Employee Contest at MortgageIT

Summary:

When MortgageIT opened in the Portland market office moral was high. Every employee was excited and the office was full of energy.  There were bonuses to be made every month! The office was constantly outperforming the prior month. Month end was a celebration. The corporate office would send us a BannerGram thanking us. It would hang on the wall until it was replaced the next month!

Each month it became harder to outperform the previous month. After 11 months we reached the pinacle of our success as an office. we still were doing well but out performing that 11th month started to fade away and seem unreachable.  The excitement started to fade away. You could see a shift in the office moral people started to work slower, they would not come into the office as early every day. They did not want to stay late. Breaks became more frequent and longer. 

As an account Executive at MortgageIT my success depended on the office staff. Wanting to motivate them to work quickly and accurately so that I could continue to offer great customer service to my clients, I proposed to the office manager that we have a monthly contest.

Details:

• Staff would receive prizes through a drawing held at the end of the month.
• Each staff member was able to earn tickets into the drawing based on a set of tasks.
• Only account executives could award tickets.
• Account executives paid for the prizes.
• Office staff could nominate others for tickets by writing up a comment and entering it in one of many containers place throughout the office. 
• Each morning the account executives would meet, read the comments from the containers and award staff tickets.

Achievements: 

• Improved office moral.
• Increased production month over month.
• Staff showed an increased sense of urgency. 
• The customer service and care of our clients improved.
• The contest proved to be a great motivational tool to spark new excitement into the office.
• Account executives showed more attention to office staff. 
• Staff became aware that Account Executives realized how important they were to the success of the office.