Incentivizing employees with gift cards and other benefits can
help save money on trip itineraries. Companies like Rocketrip and TripActions are
demonstrating this tactic's appeal to travel managers. The growing adoption of incentivization
programs by procurement departments, though, underscores why HR should be making
the calls for employee travel instead.
Offering material rewards for desired job performance is pretty
potent medicine. As with any medicine, however, there can be negative side effects,
and with this one there are plenty.
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. 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.
Deeper Problems
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?
Consider This
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.
The Message It Sends
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.
Also, don't forget that no good deed goes unpunished. How long
before the organization hears complaints like:
I saved the company $2,500, and all I got was a $100 gift
card for TGI Fridays. I don't even like TGI Fridays.
Where's my card for not taking mental health days?
What do I get for turning in my time sheet on time? Or for
putting up with my obnoxious coworkers?
Left to their own devices, a travel management program
and its procurement department overseers can do real damage to the motivational
culture of an organization, as exemplified by the naive use of material travel incentives.
Maybe the short-term cost savings are worth it to some companies, but at least they
should understand what they are buying into. Helping them understand is, of
course, the job of HR.