04/27/2012    11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Acting Trendy: Making Business Trends Work for Your Rewards Program

Presenters:
Melissa Van Dyke (The Incentive Research Foundation)

There is no denying that today's economic and political environment make it more challenging than ever to execute reward and recognition programs. The acceleration of change in today’s business environment and a montage of new technical and societal upgrades have left most reward and recognition planners scratching their heads and asking “What does it all mean?” For this reason the Incentive Research Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to rewards and motivation in the workplace, spent hundreds of hours reviewing internal and external research and discussing the implications with reward practitioners to understand the impact on the modern programs. The good news is that many of these trends have positive implications for reward and recognition programs. This presentation will be a good primer for reward and recognition planners, provider, program owners, and chief marketing officers alike. Join us for an hour long discussion on how to make the following twelve trends work for your program:
1. Change on Steroids: Velocity of Change and Volatility
2. The Continuing “New Normal”: Budgetary Pessimism
3. Tech Rules: Mobile Uprising
4. Game-On: Gamification
5. Proof Positive: - Increased Scientific and Management Support
6. We're All Marketers Now
7. Can You Handle The Truth?: The Retention Myth And A Culture Of Innovation
8. Hi-Tech And Hi- Touch: A Social/Virtual Workplace and The Need for Face to Face
9. “To Your Health!”: Wellness Required
10. Convergence and Integration
11. The World Is Our “Oyster”: Impact Of Global Issues Affecting The Domestic Economy
12. May We Lend A Hand?: Corporate Social Responsibility
Presentation will be delivered by Melissa Van Dyke, President, The Incentive Research Foundation

04/27/2012    11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Communicate or Die: Leading Through Listening

Presenters:
Thomas Zweifel, Ph.D. (Insigniam)

Imagine a company with seven reporting levels. If the people at every level report 50 percent of what they know up to the next higher level— and 50 percent is a rather optimistic number—the leader at the top will know less than 2 percent of what is actually going on. If control resides solely at the top, the consequences of being that out of touch can be disastrous for decision-making. Imagine what happens if the leader happens to base his or her decisions on the 98-plus percent of wrong information. In today’s complex and fast- changing organizations, chief executives depend on vital strategic information from others, both within the organization and from outside it. Listening is a crucial vehicle for get- ting that strategic intelligence.
Yet listening is an undervalued commodity. One chief executive, reminded of the importance of two-way communication, snapped: “Of course I use two-way communication! I talk to my people, and I write to my people!”
Often leaders have a great vision, but cannot communicate it effectively, inspire their people, or turn their vision into results. Just as often, an organization’s staff has insight and information that never makes its way to the top. The difference between a good company and a great one may lie in their ability to communicate. Through fascinating stories and interactive processes, Dr. Zweifel tells often hilarious stories of failed communication and provides tools and techniques for how to cut out wasteful communication and how to listen effectively—perhaps the smartest investment in productivity. Climb the Matterhorn of Masterful Listening(tm) and boost your performance by virtue of how you listen.

Avoid communication disasters of companies like Bridgestone, AOL, Intel, and Liz Claiborne.
Become a masterful communicator who generates the reality of your choice through language.
"Communicate or Die" gives you practical tools for how you can impact your people's performance simply by how you listen.
Climb the Matterhorn of Masterful Listening–assess, develop and sustain the Seven Levels of Listening to produce results effortlessly and with your ears alone.
Harness the power of your listening to shape reality–your own and that of the people around you.

04/27/2012    1:30 pm - 2:30 pm

If Metrics are so Important, Why isn’t Everyone Doing it?

Presenters:
Greg Butterfield (Terryberry )

Is your recognition program having the desired impact? Are you able to produce credible data and/or evidence that your recognition initiative impacts your bottom line?

Join Greg Butterfield, Terryberry’s Senior Partner and Recognition University Coach to learn the best practices for determining the value of recognition in your organization. This webcast provides tips for practical application and serves as a road map to guide your recognition and training efforts for years to come. There will be opportunities for you to get involved and be recognized with awards along the way!

Is your recognition program aligned with the characteristics that your organization values most? Are you honoring the Attitudes, Behaviors and Contributions that make a difference where you work? All credible recognition programs must provide measureable, positive business impact. However, the benefits most often associated with recognition, such as engagement and employee/customer satisfaction are intangible assets, which can be difficult to quantify. Furthermore, the cost of traditionally accepted measures, such as formal ROI studies, can easily exceed the budget of the program it is designed to measure!

Learn what other strategies you can use to evaluate the impact of your recognition efforts besides ROI. Find out how you can connect with your employees, especially Generation Y, on a deeper level to increase retention rates and avoid recognition program failure.

Learn that there is a linear connection between recognition and profitability. Targeting employee recognition in your organization and building employee engagement can have a positive effect on improving employee/ customer satisfaction. These steps will lead to an increased bottom-line profitability for years to come.

04/27/2012    2:00 pm - 3:00 pm

The Big E: Engaging, Empowering and Enriching Employees for Increased Earnings

Presenters:
Dianne Durkin (Loyalty Factor Llc)

According to Gallup, more than two-thirds of American workers are not engaged or disengaged in their workplaces. The ISR, a leading research and consulting company, recently conducted a study of 660,000 global employees where the results show a dramatic difference in bottom-line results between companies with highly engaged employees compared with organizations with low levels of engagement.

A lack of engagement among employees is costly for businesses, leading to high turnover rates, shaky leadership and the death of good ideas. With this disengagement, you lose creativity and innovation. People who are unengaged aren't going to speak up about issues they encounter, they're not going to bring new ideas, and productivity really suffers.

During unsettled times, employees take on additional responsibilities and, in many cases, go the extra mile. It is particularly important in these down times for managers to recognize effort and be sure praise is overflowing. A simple "thank you," "great job," or "I really appreciate your extra efforts," are meaningful things that people want to hear. This will build incredible loyalty and commitment, and encourage people to work even harder.

When employees are engaged in their organization, their managers, their colleagues and their work, the quality of their work is better, the product or service they create is better and customers are happier because they get better service and products. Leaders must ensure that employees understand how their efforts contribute to the organization's overall strategy and direction. People want to be part of a winning team. Employees will take pride and be engaged in their work if they understand how their efforts impact the organization.

Come to this session and learn about the cost of disengagement and what you and your organization can do to improve the “Big E” in your organizations. This session is a real reminder that its people that make things happen.

04/27/2012    3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Member Recognition – Start With The End In Mind

Presenters:
Jeffrey Dalton (Paramax)
David Carrithers (Affinity Center International)

Presenters:

Jeff Dalton, CEO Paramax an incentive technology company specializing in point-based incentive, loyalty and recognition programs for employees, sales teams and channel partners. The Paramax incentive software suite was first developed more than a decade ago and has been deployed in thousands of award programs. Clients include more than 100 global companies based in the U.S., Canada, England, Mexico and Australia. www.Paramax.com

Jeff brings over 30 years of real world experience in designing, building and implementing employee rewards, sales incentive and loyalty program technologies for a wide range of industries. Jeff's programs and technologies have helped business retain and motivate millions of employees, move hundreds of millions of product and services while keeping creativity and business results in the forefront of the rewards and recognition industries thinking.

David Carrithers, Founder, President & Managing Director Affinity Center International, a company focusing helping associations bring increased value to their members and grow member engagement, retention and activation through the industries first business focused coalition marketing and loyalty program AchieveLinks that includes the widest rewards offering available (and always growing!) www.AffinityCenter.com

David has been active in the incentive, loyalty and rewards business for 30 years. Carrithers has been awarded two US Patents, and is recognized as an industry expert in customer and employee loyalty programs in the US. He is the global creator of the first stored-value cards and gift cards. He has received certificates and/or degrees from Brookings Institute, Disney Institute, Harvard University Business School, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Loyola University New Orleans. He presents on business management, project management, relationship management and brand and product development.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dcarrithers

Topic: Member Recognition – Start With The End In Mind

Brief Description: Building a recognition program that drives the desired behaviors and outcomes requires a few key steps to assure that all the effort is not lost due to not following a few simple "pre-launch" efforts. In this session Dalton & Carrithers will share a check list of steps and actions that every successful member recognition program needs to go through and make sure has been thought out. Many programs fail because they do not take the up front time to plan out and understand the desired result and out come – taking into account the tried and true formula of understanding the "Do this get that" and "what gets rewarded gets done" models. How to chose the right rewards and motivations to drive results, etc.

This informative and real world based session will include a clear step by step process to establishing the goals and the behavior change strategies needed to succeed, along with ways to engage and drive action through your program building towards a fully motivated member of a rewards, recognition and/or loyalty program. The session will include real world examples, tools and techniques that have succeeded in generating results for Dalton and Carrithers – along with open questions and solutions time.

Session Time: 45 minutes
Leave Behinds: Work book with a copy of the prevention and the tools shown in the session.

04/27/2012    3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Understanding Motivation, Performance and Reward Strategies

Presenters:
James Sale (Motivational Maps Ltd)

Increasingly Executives and HR specialists are recognising that the ‘soft’ aspects of organizations are lead indicators determining ‘hard’ outcomes such as profitability. ‘Soft’ motivation is arguably the most talked about, and least understood, component of ‘hard’ performance; and further to the misunderstanding, rewards within organizations are often distributed as if everyone’s motivations were the same. A moment’s thought reveals that they are not, that people have fundamentally different motivations and motivational profiles, and one consequence of this is that even the ‘super-rewards’ which are considered to be universally essential – such as ‘recognition’ – do not in fact motivate everyone, at least to the same extent. Thus it is imperative to understand motivation at a deeper level if organizations want superior performance, and if they want the holy grail of full staff engagement.

This talk, then, explains what motivation actually is, what elements of our psyche feed it, how it is core to performance, and why appropriate reward strategies need to take account of individual, team and organizational motivational profiles if they are to be at all effective. At the organizational level we can begin to see whether or not what the organization ‘does’ is re-enforced by its motivational profile – this is essential for effective change management.

Further, the talk will outline the model and diagnostic of motivation that is used by Motivational Maps, and explain how this is used by organizations large and small around the world, and indicate some of the results achieved.

Conference Attendees can expect to come away with original and proprietary insights and information about motivation, performance and reward strategies that will challenge and stimulate their existing views on these subjects.