Motivating employees, colleagues, as well as business partners, distributors, wholesalers and their staff is one of the most frequently searched terms in web browsers within the broad field of loyalty and incentive schemes.

In practice, this means that most business owners, as well as HR and trade marketing departments, look online for inspiration and ideas for interesting – but above all effective – promotional campaigns that boost the productivity of their target groups and motivate them to achieve ambitious goals. In an effort to address these needs, below I outline the conclusions drawn from i360’s 13 years of experience and key observations from my own 26 years of professional practice in the field of staff motivation.

What do we really mean when we type the phrase „how to motivate employees” into Google?

If we apply cold logic, the answer to the question of whether how to motivate staff It’s simple. We should give them a pay rise. Or, at the very least, a one-off bonus. Let’s switch roles for a moment. Let’s imagine that it’s not us looking for ways to motivate others, but rather wondering what sort of action would best motivate us (as employees) to work.

Exactly. Unless your surname is Rockefeller or Buffett, or your father happens to own a substantial stake in Apple or Facebook, your thoughts are bound to revolve around money. Guaranteed money. Unconditional money. Not the sort promised for increasing sales by 1000% or exceeding KPIs by 250% within three months. Hard cash transferred into your bank account. With which you’ll pay off your mortgage, head to a spa in the Maldives or buy a car with the BMW logo on the bonnet – and, of course, the letter ‘M’ on the boot.

This reflection suggests that the right question is therefore not „how to motivate employees?”, but „how to motivate employees in a different way (more effectively and more cheaply) than by giving them a pay rise or a bonus”.

All right.

So how can we boost staff motivation in a cost-effective way?

There is no single correct answer to a question phrased in this way. It all depends on the details. After all, we will motivate senior management in one way, line managers in a completely different way, and we should adopt a completely different approach when dealing with sales representatives – whether they are our own staff or representatives of distributors or wholesalers.

Let’s start with this how to motivate management staff. Everything seems to have been covered on this subject. I invite you to watch the interview on the i360 YouTube channel, „On loyalty programmes at night”, with Ms Anna Rudzińska. The interview is entitled „Loyalty programmes for management staff’.

You can find the film below or here via a link and we have posted a transcript of the conversation here. Ms Anna is one of Poland’s leading headhunters, and what she says is based on over a dozen years of professional experience

And how can you motivate staff at lower levels?

Those who aren’t members of the board? To answer this question, let’s consider why people come to work. In the post-Covid era, it would be more accurate to say „work”, because for the past 1.5 years, work has ceased to be directly linked to coming to the office. Often, it simply means switching on a laptop at the kitchen table at home.

The answer is much broader than simply „money”. That is, of course, the basis. However, the real reasons why people take on a job are that they are looking for a long-term career, want to learn – to develop intellectually within their profession, to be in the company of other people, to find a life partner, to give meaning to their working lives, to identify with their employer’s mission, to fill some spare time, secure their retirement in the long term, seek social security to cover their living costs during illness or pregnancy when they are unable to work in person, or, finally, look forward to having fun, free training and intellectual challenges. Moreover, they are aware that by joining forces they can achieve more than they could on their own; they are on a mission to change the world (if not the whole of it, then at least a small part of it). There are plenty of reasons.

The answer to the question „How can you motivate your staff?” lies precisely in addressing the above and skilfully stimulating the various factors that enable us to start a working day – sometimes lasting several hours, or even over a dozen – after a cup of morning coffee. It is precisely this wide range of reasons for working that makes it impossible to give a single answer to the question of the one ‘right’ way to motivate employees.

Staff motivation – how do we go about it at i360?

Our professional work at i360 involves running short- and long-term incentive schemes for international corporations and Poland’s largest companies. These are aimed at employees at all levels of management and across the various links in the distribution chain, in both traditional and modern retail. From a distributor’s sales representative to a shop assistant at the local shop round the corner. We analyse each of the target group’s work motivators and prepare bespoke solutions for each case, running campaigns based on i360 Loyalty Software.

An effective staff incentive scheme

Each project is different, but they all share common principles which ensure that employee incentive schemes deliver the desired results, the most important of which are:

• the financial returns from the campaigns are expected to be many times higher than the expenditure;
• every action taken is measurable and quantified using quantitative KPIs;
• the projects are based on gamification concepts and incorporate CSR elements;
• The use of control groups allows the results to be compared with the „no intervention” scenario;
• the technical aspect of participation is integrated into the Client’s IT infrastructure;
• We obtain our source data from a data warehouse, without requesting it from participants;
• We offer guaranteed rewards for individual effort, with the chance of a big win for teamwork;
• the whole thing must be good fun and non-intrusive for the participants;

There are many more principles, but in order to protect the company’s know-how, I shall limit myself to those mentioned above.

If you are looking for dedicated, bespoke solutions to motivate your staff or business partners and would like to receive an i360 quote – please contact Mr Dawid Łuciuk, Sales Director, on 600 534 631 or send an email zapraszamy@i360.trejka05.pl