The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) seeks comments on a proposed new field of technical activity within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) focusing on incentives, rewards, and recognition.
The Incentive Federation, an ANSI member, submitted the proposal, which explains that 86% of businesses in the U.S. alone use non-compensation incentives, rewards, and recognition in some manner to motivate their employees or sales channel. The proposal asserts that with little to no national or international standards guiding them, results from these programs can vary widely. As additional research shows a direct link to increased business results through properly deployed targeted engagement programs using incentives, failure to employ standards for rewards and recognition from the outset leaves organizations and nation-states at a risk for suboptimal performance, according to the proposal.
Furthermore, as the proposal explains, the U.S. spends more than 90 billion dollars per year on non-cash incentives, the challenge falls on businesses who use these rewards, as they have no ability to offer economies of scale or cost efficiencies through guidelines or understanding of best practices. Without a unifying model to determine effective practice in motivating employee performance, the legal risks of harms that affect organizations and employees goes unchecked.
Standardization in the field of incentives, rewards, and recognition will include "classification, terminology and nomenclature, management practices and metrics that comprise the development, delivery, assessment, and control of third-party acknowledgement, and motivation solutions."
All interested U.S. parties are invited to review the proposal, which features related existing work and relevant affected stakeholders.
Submit comments to Steven Cornish, ANSI senior director of international policy and strategy, at [email protected], by close of business on Friday, November 15, 2019.
ANSI has published an explanatory information document outlining the process used to develop U.S. positions on issues and activities under consideration by ISO and IEC.