The 'triage' approach to motivation

In any incidence with mass casualties and limited medical resources, doctors and paramedics face the uneviable task of choosing whom to treat first. The triage technique is used to identify those who are most likely to benefit from medical attention, versus those who will probably survive regardless of medical intervention, and those who are unlikely to survive even with medical aid.

When planning an incentive activity, you can divide your workforce or sales network into three groups. There are those who are already motivated regardless of the incentive campaign, and those who will not be motivated by the particular campaign activity. Then there is the third group, those who can be influenced by the reward programme. It is this third group that the incentive campaign should focus on.

Targetting the incentive actvity to those who will benefit most from it makes sense from a Return on Investment point of view. The key issue is in understanding the workforce, in order to determine who is in this third group.

One of the ways we find effective at iD-points is to require users to register for an incentive. That way they are engaged with the incentive program - they are motivated to join it.

Using surveys and knowledge test are other great ways of increasing user engagement with a campaign.

But the triage approach also shows that one size does not fit all. Different approaches are needed to drive greater performance from those who are already motivated, and those who are not. This requires finding out what does motivate these groups, and finding appropriate campaign structures and rewards.

Organisations need to run multiple campaigns to tackle different attitudes to motivation and different performance requirements.