For many years, real estate organizations have used competitions in an attempt to improve short-term recruiting results.
Sometimes these competitions are successful, but most of the time they fail.
Why? According to community expert, Rich Millington, it doesn’t have to do with recruiting, your company, or the incentives.
Most competitions fail because of their design.
When competitions are done well, they drive the behavior you want and bring people closer together.
When they’re done badly, they incentivize poor behavior, cheating, and drive people apart.
Here are three of Rich’s ideas to make your next recruiting competition more successful:
1. Increase the size of the prize with each new participant/entry.
2. Don’t have just one winner—ensure the top x% of participants win a prize regardless of the number of entries (ex. top 5%).
3. Make it a collaborative challenge—encourage participants to form teams to enter and solve the problem together.
It takes extra effort and creativity to design a more effective competition, but it’s time and energy well-spent.
If you’re not truly incentivizing the behaviors that contribute to the overall goal, what’s the point?