Companies reward families, not just adults, with incentive travel

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The travel industry is noticing a resurgence in corporate incentive trips, and as companies plan those trips to motivate their sales forces, one thing they’re finding is that employees want family travel packages.

Cyndie Hatten, the director of purchasing and product development for ITAGroup Inc.’s group event management division, says it’s no secret that incentive travel is an effective tool to boost performance and retain successful employees. Extending the concept to include the whole family generates excitement inside employees’ households, which fosters more loyalty toward the company.

“It’s an opportunity for the company to say, ‘We appreciate what you’ve done for the company, and we realize that you’ve taken time away from your families to do it. It’s important to us that you have this award to go somewhere other than where you go for business travel,’” Hatten said.

In a way, the family becomes a team in the employee’s quest to reach his or her sales benchmark. When Mom or Dad works long hours, the rest of the family knows that there could be a reward in store in the form of a free vacation.

Family support

“To know that he (or she) is working to win a trip together is a neat thing for the family,” Hatten said. “It builds loyalty at home, and that’s a big deal because many people end up quitting their jobs because it’s not working for the family. This way, the family understands the significance of their family member’s hard work.”

Incentive travel is most commonly used as a perk in the insurance, pharmaceutical, financial services and automotive industries. ITAGroup, which works with approximately 250 clients on incentives – some with multiple programs – has seen a lot of interest in family-oriented trips as a way to award an agent in the second tier of performance. Trips for top performers still tend to be couple-oriented, unique and adventurous, to places such as Machu-Picchu, Peru.

“With the top-level award, which is the pure group incentive recognition program, typically the company wants to focus on those winners and bringing the spouse to enjoy the fruits of their accomplishments,” Hatten said. “It’s so special and so unique, and something that they could not experience on their own. There’s camaraderie between the peers and high-level management. It’s an opportunity to take those high achievers and thank them in a real personal way.”

FBL Financial Group Inc., which honors its top achievers through its All-American program, decided this past summer to create a smaller-scale program for agents in eight states. The company launched a campaign that allowed the top 20 percent of agents in each state to win regional summer trips with their families, in contrast to its top reward program, which is for the top 10 percent of all agents, said Blake Weber, sales services vice president.

“Our real goal here is that we wanted to engage a large portion of the agency force and give a lot of people the opportunity to play,” Weber said. “And we felt strongly that it’s really cool when the rest of the family knows what their mom or dad is working toward and to reap some of those benefits as well.”

Each of the four-day trips were to locations within driving distance of the agents, to locations such as Lake Geneva, Wis., Lake of the Ozarks, Mo. and Durango, Colo. The families arrived on the same day, had a barbecue together the first night, and then went their separate ways to enjoy the area’s attractions.

“We tried not to overplan it and let them do what they were most interested in,” Weber said. “They could either do something as a family only or get together with a few other families. It was interesting to get together at the end of the day and talk to each other about what they’d done. Of course, there was a lot of golfing.”

Proven results

These family summer trips went over so well that FBL Financial will offer them again in 2005, but to different locations. In November, the company’s sales force began working toward their four-month production goal to be eligible for next summer’s trips. Like last year, the time frame for the competition is strategic.

“We would get production from November and December, which would be a nice push to the end of the year, and in January and February, which helps us focus and get us off to a good start for the calendar year,” Weber said. “There are different pressures on everybody in their job, and if they hit certain production quotas, that’s really nice to be able to give them an opportunity to have time off with their families.”

For Roger Moore and Michael TenHaken, incentive travel was a major reason they started working for Kirby Co. several years ago, and why they both went on to become distributors.

When I started selling for the company part time 17 years ago, I won a trip to Las Vegas within 90 days of starting,” Moore said. “My whole career has been built around winning incentive after incentive. It’s always been a constant, and one of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the business.”

Moore and TenHaken recently found out that they had both won seven-day trips to Italy for themselves and their wives next year. TenHaken traveled to Kauai, Hawaii, this fall for the company’s big reward trip. Both won trips to Munich the year before and have been to several other far-away places, Tahiti being Moore’s favorite. In addition to the scenery and the adventures, seeing old friends on the trips is a motivator, TenHaken said.

“We have a network of people around the world whom we see regularly through these trips,” TenHaken said. “It’s nice to meet up with people who have the same problems and goals. When things aren’t going well, you can call these people up to talk about the issues.”

Disneyland won’t do it

ITAGroup is also seeing an increase for its top-tier reward programs, Hatten said. Incentive trips in general have become more popular in the last year and a half, following the downturn the travel industry experienced after 9/11.

“It is good and fun to note that incentive travel is definitely up for group trips, which is great for our company,” Hatten said. Although trips to the Caribbean and Mexico and cruises are still popular, Hatten said companies are also drawn to adventure and excitement, including an “eco component,” such as deep-sea fishing, hiking, anything that has people “participating in and intoned to their surroundings.”

“As an award, a trip to Disney World is not going to do it anymore,” Hatten said. “A typical family will make that trip when they think the kids are old enough, so that they don’t have to make it twice. From a company reward situation, we would have to come up with an experience in that area that is high level and very atypical of the normal Orlando trip.”