Conference Program, MotivationConnect Highlight 2007 Motivation Show

Incentive Spending Jumps Dramatically; Growth Expected to Continue

Engage Employees and Outpace the Competition

Put People First: The Impact of People on Today's Organizations

Promotional Products Add Punch to HR Programs

Landmark Study Cites 'Engagement Gap' In Global Workforce

No matter how many times you may have been to The Motivation Show, the sheer size and scope of the thing never fails to impress. Everybody who is anybody is there. Every major brand. Every major retailer. Every major destination. Every major player in the motivation biz. And this year's show was no different.

More than 13,000 buyers and exhibitors - 7,500 buyers and 6,000 exhibitors from more than 1,900 exhibiting companies - were spread out across nearly 250,000 square feet of exhibit space at Chicago's McCormick Place Convention Center. In addition, more than 600 paid registrants filled 2,200 seminar seats for the new Executive Leadership Series: Strategies to Motivate, Empower and Reward.

"We were very pleased with the success of our new seminar series," says Donna Oldenburg, Conference Director. "We worked hard to deliver best practices for improving employee performance and customer loyalty and concentrated on finding end-users to teach the seminars from companies like Microsoft, Avis-Budget, DHL, Gap, John Deere, MetLife and Red Roof Inn. The final results exceeded our expectations, and more than two-thirds of the conference registrants were first-time attendees, indicating that this education is what attracted them to the show."
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A new professional conference program and on-line networking tool proved powerful additions to the 2007 Motivation Show, the world's largest exhibition of motivational products and services.

More than 600 paid registrants filled 2,200 seats for the Executive Leadership Series: Strategies to Motivate, Empower and Reward. Faculty for the program included practitioners from some of America's leading corporations including Microsoft, DHL, MetLife, Gap, John Deere and Avis-Budget. Meanwhile, MotivationConnect, a suite of revolutionary web-based tools helped to match attendees with the most relevant people, products, destinations and events at the Motivation Show. Some 3,600 registrants used their free on-line portal an average of 2.6 times, conducting more than 14,000 searches and bookmarking companies, products and service more than 20,000 times. MotivationConnect will remain active for post-show information and follow-up for the on-line community through December and then open up again for the 2008 Show early next year.

Preliminary verified attendance at the 2007 Motivation Show totaled 13,500, including 7,500 buyers and 6,000 exhibitors. There were more than 1,900 exhibiting companies occupying nearly 250,000 net sq. ft. of exhibit space.
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Merchandise and travel incentives are gaining an even greater foothold in corporate marketing programs, according to the latest Incentive Federation, 'Travel and Merchandise Incentive Study," released during the recent Motivation Show. More than $46.1 billion were spent on incentive travel and merchandise in 2006. That represents a significant jump from the just-under $30 billion reported in the previous IF Study conducted in 2000. Of the money spent $32.7 billion went toward merchandise incentives and $13.4 billion was spent on incentive travel.

"The incentive industry is booming," says Frank Katusak, Incentive Federation Board Chair. "What's particularly exciting about the results-besides the dollar figure-is that incentive end-user executives view incentives as an investment rather than a cost because they can quickly and easily measure the financial return of these initiatives as compared to other types of business development programs."

The phenomenal growth shows no signs of slowing down. More than half of the respondents to the survey expect spending for incentive travel to go up over the next two years, while 37 percent say it will at least stay the same. On the merchandise side approximately 34 percent expect budgets to remain the same, while 59 percent expect budgets to increase.

The study, conducted in 2007, was prepared by GfK Group, a global research organization. To download a complimentary copy of the study, go to www.incentivecentral.org.
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Organizations with formal employee engagement programs will distance themselves from their competition particularly in the areas of recruitment, retention and bottom-line financial results. That is according to a recent International Roundtable hosted by Globoforce on the topic of employee engagement.

Nearly 70 HR professionals and business leaders in attendance were polled on a variety of issues. Significant findings include:

81 percent of participants said they believe that recognition programs are integral to recruiting top talent. Participants also agree that these programs can act as a strong competitive differentiator when attracting candidates.
84 percent of participants agree that a well-executed employee engagement programs will improve a company's financial bottom line
59% of participants said that employee engagement is an increasingly hot topic of discussion in the C-suite, gaining an all-important executive "mind share" within their companies.
90 percent of participants say a strategic recognition programs which is strongly aligned with the company's mission and values can play an important role in a successful engagement strategy.

The survey also exposed several risks in not adopting formal engagement programs. Some 62 percent confirm that fallout from disengaged employees leads to poor quality of work and decreased productivity, while 22 percent say disengagement puts companies at risk to lose talent to a competitor.

For more information, go to www.globoforce.com.
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Employees, business partners and even consumers can no longer be "managed" as they were in the past if companies wish to survive long term. In a comprehensive report, Pulling Together: The Increased Role and Impact of People in Organizations, the Forum for People Performance Management and Measurement reveals that people must be engaged, motivated, respected and rewarded so that their activities can best contribute to an organization's overall objectives.

The study looks at a number of forces affecting the workplace-workforce demographics, technological developments, and the increasing complexity of job demands and corresponding talent requirements-and suggests that unless companies so something about it they will be faced with a debilitating labor shortage.

"In today's economy, people are now, more than ever before, the source of competitive advantage," says Frank Mulhern, of Northwestern University, lead author of the report and co-founder of the Forum. "When People Performance Management is the primary focus of an organization, competitive advantage becomes human capital management; employees become partners, not expenses and compensation and incentives become total rewards management, "adds Mulhern.

For a copy of the report, go to www.performanceforum.org.
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Promotional products play a powerful role in HR programs, according to a recent survey conducted by the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) during the Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM) show in Last Vegas this past June.

The survey found that 75 percent of respondents who have rewards and recognition programs in place, reported using promotional products in those programs. These programs include employee service awards, anniversary recognition programs, referral programs and more. In addition, 72 percent say that promotional products ranging from plaques and pins to writing instruments and wearables, are either "extremely effective," or effective in motivating, rewarding and recognizing employees.

"People will forget what you say, but never forget how you made them feel," says Paul Kiewet, PPAI chair and vice president of Incentive Marketing. "Promotional products serve as a personal and tangible recognition of an employee's engagement, communications, and interdepartmental integration, especially in an era when media clutter makes it difficult to communicate with one's own employees" he adds.

For additional information on the report, go to www.ppai.org.
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A Towers Perrin survey of more than 90,000 employees worldwide, concludes that organizations are facing an "engagement gap," meaning they are not getting the discretionary effort they need from their people to drive performance and growth agendas.

"Globally only 21 percent of employees are engaged, meaning they are freely giving their time, energy, creativity and knowledge to their work. That's a disturbingly small number when you think about the impact people have on a business and its customers," says Julie Gebauer, Towers Perrin Managing Director. "Worse yet, fully 38 percent are either wholly or partly disengaged, meaning they might not know the right things to do to add value to the company, or they might be doing just the minimum to get by. Play those percentages out across a large workforce and it's easy to see the implications for performance," she adds.

The study found that companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more successful in retaining their most valued employees than companies with lower levels of engagement. In a regression analysis of company financial results against engagement data, the study found that firms with the highest percentage of engaged employees collectively increased operating income 19 percent and earnings per share 28 percent year-to-year. The companies with the lowest levels of engaged employees showed year-to-year declines of 33 percent in operating income and 11 percent in earnings per share.

For more information, go to www.towersperrin.com.
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