting staff know their views matter.
She said:”We believe it is key that staff feel they can make a difference to the business and are involved in the decision-making process.
“P&O Stena does this by involving staff in focus groups which examine the standard of service offered to customers.”
The results of the initiative are already evident.
“People take pride in what they do and feel part of a developing culture which not only believes in their people but involves its people in everything it does,” she added.
Common ways of motivating staff are the schemes where employees get a bonus for excellent work or are rewarded for suggestions that help make the business operate more efficiently.
Cresta is typical of many companies, operating an employee of the month scheme.It also has a staff suggestion scheme where every employee who submits a suggestion gets a lottery scratch card while the one who comes up with the most helpful idea wins a meal out for two.
Cresta marketing manager Jane Williams said the operator is a firm believer that employees will be motivated to work harder if they know what the company requires of them.
Regular company-wide conferences, where sales targets and the company’s progress in achieving them are discussed, are now part of the Cresta culture, according to Williams.
Giving staff training opportunities is another powerful motivator, said Williams, a view which is endorsed by ABTA.
An ABTA spokeswoman said: “People want to be able to get from their employer the skills which will not only enhance their job, but which they can take elsewhere. That is the real world.”
Within ABTA, employees can nominate the training they wish to get. It is easy for a manager to tell you what training you should have so it makes a change to be able to say what you want,” she added.
But even companies without the budget or manpower for reward schemes or training programmes can afford the most powerful motivator of all – praise.
Going Places sales and operations director Jill Martin said saying thanks and showing appreciation for good work are priorities for the company’s management.
For example, if a branch does well in Travel Weekly’s Mystery Shopper, they will get a personal call from managing director Peter Shanks.
Martin said:”All too often you can beat someone around the head for a poor performance and not acknowledge a good performance. We haven’t got it 100% right, but it is something we are very conscious of and striving to achieve.”
The variety of schemes in place designed to motivate staff are evidence that companies see staff morale is crucial. If employees feel under-valued and lack motivation, it quickly becomes apparent to the customer, and the employer may pay the price for failing to take the issue seriously.
Cresta’s Jane Williams summed it up: “If a company has not got motivated staff, they end up having a high turnover and they stagnate, which can be disastrous in a fast-moving industry.”