The Above and Beyond Foundation Hero Awards at Motivation Excellence

The Above and Beyond Foundation Hero Awards at Motivation Excellence

Two Motivation Excellence Employees Get First Agency “Heroes of Hospitality” Awards!

It’s with great pleasure and pride we announce that The Above and Beyond Foundation awarded two Heroes of Hospitality awards to two of our teammates at Motivation Excellence! They are the first winners awarded this honor at a travel and incentive agency. Past winners have come from hotels and destination management companies. 

Let’s meet our winners! Susan Rizzi is a Customer Service Specialist who works daily with our clients’ participants who need assistance redeeming their award points for just about anything. Susan has helped people use their points for engagement rings, complicated travel reservations and home improvement projects, to name just a few. What makes Susan really stand out is her willingness to work outside business hours to make sure her participants get the personal and high-touch service they earned through their incentive programs. Oh, and her sparkling personality goes a long way too!

Our second winner, Tina Roszak, is part of our travel team as a Program Manager. Tina was recently assigned a travel program to manage with only a few months turnaround time. Normally, our travel teams have well over a year to plan and execute a program. She led the way for a successful program in less-than-ideal circumstances. Tina’s always positive and can-do attitude really stands out in every program she manages!

If you’re up for a feel-good, tear-inducing video, watch both of our winners get the surprise announcement at a recent company-wide event right here. 

The Above and Beyond Foundation started four years ago as a way to reward frontline hospitality workers and help them achieve their professional and personal growth goals. During the pandemic, it became a lifeline to industry workers who were laid off or had their hours drastically reduced. Motivation Excellence sourced and delivered $500 gift cards for TAABF to award to those who applied for assistance. There are three awards available through the foundation: Heart of Hospitality, Heroes of Hospitality and Helping Hospitality. 

We value our partnership with this great industry organization. We are truly honored to be the first travel and incentive agency to award two of our employees! 

Using Competition to Sharpen Your Edge

Yes, some people can be too competitive. It can be seen as a turn-off. This blog, however, is going to give reasons why competition, when done in a healthy manner, is great for business and personal growth.

Competition as a Motivator

OxygenMag.com says competition actually helps boost our capacity to learn and thrive. In addition, it’s a great motivator. We see the latter to be especially true in many of our Motivation Excellence programs. Whether the reward is an amazing group travel experience or a points-based program where earners can spend those points on almost anything they desire, programs with leaderboards amp up the excitement and the results. 

Pat Benninger, one of our Senior Program Managers, works with our clients and their participants daily. In one program, where a major flooring company’s channel distributors were competing for a group travel award to a brand-new resort in Mexico, Benninger says the competition increased engagement.

“I had participants sending me emails regularly checking their sales to make sure they were ranking correctly. Did it increase competition? Yes!”

Shannon O’Shaughnessy, another Senior Program Manager, agrees, saying recognizing top performers publicly is a great result of using leaderboards in her programs. But there are many other benefits for her clients. 

“We can do a lot of cool things with leaderboards, such as filtering and toggles to show different leaderboard views based on participant type, company, hierarchy levels or other tracking elements. This competitive information helps our clients’ sales teams utilize customer information and help spur more competition among them.”

One final example of using competition in the incentive world comes from a longtime client in the fencing industry who shared that during the last month of a program period his sales team gets calls daily from their customers looking not only for their rank on the leaderboard but how close they are to taking over the spot above them. The reward for this group is an all-expense paid travel experience with other high-achieving fencing contractors around the country. Top-notch entertainment, access to the executive team and valued vendors all add to the incredible reward. 

Keeping it Friendly

As stated earlier, there are some people who see competition with dingy dismay colored glasses. Bustle.com writes that when it comes to your career though, some healthy competition can take you a long way. They list seven ways to be more competitive in the workplace, without being a jerk (so important!). Among them are using competition to push yourself out of your comfort zone and figuring out what makes you different from your most inspirational coworker. 

Back in the OxygenMag.com article mentioned earlier, the author suggests four steps to employ to keep the challenge fun and friendly.

1. Pre-plan: spell out the rules, timeline and touchpoints
2. Pick the prize: does the winner get something special?
3. Track your progress: the challenge should be pushing you toward some goal
4. Reality check: don’t be afraid to reassess and reframe the competition if it’s getting too hard, or a lost friendship might be in the balance

It’s Not About Coming in First

I know, that seems a bit counterintuitive, but you can be in a competition and not place all the emphasis on winning. The goal should be to beat yourself. Outperform your last quarter’s sales. Run a mile in less time. Give out more compliments this month. 

Quite simply, you may end up in a competition where the natural talent of your competitors will always outscore you. That’s when you really need to look at personal improvement over comparisons to others. As long as you are moving ahead, you’re winning! Even if you come in 2^nd, 3^rd or dead last…if you improved over the last result, you’ve used competition to your advantage. 

Competition drives us to be better. It helps businesses innovate and individuals meet goals. Whether you’re going up against colleagues, friends or yourself, being in a competitive challenge keeps you motivated and helps ward off complacency. Even if you’ve never thought that being competitive is part of your natural genes, start implementing some of the strategies you’ve read here and see how they work for you!

Get to Know ME with Jillian Fehrenbach

Jillian Fehrenbach is a multi-talented hobbyist and a very helpful member of the Motivation Excellence team! In this month’s Get to Know ME edition, you can read below, and watch her video, to learn more about her love of a very specific literary genre, her nickname (the Junk Store Witch) and why she loves collaborating at home and work. Thanks, Jillian for letting us get to know you better!

What’s your title and how long have you been in the incentive industry and Motivation Excellence?

I’m a Customer Service Specialist with some of our rewards programs and also assist with writing marketing content. I have worked in the incentive industry for VIKTOR since 2016, and recently began with Motivation Excellence beginning in January 2022. 

What does your job entail?

For our clients, I help administer their reward and recognition programs, and for their participants, I assist with orders. I also write incentive travel and social media copy.

What’s something special about the people you work with you’d like to share?

I’ve enjoyed meeting more coworkers as our two companies came together. What I like about our new combined team is that the individuals that make up this group are approachable and professional. Whether working together or autonomously, the vibe is positive/flexible/reliable, which makes the job even more satisfying.

What’s an unknown or odd talent you have?

I’m really into vintage things and a pretty good ‘picker’ at thrift stores and garage sales. Before I head out to shop, friends and family have gotten into the habit of asking what I hope to find. They know I’ll usually find it and for just a buck or two. Being able to summon a Bodum milk frother or cultured pearls, for example, at secondhand stores has earned me the nickname “Junk Store Witch.” 

What motivates you to accomplish things in your life (work or personal)?

I’m very visual and I like to collaborate. When I look at something, I immediately think about how to elevate it and contribute value. Helping coworkers, customers, clients, family and friends brings me joy, especially if I’m easing someone’s load.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

You mean other than thrifting? Gardening! During the spring, summer and fall, I enjoy spending my free time in the yard and at my friend’s flower farm, weeding the rows and building bouquets to sell. I also love to collect books, knit with friends, and cook from scratch.

One thing that always makes you laugh is?

Goofy personalities! My husband’s wise-cracking keeps me laughing, as do my favorite funny shows: I Love Lucy, Drunk History, Derry Girls and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

What have you done that helped you get through the pandemic?

I set up an Etsy shop and joined the online community of resale marketers. I had always wanted to sell my vintage finds and found that photographing and writing about them was a nice distraction during the pandemic. 

What is the most unusual job you’ve ever had?

I was a print catalog writer for a large Christian retail chain. Following a fast-paced daily schedule, I worked with merchandise buyers, vendors and designers to conceptualize, write, and proofread bi-monthly product catalogs. It was collaboration on steroids!

This month, our theme for social media is about leadership – both being one and teaching someone else to be a leader. What aspects of leadership do you utilize?

As a mom of an adult child and a teenager, I see similarities between parenting and workplace leadership. I have learned the importance of being present and empathic no matter where I am or who I’m with. I think of a leader as someone who stays positive and encouraging while navigating change. I see a lot of value in finding constructive ways to handle stress. I try to start with a plan based in collaboration while being ready for anything. Currently, I am helping my teenage daughter learn about leadership choices she can make as she takes on her first job and volunteers in the community.

Congratulations, You’re a Leader, Now Teach Others to be the Same!

There are people who, perhaps, are “born leaders,” but that doesn’t make them great leaders, nor does it leave everyone else out of the game. While personality can go a long way, anyone with the determination to learn leadership skills can have great success, and in turn, pass those skills off to a new group of eager learners. 

Qualities of great leaders include:

• Thirst for lifelong learning
• High level of integrity
• Empathy
• Ability to delegate
• Trustworthy
• Self-awareness

The Center of Creative Leadership adds great communication skills into their list of ten leadership traits. Being able to coach someone, inspire them, and create a level of trust relies greatly on a leader’s ability to communicate and listen effectively. (Check out our Active Listening blog next.)

Once you become a leader, it’s time to teach the skills you’ve honed (or are always honing, to be more honest) to other people in your realm—at work, in community organizations, on sports teams, etc. 

Lead the Way

In a business sense, having a company full of people with leadership abilities is amazing! That’s where innovation and problem solving come to life. Having employees who “think like an owner” creates positive customer experiences. Employees who aren’t micromanaged feel more respected and are more engaged with company goals. As long as egos stay in check, leaders at every level can serve a business well. 

Famed motivational speaker and author, Tony Robbins, says teaching leadership includes instilling both hard and soft skill sets. The goal is to help amplify strengths and improve weaknesses. He writes about seven strategies to teach leadership, including:

• Earning trust – People won’t come to you in the first place if they don’t trust you’ll listen, show respect and give guidance rather than dictates. 
• Challenging employees – Hand out new projects with opportunities to succeed or fail. You’ll see who rises to the challenge, learns from mistakes, and comes back for more.
• Building an open culture – Create a culture that encourages questions and communication, not one where people fear speaking up will end in embarrassment or retribution.

Obviously, leading by example is critical too. Display your best leadership abilities, and if you falter, call it out or apologize if needed. Everyone makes mistakes. Owning those mistakes and learning from them are hallmarks of great leaders! 

The World Is Our Best Teacher

Encouraging employees (or students or your kids) to get out in the community is a great way for them to learn leadership skills outside of work, school, or home. Indeed says volunteering teaches a core tenant of leadership: helping people.  Whether they’re assisting at a homeless shelter, coaching a youth soccer club, or participating in scouts or a church group, people who volunteer are learning compassion and kindness. Those are two more traits of great leaders.

Another way to use the community as a resource is to have your leadership mentee pick a leader they really admire and study that person. It can be someone famous or not. Have your “student” list out why this person is a good leader and apply some of those traits to their own situation. Are there traits they’d change or improve? How can they use one new leadership trait that day?

Follow to Lead

Teaching leadership is an ongoing process. Learning how to be a leader is too. Setting goals, checking in with a mentor, and being persistent in the face of setbacks are all good checkpoints to becoming a leader and teaching the next person in line. Few people become great at anything without consistent effort. 

As was stated earlier in this blog, good leaders are always honing their skills. One way to do that is to step back and become a follower every so often. Forbes published an article online on “followership” and the importance for leaders to be followers too—as challenging as it might be. A leader who can follow gains knowledge of other leadership styles, traits, and perspectives. They also see if what they’ve been teaching is working. It’s a great circle of discovery, growth, and measurement!

Active Listening is a Full Body Exercise

Active listening might not get your heart rate up like cardio, or increase muscle mass like weight lifting, but it definitely helps build your character and stretch your mind. From keeping eye contact to recognizing your body language, being a good active listener is a full-body exercise. 

Why Active Listening is Important

The Center for Creative Leadership touts active listeners as leaders who:

• establish trust with their employees and coworkers
• have greater empathy
• coach their people more effectively
• gain the respect of those around them

Developing active listening skills can create many positive reactions at work, at home, and in social situations. People who are open to truly hearing another person’s message, even if it’s contrary to their own beliefs, cultivate a myriad of other strong character attributes like broad-minded thinking, valuing inclusivity, being a life-long learner, and engaging a flexible mindset. These are all topics we’ve written about in our professional and personal growth blog series on Motivation Excellence.com. 

Active listeners make more informed decisions. They are able to reiterate the speaker’s message without coloring it with their own personal viewpoint. They are seen as fair leaders who make an effort to better understand someone’s situation. These are all highly valued character traits in any person, but especially company leadership.

Listen Up! Here’s How

If you want to start on the path of being a better listener, there are plenty of techniques to employ right away.

We developed a MEme to help get things started: 

Eye Contact – focus on the speaker

Attention – put down your phone, don’t multi-task

Respect – be open to the message and the speaker

Silence – don’t interrupt the message; show supportive body language

The final step is to repeat the message and ask clarifying questions so both you and the speaker agree you’re on the same page with sentiment, semantics, and context.

The exercise of active listening should be a positive one for both the listener and the speaker.  VeryWellMind.com wraps it up like this:

“It is the process of listening attentively while someone else speaks, paraphrasing and reflecting back what is said, and withholding judgment and advice.”

You Can Do this Exercise Anywhere

Active listening skills can be employed anywhere! And, just like physical exercises, the more you flex these skills, the stronger they—and you—become. Try it out at the grocery store, with your spouse, at a party, and especially at work. People have important things to say. Be the person who hears them and you’ll find yourself becoming a stronger friend, colleague, and community member.

Keeping Your Company Culture Healthy – Here’s the Rx!

Image credit: Priscilla Du Preez, Unsplash

We hear a lot about company culture these days. It’s becoming an increasingly important part of hiring and retaining top talent. GreatPlacetoWork.com points out Millennials are 11x more likely to leave a toxic work environment than Gen Xers. But, it’s not company-sponsored happy hours that create an impressive culture at work, although many would consider them a bonus! A positive and attractive company culture is about a community of people who share beliefs, work ethics, values, goals, and expected behaviors. 

“When I cut through all the noise about company culture, it is all about the environment created in the company that fosters behavior. Culture is your values in actions,” says John Trakselis, Business and Executive Coach and Chairperson with Vistage, International.

Symptoms of an Unhealthy Company Culture

• High turnover of employees
• Employees can’t state the company’s values
• Leadership fails to model company values
• Unhealthy work-life balance
• Poor communication efforts throughout the company
• Bad work practices build up
• Employees regularly feel the need for a mental health break

For Trakselis, a company’s culture is rooted in its values or lack thereof. If a company’s values are convoluted, not written in common sense terms, or can’t be demonstrated through desired behaviors, then they’re likely not contributing positively to the work environment.

“The second thing that I look at is the company’s principles or code of conduct. You obviously have some sort of behavior going on in the company. Is that behavior consistent with the company’s stated values?

Here are two interesting questions to ask company employees:

• Can you list the company’s values? 
• How does the company live out each one of its values?

This is not about embarrassing someone. It is more about how ingrained a particular value is by the specific behaviors witnessed in the company. The height of hypocrisy is to say one thing and do another. This destroys leadership’s credibility with its employees,” states Trakselis.

The Cure Takes Time, but It’s Worth It

All of the unhealthy examples above can be cured; that’s great news! It will take time, commitment, and action by company leaders. Trakselis says leaders need to step up at every level. 

“It always starts with leadership—at every level of the organization. One definition of a leader that I like: ‘You are a leader if you influence someone else.’ It is not only top management, but every level of management in the company that sets the tone for behavior.”

This linked Forbes article gives ideas on ways to create a positive culture. Tips include demonstrating respect, having a customer-first attitude and do-it-now work ethic. 

Trakselis says building a better culture can start with your next hire. Make sure the talent will mesh well AND even boost the culture with his or her shared values. Other tips to consider:

• Reward positive behaviors that highlight stated values – share them publicly 
• Discipline the bad ones, privately, and offer constructive advice on how to change behavior
• Repeat company values often in meetings, events, departments
• Survey the personnel to get a read on the working environment, follow-up regularly
• Listen to understand, not to argue or interrupt
• Address subcultures that undermine the culture you have created in the company
• Encourage humility, curiosity, and teamwork

We recently asked our LinkedIn followers to give us insight into their most valued element of company culture. The overwhelming answer was having a positive work environment. Having your employees want to show up each day, contribute positively and achieve company goals is positive company culture 101!

Keeping the Culture Healthy

Continuing to foster a great company culture requires active check-ups, tweaks, and perhaps a shot in the arm now and then. Be sure to look at how you reward and recognize the people who help create the culture you desire. According to Alta Metrics, not using incentives for your best performers can lead to a toxic environment. If you need any advice on this aspect of company culture, please visit our website, MotivationExcellence.com. We help a wide variety of companies Inspire Extraordinary Performance every day!

Here are a few final thoughts from our passionate advocate this month, John Trakselis. He wants to drive home the fact that a great company culture leads to success on many levels. 

• “A positive culture creates trust in the company and, as Stephen R. M. Covey pointed out in his book titled The Speed of Trust, the company thrives because there is more “flow” and less resistance.

• People have a sense of belonging and being part of something bigger than themselves, thereby reaching more of their potential while serving the company and themselves in much bigger ways.
• The company is more likely to achieve its mission, go where it wants to go, service its stakeholders, and promote standards of excellence.”

Now, it’s time to get to work. Even if you think your culture is AOK, be sure to take its temperature now and then to maintain a healthy environment. 

Motivation Excellence Wins Prestigious SITE Crystal Award

For Immediate Release

Motivation Excellence Wins Prestigious SITE Crystal Award

The “Oscars” of the incentive travel industry, the Society for Incentive Travel Excellence’s Crystal Awards, recognize companies that accomplish outstanding creative and memorable experiences. SITE honored six companies at their global conference in Dublin this year. 

“This is an incredibly special group of Crystal Award winners,” said Kevin Edmunds, MS, CITP, Vice President, AIC Hotel Group & SITE President. “They are all leaders in our industry, with the programs we recognized at this year’s Crystal Awards Gala standing out as shining examples of incentive travel programs being run smoothly and safely that still achieve the exacting, incredibly high business aims all of us set out to deliver.”

Motivation Excellence won for Most Creative Solution Deployed at a Time of Crisis for our program “GEM Club 2020: From Kauai to Concierge.” Our longtime healthcare client postponed two years’ worth of incentive travel experiences due to COVID, with the first year slated to be a rewarding adventure on Kauai in Hawaii. 

At our direction, our client converted the travel experience to award points for each winner. Our team then crafted a virtual reward experience allowing the winners’ imaginations to decide how best to exemplify their achievements. Dedicated in-house concierge shoppers helped each participant use their points for highly individualized selections. Winners redeemed for things like a bucket-list electric guitar, diamond jewelry, home solar panels, future personal travel, vacation home rental, and private school tuition. 

In addition, the on-site gift experiences scheduled for Kauai were offered online so winners could still enjoy selecting a pair of Olukai sandals and REVO sunglasses. This entire creative solution was so well-received, our client repeated it in 2021 with new virtual gifting experiences. 

“Being honored within the industry with the SITE Crystal Award means a great deal to our team! We work to Inspire Extraordinary Performance with every client and every participant. But it starts within our own company. We appreciate this recognition as it truly shows the care and passion we value internally and produce externally. Thank you SITE,” said David Jobes, President and CEO of Motivation Excellence. 

As a final bonus, throughout this transition from travel experiences to personalized rewards, our travel team worked closely with our hotel and supplier partners to rebook future stays and nearly eliminate all cancelation fees for our client. 

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Encouraging Volunteering at Work Pays Off for Your Business!

Community involvement is a big deal at Motivation Excellence. At both our office locations, in Schaumburg, IL, and Traverse City, MI, our company sponsors volunteer activities several times a year AND allows employees to take two days off a year to help a favorite cause on their own. This call to community action comes right from the top with President and CEO David Jobes, and former owner of VIKTOR Incentives, now Motivation Excellence, Mark Bondy. 

Why Volunteering through Work Matters

If you’re not sure why encouraging volunteerism at work matters, read on! According to a study from Deloitte, employers who encourage volunteering among their staff see boosted morale, improved office environments, and enhanced brand perception. Here are some more interesting stats:

• 89% of employees think organizations that sponsor volunteer activities offer a better overall working environment
• 70% believe volunteering efforts are better at boosting staff morale than company-sponsored happy hours
• 75%+ say volunteering is critical to employee well-being

Business News Daily recently did a nice breakdown of the Deloitte survey with great takeaways on how volunteering helps employees and companies at the same time.

Benefits for Employees: 

• A happy employee means a more productive employee, who is excited to go to work
• Increases camaraderie with coworkers and builds teamwork

Advantages for Companies:

• Younger employees, especially, want to feel good about the company they work for and social responsibility plays a big role in attracting top talent
• Active volunteers tend to become leaders at work too
• Positive community recognition of your company’s brand is powerful

How to Get Your Volunteer Program Going

If the reasons above have you excited about starting or expanding your work-based volunteer program, there are many ways to begin. With so many deserving charities in each community, you can start by polling your employees to see what their favorite causes are. Here are some other easy steps to take on the journey to community involvement:

• Connect with your local government office to see what the greatest needs are
• Schedule time during a workday to inspire  your employees to get involved with the selected effort
• Take photos and share them with the office – even print some out to remind people of the positive influence they had outside of work
• Share your efforts on social media and encourage your followers to suggest an idea for your next volunteer day
• Encourage employees to share with the team when they volunteer outside of work
• Incorporate participation in your employee rewards program

Examples to Use

Still feeling stuck about how to help and where to start? Motivation Excellence has a long history of promoting volunteerism – take some of our efforts and make them your own, we don’t mind!

• Our Traverse City group is involved in the Michigan Department of Transportation Adopt-a-Highway program. 
• In Schaumburg, we spent an afternoon working at the local Feed My Starving Children branch, making nutrition packets for food-deprived regions of the world
• One year, at our summer company-wide event, we designed a scavenger hunt for teams of employees to find essentials needed for the homeless in our area and then stuffed them into tube socks – to benefit Journeys – The Road Home
• We have a history of volunteering at the beverage tent each July at the National Cherry Festival held in Traverse City, MI  – a 90-year tradition that builds up and supports our waterfront community
• Using our two charity days off a year, our employees have individually helped out at school fundraisers, animal rescue groups, JDRF efforts, youth education events, cream puff assembly for charity and so much more
• In our office, we made tied-edge fleece blankets for kids with cancer and hand-made holiday cards for active military
• Our Snack for Charity initiative raises money for a different organization each month – at $1 per snack, we end up donating anywhere from $25 to $100 a month
• Many of our employees are active industry volunteers as well, for foundations like SITE and The Above and Beyond Foundation
• Each Thanksgiving and Christmas, we adopt several families, providing food and presents to help make the holidays a little better for those in need
• Another summer event saw us creating cards and care packages for cancer patients at Phil’s Friends
• We work closely with Ingage Unlimited, helping with their fundraisers and offering their charity as a donation option for award points programs

This is a small sampling of what we do to give back to our communities; now it’s your turn. Whether you want to use volunteering as a team bonding experience, or offer days off so employees can bring outside enrichment into the office, encouraging community involvement is a great way to build a cohesive work community, positively impact your surroundings, bolster a strong office culture, create new leaders and promote your brand. 

So get out there and make a difference! April is National Volunteer Month, but you can celebrate all year long.

Destination Spotlight: Fairmont Canada

In this month’s edition of our Mission Engage Destination Spotlight series, we’re sharing information on what makes Fairmont properties in Canada’s rugged Western Mountain Region so special for group travel experiences. Fairmont is one of the luxury brands in the Accor line-up of properties.

The four properties we’re highlighting are Chateau Lake Louise, Chateau Whistler, Jasper Park Lodge, and Banff Springs. All offer luxurious accommodations and, perhaps, even grander surroundings! Wild animals, majestic mountains, sparkling lakes, and some of the best outdoor activities (in all seasons) will spark the adventurer in you and your travel incentive participants. 

As of April 1, 2022, visitors into Canada no longer need to obtain a pre-entry COVID test; however, proof of vaccination is still required. The ArriveCan mobile app walks tourists through the steps of entry. For up-to-date information regarding travel rules for Canada, you can visit www.Travel.GC.CA.

Now, take 20 minutes to watch our friends from Accor, Isabel Mahon and Dion Kiernan, give updates on the Fairmont properties and passionately discuss the four beautiful locations in the mighty Western Canadian mountains. 

Get to Know ME with Michael Southerton

Join us this month, in our Get to Know ME segment, learning more about Michael Southerton. He’s been a lifer with VIKTOR, now Motivation Excellence, and has some serious indoor and outdoor abilities to share! Read below, and be sure to watch the linked video to hear more about what makes Michael a great member of our team. Thanks, Michael for letting us get to know you better. 

What’s your title and how long have you been in the incentive industry?

Senior Developer.

I started working with VIKTOR Incentives & Meetings under an internship as a graphic designer in the summer of 2006 before my senior year of college at Northern Michigan University. I continued to work on small projects through my senior year, and I was hired full-time when I graduated in 2007. Almost sixteen years later, I’m proud to still be in this industry and joining Motivation Excellence with the rest of the VIKTOR team.

What does your job entail?

At its core, problem-solving. Sometimes the best code is no code at all. But I specialize in website design and frontend development, and I’ve always been involved in the full stack of web development. That’s led me to build and maintain a lot of websites and applications that help manage the large amount of data required to operate travel and rewards programs and the systems they run on. I also provide technical support to our staff and assist with technical infrastructure, along with the rest of our awesome Tech Team.

What’s something special about the people you work with you’d like to share?

As a technical person, who on occasion, has experienced the frontlines of service on our group travel programs, I’m constantly blown away by the level of detail and coordination that our Client Services team juggles while delivering our large group travel programs. There are a lot of moving parts to get thousands of participants on-site, each with their own custom itinerary and requirements, and the smallest details can change quickly. Even with the best technology, it takes an amazing team of talented people to get your head around it all and successfully operate a large travel program with events that are happening all around you.

What’s an unknown or odd talent you have?

I play table tennis locally in Traverse City at the Northern Michigan Table Tennis Club, and I have competed in Michigan’s state tournaments.

What motivates you to accomplish things in your life (work or personal)?

I’ve always enjoyed improving efficiencies, for both timesaving and convenience. Whether I’m installing home automation systems to automatically turn on my lights and unlock my front door when I arrive, or I’m redesigning a user flow in one of our web applications so that it takes 1 click instead of 5 to accomplish the same task, I really like making things as simple and easy to use as possible.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

My fiancé and I like to take our kayaks to as many different small lakes in Northern Michigan as we can find. We like to explore, fish, and sometimes just soak up the sun.

One thing that always makes you laugh is?

The Detroit Lions. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cry. But, I’ll always watch and support them. Next year is our year.

What have you done that helped you get through the pandemic?

I hate to speak so nicely of a time that was so hard on many others, but personally, I thrived. My fiancé and I are homebodies, so that part was no problem; we caught up on a lot of TV shows. But we also became healthier; we cooked at home and ate better, and we got outdoors more often than we’ve ever done before. We were hiking, running, and biking all the trails by my house, and we were kayaking almost every weekend when the weather was good.

What is the most unusual job you’ve ever had?

This one! Before I started here 15 years ago, I had never heard of the incentive travel industry. As someone who was once looking for any available job after college to start my career in web development and user experience design, I never imagined I could be building digital solutions for live events used all over the world, not to mention personally traveling to some of these amazing locations to watch them come alive and support their success. It’s led to some pretty incredible experiences I could not imagine having while working web development in another industry.

This month, our theme for social media is about volunteering. How does this speak to you either personally or professionally?

Our company has offered a lot of different opportunities that made it easy to volunteer over the years: we’ve worked the counter of our local non-profit movie theater, we helped our local City Opera House build their green room, but the most memorable is our stretch of road we clean each Spring and Fall through the Adopt-A-Highway program. It is located on Traverse City’s Old Mission Peninsula, and we get a gorgeous view of the local wineries and Grand Traverse Bay as we walk it and keep it looking great.