Pop, Fizz!: A Six-pack of Motivation
November 06, 2008
Comprehensive recognition programs at two giant beverage companies provide a six-pack of lessons for companies of any flavor.
By Julie Barker
Pepsi Bottling Group is the world’s largest manufacturer, seller and distributor of Pepsi-Cola beverages. Based in Somers, N.Y., the company has a very simple mission statement, "We Sell Soda." PepsiAmericas, which is not related, is the Minneapolis based second-largest producer, bottler and distributor of Pepsi beverage products. Its goal is to be its customers' "best supplier of exciting beverages and fun food brands."
In partnership with O.C. Tanner, the Salt Lake City-based recognition specialist, each has revamped a significant program of performance, service and safety awards as well as others, given for making strides toward healthy living or surpassing manufacturing and sales goals. PBG's five programs were launched or relaunched in 2005 for its 40,000 North American employees, and PepsiAmericas’ in 2007 for its 13,500 U.S./Caribbean employees. The companies are exemplary in using motivational rewards to help them achieve business success. Below, we lay out some lessons learned.
 The Focus Is People, Not Awards
"We've learned over the years that the gift is not the program," says Megan Broderick, director of field compensation and HRIS, at Pepsi Bottling Group. "The gift is the token that we hand out. It's what the manager delivers when he’s saying the kind words."
So, think about the ceremonial aspects of rewarding service or performance. New PBG employees, for example, get a plaque on their first anniversary of employment. "We send it to their home to make sure 1) that they get it, and 2) that their family sees it," says Broderick. The family is likely to feed—and radiate—the employee's pride, increasing the depth of the emotional bond with the company.
At the five-year mark, and in five-year increments from there, employees at PBG get to choose a logoed gift and a personal gift as well, says Broderick. They make selections using a custom Web site that O.C. Tanner built. The personal gift—perhaps a camera or watch—is shipped to the home; the emblemed item is shipped to the supervisor, she says, "along with some guidelines on how and when to do the presentation."
Reinforce Company Values
At every opportunity, the company should remind employees of shared core values. At PepsiAmericas, there are five: passion, accountability, respect, teamwork and integrity. And the company's Above & Beyond rewards program (given by any employee to any other employee) as well as its spot awards (given by managers) are directly tied to these values.
The revamped program features an electronic thank-you card that employees or managers can personalize and send anytime from anywhere to anyone. "What kind of tied it up," says David Tipton, vice president human resources, channel sales & marketing, PepsiAmericas, "was every time you send a card you have to include which one of our five corporate values they demonstrated. Now everything is focused around our values."
The chief advantage of this is that you know you are reinforcing behaviors that matter to the company. A secondary benefit is that in a recognition celebration, other employees can learn, "Oh, that's a good example of accountability." So the reinforcement is occurring on two levels.
 Discover the Unwritten Values
Not every company has a list of core values. But every company has unwritten ones. "Find out what’s important to your organization," says Mark Sullivan, senior director, health and safety, PBG. With 10,000 commercial drivers in his company, safety is a major issue. In designing the safety rewards, the key was understanding that Pepsi Bottling Group values professionalism. The award for one year's accident-free driving is a lucite block that's personalized and that has places for five coins to be imbedded. The first year, you get the lucite block and the first coin. The fifth year you get your fifth coin and a Swiss Army watch plus a badge to iron onto your uniform, all in a presentation box.
"We have about 1,500 who received the watch and box this year," the fifth year of the program, says Sullivan. "We want a culture that people view themselves as professionals and take their role seriously. We'd like to think that there's a lot of these lucite blocks sitting at home on a shelf and their families see them."
PepsiAmericas also has a safe-driver recognition program, a chief component of which is the Safety Roadeo. Drivers in the seven sales divisions who qualify by having a clean safety record throughout the previous year can compete in a driving competition where they do such things as back 53-foot 18-wheelers up to a cone structure without knocking it down. What's the underlying value? Skill. Or to take it back to a core value, passion. "Divisional winners come up to Chicago on an all-expense-paid trip and participate in the National Roadeo where the best of the best compete," says Jason Clayton, compensation manager, Pepsi-Americas. "They get to bring one person with them on the trip. Winners of that are celebrated in a big way."
Go in With a Strategy
Make sure your program has what it takes to drive business results. Both of these companies had programs in place and good intentions, but they sometimes created frustration among the very people they were trying to boost. They lacked a comprehensive strategy that makes recognition part of the fabric of the culture and that consistently trains managers on how, when and why to deliver praise. An overarching theme helps communicate and make the programs memorable (at PBG the recognition theme is "Pour It On"; at PepsiAmericas, it's "Thirst for More").
In the course of setting strategy at Pepsi-Americas, moreover, the company tackled turnover. At 90 days new hires get a charm that goes with the keychain they received on their very first day in a little presentation box. A card in the box gives an access code for them to go online and select another gift. There are also awards at one, two and three years. "That was very strategic," says Michelle Smith, vice president of business development, O.C. Tanner, "because a lot of people were leaving before three years. We suggested a more aggressive milestone program to allow employees to bond with PepsiAmericas and have a lot of reinforcement to show them how much they’re valued. That’s especially important for Generation Y to bond with the company immediately."
Tipton says his engagement survey in September 2007, five months after "Thirst for More" launched, showed an improvement of 8 to 10 percent year-over-year on the questions that involve the company’s efforts at recognition. "We're trying to go deeper into it now to see if we can relate these improved scores to improved business results." One way to do that will be to look at the locations that are doing a lot of ecards and spot rewards and see if their other numbers—turnover, productivity, sick days—can be correlated.
 Give Line Managers the Tools
"If they really want to differentiate themselves [companies have] got to hire managers that get it, [and then] give them the tools," says Clayton.
Senior executives, managers and supervisors are all trained in how to do recognition events. "This … is something that has to be ingrained in your culture," PBG's Broderick says. "We're focusing on it across the board … and building it into our core training with our leaders."
O.C. Tanner has helped both companies to ramp up their training. Tools include a private Web site that gives supervisors just-in-time training on what they might want to say to a person at a particular ceremony, says Smith. But that merely supplements formal training. "We've found that the supervisor or the manager is really the linchpin in this whole process. People leave jobs or stay primarily because of their relationship with their manager. Some absolutely get it and are quick to praise and know exactly the right words to say," says Smith. But many other variations exist, including some who never vocalize praise.
Measure and Improve
Both PBG and PepsiAmericas have a commitment to continuous improvement and measuring results. PBG surveys program winners every quarter, so January, February and March winners got a survey card in April. In addition, says Broderick, the best presentations—whether for a service award or retirement—are entered each month in a "best practice" competition.
Neither company has ROI data on their programs at this point, although Tipton sees his by-location analysis, which he hopes to complete by the year's end, as a move in that direction. Research by the Jackson Organization reported by Chester Elton, vice president of performance recognition at O.C. Tanner, in The Carrot Principle, shows that a culture of recognition boosts the bottom line significantly. Elton's mantra is that recognition is an accelerator: By adding recognition you’re going to get enhanced rewards in terms of return on equity, operating margin and return on assets.
"We're starting with Chester's research and we want to do our own correlation piece," says Tipton. "We're going to take the survey questions and bounce them against a bunch of other numbers to see what the relationships are. We think we know what we're going to see, but we actually want to do the analysis ourselves as well."
He adds, "I don't think [what we've got is] perfect. We're continually trying to use it and improve it, and make sure people still find value in it."
Editor's Note: For more on the motivational strategies of these companies, read "The Ripple Effect of Award Presentations" at Incentivemag.com.
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