How Effective Are Competition Based Incentive Programs?

How Effective Are Competition Based Incentive Programs?

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I was recently reading the October 18, 2010 issue of Newsweek when I came across an interesting article discussing the public school system in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 2006, Peter Gorman took the job of Charlotte-Mecklenberg Countys Superintendent of Schools. This was a district where the system was in such disarray that one superior-court judge felt that four high schools were guilty of academic genocide.

The story says that Gorman felt the key to improving the schools was to move his best principals to his worst performing schools; however, he was talked out of simply transferring the principals to new schools by a Yale economics professor who Gorman says told him, if I forced people to switch jobs, I would see the performance of some dip, while others would find another job.

As a result, Gorman took another competition based incentive approach. Starting in 2006 he launched a competition called the Strategic Staffing Initiative where the most effective principals would be recognized. These principals would also be offered the opportunity to turn around a school that was failing. If they accepted the offer, they would:

Receive a 10 percent pay increase and more freedom from district rules.
Be allowed to select an eight person team from existing staff to help them in the effort.
Be allowed to transfer out up to five underperforming teachers who were bad fits for the new environment they were trying to create.

Basically, Gorman took what many would see as being dealt a bad hand and turned it into an incentive the chance to take on a challenge, with the proper tools to overcome it!

Competition based incentive plans create an environment where everyone works harder and strives to do their best recognizing that their performance is measured against their peers.

This approach in Charlotte, NC, was so successful, that after three years not a single winning principal has declined on the competition based incentive opportunity, and many have asked Why wasnt I chosen?. As an example of the programs success, in the first year the student test results on the state academic test improved in all seven of the impacted schools some by more than 20 points!

The use of incentives and competition did not stop there. One of the winning principals who had some of the more dramatic increases in school scores actually used a method of competition to incent students to reach their potential. She posted a chart of every students performance to create a competitive atmosphere and sense of pride tied to academic performance. The competition based incentive helped the students improve their performance and created an environment where positive results were rewarded and commended not often the case in under-performing schools.

We in the business world can all learn a lesson from this competition based incentive story. It reminds me of a quote I read once

If you want to get someones best effort, dont light a fire underneath them, light a fire within them

Web and mobility application development make it easier than ever to create competitive incentive programs like this, even across geographically dispersed areas. It starts with determining the key problems that need to be solved in the organization and then establishing a plan for communication, incentive, team structure, and recognition. Competition based solutions from LoyalNation enable a fast start to address focused opportunities in this manner, with the flexibility to adapt, grow, and shift focus over time with the same framework reducing costs and improving performance.

Bottom line is your best performers all respond to incentives more than draconian demandsif this competition based incentive approach can help our public schools, just think what it can do for your organization.

About the Author:
Danny Abney blogs about employee rewards and incentive programs and positive reinforcement solutions at http://www.LoyalNation.com/blog/



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


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