According to recent polls, the number of Americans who are unwilling to get the COVID-19 vaccine has recently dropped to around 1 in 5 Americans (Monmouth University Poll, 4/14/21). This is significantly down from prior polls but still has a large segment of our population resisting a way to end this pandemic, save lives, and get our economy rolling again.
The problem doesn’t always have to do with their processes or procedures or even management behaviors –in many cases it has to do with how they communicate to their employees. In over 20 years of helping companies solve these issues, we’ve found that companies often don’t communicate with their employees in a way that helps them understand and buy-in to the very programs that are designed to engage them.
While some companies have significantly improved their ability to create professional-looking presentations and graphically appealing brochures, they still have not fully embraced bringing a behavioral science approach to their internal communications to communicate in a more human way.
While advertisers may argue about the exact right number (I’ve seen some say that it takes 20 times – really, that seems overkill?), the concept that multiple views of information drives behavior has been shown to be true. This is called “effective frequency” in the advertising world.
In our internal communication world, we call it a communication campaign and organizations don’t use campaigns as often as they should. In the world of incentives, a full campaign can be a fantastic tool to add to your toolbelt.
When used appropriately they have the power to increase performance by 15% (or more!).
If you’ve seen the Academy Award-winning movie, Schindler’s List, at the mention of the girl in the red coat, you can probably recall the specific scene I’m referring to vividly. This singular scene often stands out as the most revered and remembered scene in the movie. If you have not seen the movie, it is a black and white film yet in this specific scene there is a little girl walking through a crowded ghetto in a red coat.
Her red coat stands out vividly in comparison to the black and white coloring of the rest of the film. It captures our attention and draws our eyes to focus our attention on her. We follow her among the throngs of people and watch as she comes in and out of our view.
In the past, this has been achieved by using rules of thumb and stringent financial analysis. Yet, hard work is not enough in today’s turbulent times.
The metrics were there, the incentives were good, but the understanding was low… and sales were short. How could a well-designed plan that they had spent months developing not be working?
As sales professional your time and energy should be focused on selling not on trying to decipher the communications you receive from your organization.
Understanding how your incentive and rewards programs work should be easy. Today’s competitive tool for outperforming your goals is better communication.
Your comp plans and rewards may be good, perhaps the best, but if your company is not investing in communication, you often miss out on their true potential.
You want to sell, to be on top, to surpass your target, and to join that award trip. You want to be rewarded for the hard work and sales that you bring in.
But that can be hard to do if your company isn’t telling you what you need to do to win. Companies often spend significant time and energy designing those metrics and fall short when it comes to communicating them to you. This puts you in a tough position between your intentions and the outcomes of the plan.
It can be stressful, it can be challenging, but you believe that what your company does is important and that you are bringing value to your customers.
In return, you deserve to be fairly rewarded for growing your business and helping the company succeed. And yet, when you get your quarterly bonus check, it is less than ideal. This shouldn’t happen.
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