Motivation Case Study: InfoPrint Solutions Company
March 06, 2009
Young company sets itself apart with recognition program
By Alex Palmer
InfoPrint Solutions Company, which offers printing and output solutions for a wide range of clients both large and small, is itself a bit of a young organization. Based in Boulder, Colo., the company had been a division of IBM before becoming a company in its own right in January of 2007, through a joint venture between IBM and Ricoh.
Bringing together IBM's over four decades of experience with enterprise printing, and Ricoh's office solutions offerings, the company of 3,000 employees prides itself on the range of products and services it can offer the marketplace. But as InfoPrint sought to chisel out its own corporate culture, unique from these veteran brands, the leadership saw its recognition program as a great tool for instilling the company's specific values.
"We needed to do something different than a normal cash award program, which I think a lot of companies follow," says Art Amler, vice president of compensation and benefits for InfoPrint, saying IBM was one of these companies using predominately cash awards at the time. "We really wanted to differentiate the company as far as what we wanted to accomplish as a new business, that would excite the employees in a way that was totally different than what they had experienced in the past."
So several months in, InfoPrint began working with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based incentive house, Incentive Logic, to develop a platform that would encourage the high level of effort, attention to detail and creativity that the company’s leadership expected to see from their workforce.
Within six months they had developed a program. Using a point-based platform, employees are able to receive points from the management and reward points to one another—either through an Appreciation Award for a set amount of points, or through a Value Impact Award (given to employees demonstrating corporate values) for a varying amount of points. Values such as execution and delivery, innovation and community service, are awarded and this is where Amler has seen the strength of this type of recognition program.
"What is important to InfoPritnt Solutions is to have a company based on its own unique values," says Amler. "There will be many more eyes on the employees being recognized than the manager or two managers that you had in the past," says Amler. "Now you had the whole group of employees who are working closer with other employees.'
He emphasizes that the points can be redeemed for a wide number of gift offerings that appeal to the many workers coming from a variety of backgrounds—whether for sporting equipment, travel certificates or merchandise for the home. Although InfoPrint is not excluding cash awards, they plan to make it the primary awards program for the company.
"This will make us different," says Amler. "It will give us a different feel for who we are and it has much more excitement around it."
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