How to run successful employee incentive schemes, book review

The author, John Fisher, specializes in employee incentives, staff communication and event planning. His book How to Run Successful Employee Incentive Schemes offers practical advice for any manager or responsible for the development of incentive schemes for a company's employee. Based on the premise that “the biggest asset for any organization is a well-motivated workforce” and that “motivation breeds productivity which in turn generates profit”, the book covers the main aspects of performance improvement, ranging from the human audit to the performance measuring systems, and may be seen as a guide to help managers and supervisors tap into the vast human resource within their organization. The book is structured in 13 chapters that elaborate in a clear and consecutive way the various aspects of a successful incentive scheme. It starts with the chapter “The profit potential”, which leads the reader into the idea that “a corporate entity by itself does not make profits. People do”. But, as Fisher says in this introduction, “almost everyone has the capacity to perform better”. As a consequence, the main task of each manager is to improve and monitor the performance of his staff. To do that, the author provides a list of performance improvement programmes and a series of examples of companies that applied successfully these types of programmes. The author suggests that usually no single technique works in isolation, the true benefit come from synergy. Chapter 2, “The human audit”, is based on the main idea that when constructing a motivational programme, a manager needs to know who he is trying to motivate and how they operate within the company, and offers six guidelines that have to be followed in order to conduct a human audit. Once this audit, that the author believe essential, has been conducted, the manager is able to design the incentive programmes that are described in Chapter 3. The chapter starts with a short but clear round up of motivation theory that provides the reader with a review of things to consider in the four elements model proposed by the author (research, skills, communication and incentive). The development of an incentive programme starts with the formulation of the objective, followed by the no less difficult identification of the (right) range of incentive techniques. Each technique is discussed in an exhaustive way, including advantages and disadvantages, its working and its length. These three chapters compose the first key and most interesting part of the book, which is followed from the no less important description of the budgeting process. The budgeting process for a performance improvement programme is proposed by the author as the same process for future expenditure: determination of the incremental profit, determination of the campaign target, determination of costs (fixed, variable administration and variable reward costs), we are likely to incur. Once the business problem has been identified as well as the structure and budget of the performance improvement programme, Fisher leads the reader into the idea of incentives. In Chapter 5, cash incentives are described and their limited efficiency is examined. As Fisher says in fact, “more money is the least efficient and effective motivator”: offering more money may change the speed at which people work, but it does not, in isolation, improve their performance. The author describes in a detailed way, by means of numerous (and useful) practical examples, cash incentives as well as their limitations. This leads the reader into the area of flexible benefits (Chapter 6) and of other noncash incentives (from Chapter 7 to 10). Flexible benefits (or plans) mean that individuals may choose “what they want”: life assurance, pensions, health care, annual leave, childcare voucher and so on. Each of them is described and illustrated by means of clear examples, also depending on the employees' age and types, covering the latest ground in this important area. In the same way, incentive travel, merchandise, vouchers and services, and events are discussed in the following chapters, with pros and cons, in appropriate detail. Once the programme has been designed and the right incentives have been chosen, a shrewd manager has to measure, monitor and mirror the performance reached. These issues are (briefly but clearly) presented in the last chapters, especially in regard to the considerable advances that there have been in the last years in internet communication. The author concludes with a brief mention to the recognition systems and the future of incentives. I found the book very easy reading and covering in a clear and succinct way all the issues on motivation and performance improvement programmes. It provides competent coaching and counsel on the fundamental elements of such type of programme. Each chapter offers useful practical examples that help the reader to understand how these techniques work and how to translate the theory into practice, and without which the book would be less comprehensive. As a consequence, How to Run Successful Employee Incentive Schemes is an excellent resource both for managers seeking to develop an effective motivation program for their staff, and for individuals new to incentive schemes and seeking to take a deeper look into this matter. The only one limitation of the book is the bibliography (only a few references at the end of Chapters 7 and 12) that would support readers who wish to gain a deeper understanding of these key concepts.