What do successful companies have in common? Satisfied employees, loyal customers, good growth and high revenues, according to the Incentive Research Foundation. The IRF recently completed research and published a white paper that describes the characteristics and prime differentiators of top-performing companies.

In the IRF Incentive Benchmarking Survey, top performers were required to excel in three categories: customer focus, revenue generation and employee focus. Of the more than 900 companies reviewed, just over 300 organizations made the cut. What do those companies do differently than all other businesses regarding non-cash rewards and recognition? Quite a bit, it turns out. 

Not only are top-performing companies statistically much more likely to use their non-cash rewards and recognition programs to reward their salespeople (90 percent), employees (88 percent) and channel partners (81 percent), they also think about, design and support their programs differently than average-performing businesses. 

Aside from using non-cash rewards, top-performing companies as defined by the latest research with Intellective Group needed to have four important characteristics: 

  • High Revenues: $100 million or more in revenue
  • Good Growth:Greater than five-percent revenue growth or stock price growth
  • Excellent Customer Ratings: Greater than 90-percent customer retention orgreater than 90- percent customer satisfaction and greater than five-percent new customer acquisition rate
  • Excellent Employee Ratings: Greater than 90-percent employee satisfaction ratings orgreater than 90-percent employee retention, and less than 10-percent top-performing employee turnover year over year. 

To learn more about the distinctions these companies exhibit, read the white paper here.