The best incentive is a meaty challenge

Citation

(2001), "The best incentive is a meaty challenge", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 25 No. 2/3/4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.2001.00325bab.010

The best incentive is a meaty challenge

The best incentive is a meaty challenge

Top companies recognize that challenging opportunities at work are a better incentive than financial benefits, according to an international study by The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA).

The global survey of senior executives of leading organizations shows that nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) incentivize their staff by presenting them with challenging opportunities that will stretch their skills.

Although tangible benefits are offered by more companies (79 per cent of companies as opposed to 67 per cent offering intangible benefits), nevertheless respondents mentioned challenging opportunities as a staff incentive more frequently than either share options or profit share schemes (the proportion referring to each incentive was 65 per cent, 51 per cent and 50 per cent respectively).

The survey also revealed that the paramount concern in the minds of top executives is finding and retaining quality staff: half of the sample ranked this factor as the single most important issue affecting the future success of businesses.

Mike Jeans, CIMA President, said: "Directors obviously feel a strong need to retain their quality staff: our research shows that they believe that the best way to achieve this is not by throwing money at employees, but by giving them the chance to stretch themselves within the work environment."

He added: "It is interesting to note regional variations in the views held around the world. Vision, for example, is not rated highly in France compared to the rest of the world. Overall, however, the survey has shown that there is a surprising lack of differences between the views of business leaders from different regions, despite their obvious cultural differences. Perhaps this points to a world-class group of leaders with similar backgrounds, who are more influenced by their business education and the leading-edge business books they read, than by the patterns of the culture they come from."

Key findings from the global survey of business leaders, "Success beyond 2005", included the following:

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  Future business will not hang on e-business: IT and e-business are not considered to be the crucial factors affecting the future of business (only mentioned by 8 and 6 per cent as the single most important factor), ranked well below finding/retaining quality staff and speed of change (50 and 17 per cent).

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  Technology makes you work more: 60 per cent of leading business figures claim that technology has increased their workload; it was mostly over-45s who made this claim.

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  Quality people are the single most important business success factor: finding and retaining quality people is overwhelmingly the single most important factor for the success of businesses in the future (50 per cent).

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  HR is sidelined in business planning decisions: human resources came bottom of the table of issues of importance in the business plan.

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  The best incentive is a meaty challenge: top companies incentivize staff with challenging opportunities (65 per cent) in preference to more tangible benefits.

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  Shareholders' demands are a low priority for business success: only 3 per cent believed that shareholder demands are the single most important issue for the future success of the business.

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  Education must keep up with changing business needs: companies are looking for a different skills set in their senior people; "softer" skills need to be taught – communication skills are rated highly in tomorrow's business leaders; IT skills are a very low priority.

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  41 per cent expect to see more women in the workplace: the USA and Asia in particular expect there to be an increase in women in the workplace.

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  French and Germans have the best work-life balance: senior executives in France and Germany recorded the shortest average working week.

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  Only one-third of companies actively fight stress: yet most respondents agree that stress management policies are important and beneficial.

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  Germans top work-life policies survey: German companies more frequently have work-life policies in place compared to UK and French counterparts; the UK has a particularly negative attitude to these policies – 31 per cent in the UK have no policies in place compared to 4 per cent in Germany; France has a particularly poor attitude to family-friendly policies – just 15 per cent of respondents in France have them in place.

Further information is available from the CIMA, 63 Portland Place, London W1N 4AB. Web site: www.cimaglobal.com