News and Articles

Program Management

Are You Coddling Your Employees?
Let’s face it, we live in a world where being politically correct is the order of the day. So much so, that we’ve come to reward mediocrity rather than raise the bar for our employees. Many managers struggle with giving employees feedback. Unfortunately, this can create an ongoing cycle of sub-standard performance.

Sales Incentives Can Work for Rep Agencies Too 
Most reps will have participated in and perhaps benefited from manufacturers’ incentive programs—sales-oriented performance improvement programs that offer rewards, sometimes in cash but more often in the form of merchandise or travel, to those who meet or exceed specified sales goals during a specific time period.

Clone Your Top Performers? … Sort of
Do you have a handful of superstars who bring in so much business you wish you could clone them? I bet you do. Every team has its stars, the people who continuously produce and seem to know intuitively what they need to do in order to succeed.

Meet Your Goals Using Rewards and Recognition
Did you know, three in ten workers are thinking about leaving their jobs? Nearly half expect to be working for a different company three years from now. Did you know it costs between $2,000 and $100,000 to get a new employee trained and engaged in the company’s culture? So why are these employees considering walking out the door? Many cite lack of recognition.

Turn Best Practices into Common Practices with On-the-Spot Recognition
There’s a lot of talk these days about the link between employee recognition and employee retention. It is no wonder considering that at this very moment about 3 in 10 of your workers are thinking about walking out the door for greener pastures. Nearly half expect to be working for a different company three years from now.

Mergers and Acquisition

Stop the Insanity
Mergers & Acquisition (M&A) activity continues to dominate the telecommunications industry. Although it is generally undertaken with the intention of offering better products and services to the marketplace, it often does just the opposite. Why? As telco managers focus on changing their organizational structure as a result of mergers, acquisitions, or plans to streamline, they begin to lose sight of the forest for the trees and forget their most important asset … the customer!

The Power of Engagement
How a complex organization used recognition to transform its culture. A major company was using 17 different programs on a variety of platforms to recognize its 90,000 employees. In an industry characterized by frequent mergers and acquisitions, employees who were shifted from one organization to another experienced a corporate culture that was about as unified as a Picasso painting.

Employee Engagement

Associates Get Invested in their Careers
A comprehensive incentive program features individual, team and discretionary awards given to associates who “do the right thing.” The rewards system is designed to foster the company’s core values.

Encouraging Wellness for Fun & Profit
Taking a fun, team-oriented approach to wellness among its own employees proved to be a winning strategy for Anderson Performance Improvement, a 16-year-old incentive company that won a 2010 Circle of Excellence Award from the Incentive Marketing Association for its 2009 program.

People Power — The Value of Engagement
Fully engaged and satisfied employees are persistent, proactive and consistently make decisions that are in line with their company’s strategic goals and objectives. This can be a crucial factor in an organization’s survival, particularly during tough economic times. And when conditions improve, engaged employees are even more valuable, making their company stronger and better prepared to take advantage of future opportunities.

Can Your Employees Become Cream of the Corp.?
What makes an employee spectacular? How can the middle, everyday performer in your organization become so special that they accelerate profits and change the way your company succeeds in its marketplace? Louise Anderson’s Cream of the Corp. demonstrates remarkably succinct ways to build a team of high achievers. Anderson creates a simple yet impactful blueprint that shows how the old 80-20 rule (that 80 percent of your results are driven by just 20 percent of your employees) can go away.

To Engage Gen Y Workers, Adopt New Approaches 
Well known as a demanding generation of workers, Gen Y began arriving on corporate doorsteps in early 2000, with high expectations on one hand and high potential for productivity on the other. Companies grappled with how to train, manage, and motivate this generation.

Call Center

Call to Action
With the fast pace of change in telecommunications and the ability of Call Center Representatives to touch millions of customers monthly, managers need to call their call center teams to action and help them to rapidly respond to changes in the marketplace.

Sales

The Bundling Advantage: How a Team-based Approach Can Heat Up Sales
Companies facing the dual problem of increased competition and the need to increase the efficiency of sales functions are learning from the example of industries like telecommunications and pharmaceuticals.

Return on Investment

Many Happy Returns
After a year of planning and communicating to sales reps, your sales incentive trip goes off without a hitch. Everyone has a great time. There are high fives, pats on the back and notes complimenting all aspects of the trip. It’s time to move on to your next project.