Dear Alan,
I read your
op-ed, The Case Against Gamification & Price-to-Beat Tools, with interest
on Friday. Given my role as CEO & founder of Rocketrip, I felt compelled to
respond publicly to shed light on the reality of incentivized behavioral change
in practice—based on our experience working with many different types of
companies, from midmarket businesses to the Fortune 500.
Overall, the
views you shared reflect the risk-averse mentality that exists in the corporate
travel industry at large and, generally speaking, stifles innovation. By
dwelling on the assumed risks, you close your eyes to the larger opportunity.
By assuming the worst in our traveling workforce, you miss the point of
employer-employee cooperation and the value that can be created through
employee-centricity in the workforce. My comments to excerpts from your op-ed
are below, and I'd welcome a conversation to discuss further if you're
interested. You can reach me at dan@rocketrip.com.
Tyson:
"First off, paying employees to save money on business travel can be
counterproductive. Unnecessary trips are a substantial source of wasted travel
spend. By incentivizing itinerary savings, you incentivize taking trips whether
they are needed or not, so long as the employee travels under budget."
From a practical standpoint, products such as
Rocketrip include technological solutions and workflow gates that prevent
unwise or unwanted behavior. Technology can solve for and prevent virtually any
kind of undesirable behavior from happening in the first place. But more
important, we need to trust that our employees are thoughtful, hardworking,
dedicated individuals who want to do right by the organization and will
prioritize accordingly. If an organization does not believe in its people, it's
not an appropriate environment for an incentive-based approach to
employee-centricity. I'd stipulate that such an organization has much broader
issues to contemplate than whether or not incentivized behavioral change makes
sense for them.
Tyson:
"Also, it promotes spending time on travel research to the detriment of
core activities. An employee who is paid $50 per hour shouldn't spend two hours
to find an additional $25 airline discount. HR works hard to optimize the
motivational environment and understands that incentives often have two edges."
No, it doesn't. And I'm confident in speaking for
all others in our category focused on incentivized behavioral change, who
believe what we believe: that by rewarding employees for extraordinary
behavior, employers realize a far greater outcome (both financially and also
culturally) than company policy is capable of
on its own. Specifically, Rocketrip's integrations with the leading online
booking tools (Concur, et al) mean that the only change in behavior is the
recalibration of an employee's decision criteria away from loyalty status and
convenience and toward valuing cost as a primary consideration. It's a subtle
shift in mind-set with a major payoff. Rocketrip does not promote searching to
the ends of the Internet for cheaper options. In fact, we by and large only
work with larger enterprises that run mature, well-managed travel programs, and
thus our program operates within the confines of the company's existing travel
management company and OBT.
Tyson:
"While rewards-based programs can undercut their purpose, they also have
deeper problems. Essentially, they condition employees to view their
obligations transactionally. An employee might think, "If I comply with
policy, what do I get for it?" Rewards are specific, material, personal
and immediate. Pats on the back just can't compete. The motivational culture of
a company—best founded on pride, responsibility, recognition and
respect—devolves into a laboratory environment in which rats press buttons to
earn food pellets. Is this too harsh a comparison?"
Why do the most successful, progressive, and
human-centric organizations still have sales teams that earn commissions? Why do
employees earn bonuses? Isn't that also transactional? Why not hire sales reps
and give them a strong pat on the back and say, "Go sell, sell, sell!"
Financial incentives are likely the most powerful, proven and universally
successful motivator of behavior. Financial incentives are not antithetical to
a strong corporate culture. They're highly aligned with a corporate model that
puts employees first by embracing autonomy, empowerment and choice. It just so
happens that corporate travel is a suboptimized equation. Incentives are the
optimization.
Additionally, it's important to clear up a
misunderstanding regarding the fundamental purpose of incentives for changing
behavior. "If I comply with policy, what do I get for it?" You get to
keep your job. Policy, along with any set of "rules" (no smoking, no
trespassing, etc.), are a set of conditions designed to enforce certain types
of behavior, with clear consequences for noncompliance. Incentives are not
designed to promote policy compliance. Incentives are designed to promote extraordinary
behavior—that neither policies nor occupational obligation are designed to
control. One could also argue that poorly defined consequences contribute to
the high rates of noncompliance with some corporate travel policies.
Tyson:
"If an employee should get something extra for saving money on a trip,
what does that say about the organization's underlying expectation? That
employees don't need to care about wasting company resources unless there's
something in it for them? That employees aren't even capable of pursuing
purposes beyond their narrowest personal interests? This kind of cynicism by an
organization toward its workforce puts a low ceiling on that organization's
potential. People live down—as well as up—to expectations."
I have repurposed your words here with very slight
modifications to illustrate a point: If
an employee should earn a year-end bonus for doing a great job in their role,
what does that say about the organization's underlying expectation? That
employees don't need to care about doing a great job in their role unless there's
something in it for them? That employees aren't even capable of pursuing
purposes beyond their narrowest personal interests?
This isn't about corporate travel. It's about
applied behavioral economics and the predisposition of human beings to optimize
for their own comfort and convenience, within the limits of a policy or any
other construct. If we want to change that equation, we have to be willing to
offset the cost of what we're asking an employee to give up. That is where
incentives work beautifully. If a policy allows for business class, it's a safe
bet most wouldn't volunteer to fly coach. It's not expected human behavior to
do so. And a change in behavior cannot be forced without an untenable amount of
friction being introduced. But human behavior can be motivated, in a way that
all constituents—the company and the employees themselves—have something to
gain.
Specifically regarding wasting company resources: If
flying business class falls under the definition of wasting company resources,
why would a company allow business class as part of policy? An incentive
applied on top of a company's policy cannot be used to prevent "wasteful"
spending. This is a critical concept in understanding the true power of incentivized
behavioral change as it applies to corporate travel. There is nothing "wasteful"
or wrong about an employee who operates in compliance with policy. There is
simply room for optimization. There is room to empower an employee to
thoughtfully consider what matters more. Given the choice, some employees would
rather fly coach instead of business class and earn a reward that can be
redeemed to feed their family, or be donated to charity, or used to remodel
their home. This is what makes incentivized behavioral
change special. It engages employees in a personal decision about what matters
to them.
Tyson:
"It's like what happens when parents pay children for good grades in
school. This, intentional or not, sends children the message that you regard
curiosity, the desire to learn, and self-respect to be insufficient motivators.
Effectively, you are telling the child that the A is all that matters.
Mastering course material is just a means to a financial end that the child
could perhaps more easily accomplish by mowing the neighbor's lawn."
Many parents provide incentives to their children to
drive certain behaviors (dessert if you read a chapter of a book, an extra hour
before bedtime if you eat your vegetables ...). Providing a flexible construct that
lets a child decide what matters to them is a powerful learning experience. It is
similar to empowering employees with the freedom to make choices based on a
personal set of priorities that are within certain guidelines and expectations.
Let's look toward the future of our industry with a
positive mind-set and be a bit more open minded toward innovative concepts that
can change our future, for the better.