Episode 59: Joe Drayer and Anita Emoff - From Incentives to Engagement — commonsku Blog

"Incentives" is a word that has been stripped of its meaning and one that commoditizes a much bigger opportunity.

And motivation is no longer about dangling carrots in front of people to get them to do things they don't want to do, motivation today is about connecting and engaging with people in authentic ways to achieve mutual goals.

The question for the modern "incentives" company today is: How do you inspire engagement?At skucon in Las Vegas, Joe Drayer and Anita Emoff from Boost Rewards, led a session entitled "From Incentives to Engagement."

Joe Drayer is the Vice President at Boost, and prior to that, led Sales Strategy for LexisNexis. Since 2015, Joe has been a lecturer and instructor at the University of Dayton School of Business with a concentration on Organizational Behavior.

Anita Emoff is the Chairman at Boost Rewards. Anita, in addition to her work as Chairman, focuses on strategic oversight and innovation for Shumsky, a Top 50 promotional products distributor, and in addition to numerous rewards and recognition throughout the industry, Anita has led Boost to be recognized four times by Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO) as one of the “Fastest Growing 50” woman-owned businesses in America.

Anita and Joe’s session included insights into the evolution of how companies inspire and motivate their employees and also how millennials have helped refashion the incentives industry, they also covered topics such as:

• how incentives tie to tactics, while engagement ties to strategy
• the power of peer to peer recognition
• how top-down recognition programs are not effective long-term
• and also, learning the nuances of people, and the way they are motivated, whether intrinsically or externally

This evolution, from incentives to engagement, marks a shift in the way companies motive and inspire their employees, and it's a ripe field for those in the promotional marketing profession who want to add value to their service offerings or for those who simply want to learn more about inspiring their own team.