and can be exchanged for meals at popular restaurants and clothes and even jewellery and other accessories at premium lifestyle stores. An HDFC Bank executive who deals with auto loans says the trend to award individuals with holidays abroad began about three years ago. Local destinations don't hold as much charm, he says. "Southeast Asia is a popular destination as it makes for a short, fun-oriented and cheap vacation," he told IANS. Having been to Bangkok recently, he agrees that such trips help boost motivation levels. "These cannot be traded for cash incentives either, as those would carry a lower psychological value and will not have an impact in terms of bonding, team building and quality of the job." Agrees an executive of Ceat Tyres, where performance-based incentives are given from the manager level onwards. "The company even gives us dollars to spend while on holiday." Besides the U.S., Singapore is a popular destination among employees, he says. However, very few are blessed with such incentives. "Last year, only about five got lucky," he says. He adds that these tours were earlier offered to dealers who worked for the company and were later extended to include the staff. Saurabh Karnik, who handles incentive tours for Select Travels, sends out about 300 people on an average every month. "The groups mostly consist of dealers and a fewer number of employees," he says. The Far East and Europe are popular destinations, he says, adding that the trend has picked up in the last couple of years. Sodexho, a company set up in 1995, provides meal and gift vouchers to nearly 2,000 companies in 76 Indian cities, which can be exchanged in over 8,000 food shops across India or at over 4,000 lifestyle outlets. "The trend has caught on in the last three years," says Vinod Narula, manager, special projects, Sodexho. "The value of the vouchers is between 200,000 and 3 million on an average," he adds. The company provides the public sector unit, Airports Authority of India, with meal vouchers worth 10 million, the ICICI Bank with gift vouchers of 10 million and Coca-Cola with gift vouchers worth 8 million annually. Its list of clients includes banks like ABN-AMRO, Bank of America, HSBC and Standard Chartered, besides software giant WIPRO, Samsung, Motorola, GE, Reliance and hotels like the Hyatt and The Metropolitan. While the trend is seen mostly in the metros, there are companies in smaller cities like Meerut, Ghaziabad and Bareilly using the service as well, says Narula, to reward employees. "As good as cash," says the company website.
Source: IANS