Providing employees with travel incentives is a powerful way to boost morale, increase performance and retention, and promote the company. However, recurring incentive travel programs are a big commitment for any company.
Men and women selected a fair base salary as the top factor motivating them to work, followed by intrinsic motivators like enjoying their jobs.
Boosts Morale
Unlike cash bonuses, which feel transactional and impersonal, travel incentives are experiences that connect with employees on an emotional level. They can also feel exciting and attainable. They’re a great way to reward top performers and create an even more desirable environment for the rest of the team. In fact, research has shown that a good incentive program can boost morale by up to 20%.
Incentives are often based on reaching specific goals, such as sales or production. This provides an obvious and clear link between performance and rewards, encouraging employees to ramp up their efforts. In addition, a well-designed incentive travel program can inspire teamwork as employees work together to qualify for the trip.
Employees who have benefited from travel incentives are also more likely to continue to work hard. They are more motivated to reach a higher level of achievement and to continue earning the perks that come with it, especially in challenging times. This can be a powerful force for motivation and a big part of why many companies invest in incentive travel programs.
While most employees value a base salary, managers tend to underestimate the importance of other motivators in their organizations. For instance, while employees ranked vacation time as the number one factor that drives their job satisfaction, they saw it much lower on the list of factors that motivate managers to keep their staff happy.
The most important thing that drives workplace happiness is a feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment in one’s role. This can be difficult to achieve with a traditional monetary reward, but it’s easy to do with the right kind of incentives. Aside from a raise, travel is ideal for this kind of positive reinforcement.
Millennials make up the largest segment of today’s workforce, and they’re known to prioritize experiences over material possessions. They value a life of meaning and purpose and prioritize wellness. This makes them a perfect candidate for the type of high-quality, experiential rewards that can help improve morale and increase productivity. Incentives like a wellness retreat can give employees the chance to relax, recharge, and focus on self-care in an exotic location.
Increases Engagement
Employees who don’t feel motivated may not work as hard or as efficiently. This can mean lost productivity and missed opportunities for the company. But the good news is that it is easy to increase employee engagement and productivity in a variety of ways, and some of them don’t even involve increasing compensation.
The best way to motivate your team is to reward them with meaningful and personalized perks rather than traditional cash bonuses. Studies have shown that people are more incentivized by experiential rewards than money or other material gifts. This is especially true for younger generations, like Millennials, who prioritize experiences over physical possessions.
For employees, the opportunity to experience something unique and exciting is a great motivator and shows them that their employer is truly invested in their well-being. Whether it’s a luxurious spa vacation or an overseas adventure, travel incentives give employees a chance to recharge and focus on self-care, which can help them stay happy and productive in their workplace.
Travel is also an effective way to stimulate the brain and encourage innovation and creative problem-solving. When your team is able to come together in a new environment, it helps them to think outside of the box and find innovative solutions to challenging situations. Plus, a fun trip can be the perfect excuse to bond with co-workers and form lasting connections with their peers.
While a fair base salary is certainly important, it’s not enough to keep employees motivated for long. Employees who don’t feel intrinsically motivated by their jobs are more likely to leave for a more intrinsically rewarding position. This is why providing employees with various rewards and benefits, including travel incentives, is crucial.
Aside from providing a much-needed break, travel incentives can also inspire employees to ramp up their performance and meet or exceed goals. This is especially true if the reward is tied to team performance, as this encourages collaboration and boosts morale as employees strive to win the coveted prize. With so many benefits, it’s no wonder that travel incentives are one of the most popular and effective ways to reward and motivate employees.
Gives People Something to Talk About
Employees become inspired to succeed when they hear about their coworkers’ experiences on company-sponsored trips. These positive word-of-mouth referrals can lead to increased productivity levels and higher employee retention rates, which is good news for companies that find it challenging to keep their positions filled.
Incentive travel programs also offer the benefit of bringing teams together in a fun and rewarding environment. Relaxing and bonding with colleagues is a great way for employees to recharge, and it also creates a sense of healthy competition. By allowing employees to work together on team-building activities, they can also share ideas and improve their methods of handling certain tasks.
In addition, bringing staff together for an event is a great way to bridge the gap between leadership and their workforce. The face-to-face interaction of these events gives attendees a more approachable and human perception of their leaders, often a much-needed change from the perceived coldness or intimidation they may have experienced previously.
Ultimately, the most effective motivator is not money but rather a meaningful experience that will stay with them for years to come. While a fair and competitive base salary remains a top motivator for many, financial incentives, have shown to be less of a draw than non-monetary rewards, such as flexible working patterns, developing positive workplace relationships between managers and staff, and giving employees greater levels of autonomy.
A common incentive offered by companies is a sign-on bonus or signing bonus. These are typically given to new hires to help them get over the hump of starting their new role and to encourage them to stick around for a while. While this is a great tool to use in the short term, it is important to remember that good candidates always do their due diligence and will look at Glassdoor reviews and other social platforms when choosing to accept or turn down an offer. A better long-term option is a retention bonus, which can be a percentage of an employee’s annual salary or a lump sum payment.
Increases Perseverance
Providing employees with meaningful experiences has a long-term effect on employee satisfaction and retention. Travel incentives can be a great way to improve company culture, reward top earners, and foster a sense of community among your people. Experiences like a sunny getaway are much more effective than cash bonuses or raises for motivating and retaining employees.
In addition, when an incentive trip is offered as a result of achieving performance goals, it can act as the “light at the end of the tunnel” that inspires discretionary effort and motivation during late work nights or tough projects. And employees who’ve already enjoyed the rewards of a trip will remember every delicious bite, fun activity, and exotic location, and feel even more motivated to work hard to benefit from another rendezvous in the future.
While the COVID-19 pandemic may have changed many people’s outlook on work-life balance, the fact remains that most employees are still struggling to maintain a healthy and positive mindset. This is a significant contributing factor to employee burnout, which is a leading cause of employee turnover and loss of productivity.
Unlike extrinsic motivators, such as financial bonuses, which can be an initial draw to the job, intrinsic motivators keep employees on board once a satisfying salary level has been reached. In fact, the ILM survey found that 59% of respondents indicated that enjoying their work was one of the three most important factors in motivating them to perform at a high level. By contrast, cash bonuses came in eighth place, and performance-related pay raises in 11th.
A well-constructed travel incentive program can reignite your workers’ motivation and increase productivity by an average of 18%. It’s a simple but effective way to keep your employees happy and engaged, which can help you maintain a consistent working environment and meet your sales targets. To learn more about how to use incentive travel to boost your company’s sales, click here.