How incentive travel programs can transform your bottom line
Unveiling the magic: Insurance businesses that incentivize travel gain a competitive edge with prospective employees.
In today’s ever-evolving job market, it is essential for insurance providers to retain employees and keep them motivated to achieve top-performing results. One of the most effective ways to achieve this goal is through the implementation of incentive travel programs. These programs help differentiate insurance companies from their competitors, and significantly increase employee engagement and productivity, while also positively affecting the company’s bottom line.
The following is an in-depth exploration of incentive travel programs and how they positively impact the insurance industry.
The benefits of incentive travel program
Motivation: Incentive travel programs have many benefits for insurance companies. First, they encourage employees to reach greater heights and to consistently achieve their sales or claims targets for the quarter, or even the year. This results in a more motivated workforce, which is essential when it comes to meeting sales targets and other key performance indicators.
Productivity: Next, incentive travel programs positively impact an organization’s bottom line. When employees have a chance to work toward making a memory that will last a lifetime at a destination they may otherwise never experience, they are more likely to work harder and more efficiently. This increased focus on targets and results has been proven to increase productivity and drive sales.
Recognition: Third, these programs help companies recognize and reward exceptional performance. This leads to increased morale, better cooperation amongst team members and a more effective workforce overall.
Networking: Fourth, incentive travel programs provide entry-level employees opportunities to interact with members of the executive and leadership teams, especially when it is a company group trip. For example, at an awards banquet or an event recognizing the top 150 sales performers, top-tier leadership gets face-to-face time with employees who they don’t often get to work with on a daily basis. Additionally, these interactions are happening during an often celebratory moment in a low-stress, unique environment, that allows less tenured employees to feel seen and heard by management. This builds team morale and cohesiveness overall within the company.
Engagement and retention: Fifth, the younger age group entering the workforce now puts a strong emphasis on experiences, with travel being one of them. When a company provides its workforce luxury travel opportunities to exotic destinations, it can stand out as a company that is different from the rest in today’s hiring market.
Employer brand: Lastly, having employees be recognized with an incentivized trip allows for them to appreciate and recognize your company’s brand. This is important because those employees will talk about their experience on this trip with their friends, family and acquaintances and your company’s name will come up. This allows for brand recognition and a desire to work for your company via word-of-mouth from those who attended the trip.
How incentive travel programs work
Incentive travel programs work by setting sales or performance targets for employees to meet and crafting systematic and engaging communication throughout the incentive period to build and optimize engagement. When these targets are achieved, the employee receives an invitation for an exclusive, often VIP, luxury travel experience. Selecting exotic destinations that provide once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for incentive winners drives teams to work harder to maintain motivation.
Most importantly, the incentive travel program can be designed to reward not just the individual but the team as well. This creates a sense of unity and cooperation amongst team members, all working together towards a common goal.
Choosing the right incentive travel program
Selecting an incentive travel program that is right for your insurance company is key to its success. Working with a travel expert is one of the easiest ways to implement an incentive travel program that makes employees want to work harder and increase your sales and claims goals for the year. The following factors should be considered when choosing an incentive travel program:
- Travel destination: Selecting the right travel destination is crucial to the success of the program. The destination needs to offer rich culture, plenty of activities, memorable experiences for employees and a relaxing atmosphere.
- Group size: The program should be designed to meet the needs of the group size, ensuring that all employees feel valued and rewarded for their efforts.
- Duration: The length of the trip should be carefully considered as it is important to provide employees with enough time to relax and enjoy their vacation, yet still give them ample time to work towards achieving their sales goals. With the rise of “bleisure travel” it is important to realize that many employees may choose to extend their trip by either leaving early or staying late at the destination. Companies should offer employees the paid time off needed to extend these trips while ensuring that employees understand the company’s liability only extends to the company-provided duration of the trip.
- Budget: The budget for the program should also be taken into consideration. It is important to balance the cost of the incentive program with its benefits and the impact it will have on the bottom line.
More than anything, focusing on your company’s goals and making sure the incentivized trips align with the goals your company is trying to attain while also being creative and enticing for employees are key to ensuring success with this type of program. By starting with your company’s goals to help set the incentivized travel program with your travel expert, you will be setting your company up for success that can be measured year over year.
Measuring the success of incentive travel programs
Incentive travel programs have a clear measurable outcome — the results of the team or individual performances. However, to truly understand the benefits of these programs, it is important to measure organizational improvements, morale among employees and the impact on financial results.
To measure the success of an incentive travel program, companies should track the following:
- Sales figures: Compare the sales figures before and after the incentive travel program. If the incentive program was successful, there will be an increase in sales figures.
- Staff retention: Staff turnover is a key factor in measuring the success of an incentive program. When turnover rates decrease, it is an indication that the program has positively impacted employee retention.
- Employee motivation: Measuring employee motivation before and after the incentive program provides insight into the effectiveness of the program.
- Return on investment (ROI): Calculating the ROI of the incentive travel program is essential. This calculation should consider the cost of the program in relation to the benefits it brings in terms of revenue, increased productivity and employee retention.
Incentive travel programs drive results
By encouraging employees to strive for greater performance, incentive travel programs provide a sense of camaraderie amongst team members. This increased motivation leads to a more effective workforce, which in turn drives sales and revenue growth for the company.
While most industries may offer incentives such as bonuses and salary increases, few are able to offer the exceptional, never duplicated memorable experience, which will make your company stand out where it counts.
Tina Husemoller is the vice president of meetings and incentives at Fox World Travel. In this role, Husemoller is responsible for the overall strategic direction of the Fox meetings and incentives department. Tina has been in the travel industry for three decades with experience as a business travel agent, client solutions manager, director of sales, and director of client solutions. Tina graduated with a BS in business administration in 2006 and earned a master’s degree in business administration in 2014.
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