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STEP 8 - TRACK THE PROGRAM
How will you measure and track individual progress? This is a crucial step in running an incentive program. Unless participants know how well they are progressing toward their goal, they have no opportunity to increase their performance. As they say . . . "What gets measured, gets done!"
Overall Administrative Objectives
- Capture profile/enrollment information on each participant
- Track participant performance and provide timely progress reports
- Calculate and issue awards (either ongoing or at program end)
- Track and report award issuance for tax purposes
- Provide meaningful program activity reports to management as frequently as is desired and practical
- Keep administrative burden for the Program Administrator and participants to absolute minimum
While every organization has unique tracking, award issuance and reporting needs, your specific administrative requirements can be determined by reviewing details of each program phase:
1) Pre-program Planning
- Designate a Program Administrator to coordinate activities
- Establish listing of all eligible participants to serve as a master database
- Assign goals/baselines as required
- Determine how and when data on performance will be reported (hard copy or electronically, weekly or monthly, etc.)
- Determine how often participant progress reports will be sent and what information will be communicated. Participants may want to know:
- How am I doing overall?
- How did I do this period against objective?
- How did I do this period against the same period last year?
- If I continue to perform at this rate, how will I do against objective?
- How much will I earn? If I improve X%, how much will I earn?
- How do I compare to my peers?
- How is our division/company doing overall?
- Determine award issuance schedule (ongoing versus end of program)
- Schedule reporting for management (Note: seasonal cycles, lead time, program objectives and other promotions can influence timing)
2) Enrollment
Enroll prospective participants and include:
- Employee's location and department
- Identification number specific to employee (social security, etc.)
- Address for correspondence
- Individual goals if applicable
- Team number and goals if applicable
- Additional pertinent information (length of service, etc.)
3) Tracking (Ongoing basis: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly)
- Receive participant performance data
- Record, store information
- Calculate earnings and issue awards if applicable
4) Reporting (Ongoing basis: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly)
- Issue progress reports to participants
- Post progress on wall charts or leader's boards
- Produce management reports (roll-up of participant performance, by sales leader, by product, by division or by geographic region)
- Provide tax information at the end of each calendar year (W-2's and 1099's)
5) End of Program
- Distribute final awards and recognize top performers
- Management summary and analysis reports
- Allow plenty of time to get your measurement and tracking system in place. You don't want to start the program and find out something you thought could be entered into an existing system won't work. Consider having your information systems personnel attend your initial planning meetings to make sure what you want to do can be done.
- Determine how much lead time you need at the end of a performance period to generate progress reports and management summary reports. If information and feedback is not received on a timely basis, it may be too late to increase performance or make adjustments, not to mention adding undue stress on your Program Administrator with unhappy participants and managers.
Next step - STEP 9: Distribute Awards & Celebrate Success
Previous step - STEP 7: Promote The Program
Back to Back to 10-Step Incentive Process
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