Today Financial Editor, Jean Chatzky, was on NBC’s Today Show this past Monday discussing different incentive models that are being offered to motivate people to do stuff that are good for them but, are blinded to the long term benefits without introducing some short term benefits like cash rewards.
 
For business trips, General Electric encourages employees to fly coach rather than first class by offering to split the savings. Therefore, if an employee saves $2,000 by flying coach, GE will pay that employee $1,000, saving the company $1,000.  In another case, insurers now offer their policy holders cash to quit smoking and take their blood pressure medication.
 
Companies like General Electric are beginning to use methods that Ultrinsic has already implemented into the college market for students. The model is varied slightly but, the goals are the same in terms of offering short term benefits to get people to notice the long term benefits them that are awaiting them for accomplishing these tasks. Ultrinsic gets students to motivate themselves to improve their grades and academic standings by offering financial incentives to students to achieve their target grades. It’s nice to see the corporate world catching up on our effective model of motivation.
 
Today Show Story Link:
 
today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/37993026#37993026