Employee Incentive Program (EIP) is designed to recognize the achievements of an organization's individual members or of a team. Employees being human beings- have their own set of aspirations. Incentives provide them with the necessary drive to stretch themselves to reach that goal and that benefits the organization in the long run. EIPs primarily involve financial incentives, but quite a few times it is the recognition that outscores money as the primary motivator.

The foremost benefit provided by an EIP is that it promotes healthy competition amongst team members. When one person achieves the incentive, it eggs on the other members to try and achieve it. All strive for the incentive and irrespective of who emerges victorious, the organization is always benefited. EIP can be launched for teams too. As a consequence the understanding between the team increases leading to a more harmonious working environment. As the performance required for achieving the parameters that result in gaining the incentive requires increased focus and concentration, it leads to a drastic decrease in absenteeism amongst the employees. All of this adds up in favor of the organization and is reflected in the better performance achieved by the corporate entity.

While the incentive offered may vary, the point that it should be offered is strengthened by the fact that all forward thinking organizations are adopting it. Research has pointed out that today approximately about thirty five percent organizations are offering performance based incentives to their employees. The growing popularity of this trend is reflected in the fact that about twenty percent of high level executives have also been targeted by the EIP's. A research paper by the International Society of Performance Improvement has found out that the productivity of a single employee or a team can be enhanced by almost one fourth of their present levels of productivity by offering them incentives for their achievements.

Despite the EIP costing the organization some amount of money, it is more than made up for by the increased productivity and cost efficiency brought about by the employed personnel, in their attempt to gain the incentives. This makes EIP a worthy investment for all thinking corporate entities.