We've all heard of companies that give their employee of the month the best parking space, but what about also throwing in a sports car and a $150 prepaid gas card?
That's what
Infusionsoft, based in Gilbert, Arizona, has been doing the last few years, and it seems to be benefiting the company as much as the employee. The executives at Infusionsoft, which produces integrated marketing automation software for small businesses, stumbled on the idea in a brainstorming session when they were trying to come up with ways to excite and motivate their staff. So Infusionsoft wound up leasing a Nissan sports car, with the company logo on it, and offering it to their employee of the month. The gas card came a little later, during the period when paying $4 a gallon for gas was the norm.
Apparently the plan worked. At the time, Infusionsoft had 30 employees. Now their ranks have swelled to 140.
Clate Mask, the CEO, recalls that after about a year or so of offering the Nissan to the employee of the month, when they had a staff of about 75, everyone decided that they should put another vehicle into the mix, to increase the staff's odds of winning a free vehicle for a month. So they leased a Hummer to let employees drive, choosing the giant gas guzzler as a way to promote the company's values of being rugged go-getters, but Mask admits that in this increasingly energy-conscious world, "As things get greener, we may have to give a different prize."
Over the years, Mask says that they have offered different rewards to motivate the staff. Sometimes it's been a practical reward like upgrading the employee's health and dental benefits or offering a more generous life and disability plan. Other times, it's been focused on the quality of life issue -- like offering top performers a paid day-off and $500 in cash to go enjoy it. But it has been the car that really seems to get everyone excited, says Mask, who notes that they're on their second Nissan now, a
Nissan 370z.
"There are lots of reasons, legal and financial, why one could say this is a bad idea," admits Mask, who has a history of being something of a corporate trailblazer (early in his career, around the time he was getting his MBA in grad school, he sold a company to About.com in 1999 for $42 million). "Insurance questions, liability issues -- a whole bunch of different things to consider, but I'll tell you, it's been amazing how much publicity has come from it, and the perspective of the employees and potential employees who hear about it and think it's been great. It's derived a huge source of recognition and enthusiasm for the company, which makes the investors happy, and the CFO, and the attorneys."
As for some of those financial and liability issues, Mask concedes that the insurance for the Nissan and Hummer adds to the expense of these company perks, but he says, "The ROI is phenomenal."
As for concerns about liability, Mask says, "We have a really simple agreement that everyone signs, basically saying that they won't be stupid and won't hold us responsible for their actions if they are stupid."
But so far, in over three years of doing this, other than a minor fender bender, employees have taken care of their Nissan and Hummer as if it were their own. Not such a big surprise, though. After all, would you want to be the employee to have to tell the boss you wrapped his sports car around a telephone pole?
