Persuasion. Some say it’s an art form. Some say it’s patently dishonest. Whatever persuasion is, it’s the way most of us attempt to change behavior in those around us to conform more closely to our expectations/needs.
But persuasion is a time and labor-intensive pursuit. We’re not always successful in our efforts, either. Sometimes persuading people that our way of doing things is the right way isn’t happening and that’s not a great use of resources.
So, when you’re attempting to change the behavior or your employees, what do you do?
Read on to find out what researchers are now calling the behavior-changing secret every travel manager should know.
A Yale University study revealed that when study participants were given a roadmap, clearly showing how to find an inoculation center, that they were much more likely to get inoculated against tetanus.
And so, the age-old wisdom of leading a horse to water is somewhat vanquished. It appears that to make the horse drink, you really do have to lead it there!
Fans of persuasion will be rather unhappy to hear this, but barriers other than motivation are implicated in employee behaviors we’d like to see change. For example, the habitually late accounting clerk may just be exhausted (or worse, sick).
But fatigue is far from the only factor influencing less-than-desirable employee behaviors. Resentment, fear, inertia, over-confidence, even anxiety, can all get in the way of the kind of performance you want from your employees.
These all represent barriers you need to clear out of the way – that’s the behavior-changing secret, not persuasion!
Are your employees hostile to cost-effective travel policy? The solution is to make it easier for them to modify their behavior in that regard and embrace the policy. Empower them by incentivizing this habit. Once they start doing it and see the personal benefit, they’ll be on board.
Technologies which link personal benefit to budget-aware travel policy make it easy and save your company a bundle. Take away the barrier. Get what the behavior you need!
Travel policy that can’t be boiled down to a few simple rules of thumb isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Policy is not a make work program. It’s a guiding framework and when it comes to travel, it should be crystal clear and to the point.
Take an honest look at your travel policy and ask how it can be made clearer and more succinct.
At Incentive Travel Group, we’ve been creating winning incentive programs for companies like yours for more than 2 decades. By extending your human resources capacity, we create exceptional incentives, then we plan and execute them with legendary logistical excellence.
Now that you know the behavior-changing secret every travel manager should know, discover the difference our outsourced solution can make. Improving performance, productivity and retention is what incentive programming was invented to do.
And with ITG, it gets done. Contact us. Let’s inspire your people with the right incentives!
