Incentive’s Platinum Treatment – top suppliers awarded at The Motivation Show

(September 25, 2008 ) – Last night, Incentive honored the top suppliers as voted by their readership at the 16th Annual Platinum Partner Awards. The ceremony took place on the 95th floor of the Hancock building with a spectacular view of Chicago on an impressively-clear evening. Starting the evening off was MetLife’s Tommy Lee Hayes-Brown, the company’s first recognition chairperson and a member of the board of directors for the Recognition Professionals International.

He is also the cover subject of Incentive’s September 2008 issue, and Hayes-Brown discussed his experiences as he developed from grudgingly accepting the role of recognition chairman for the company, reached out to the RPI team for insight on how to better perform his role, and went on to discover the substantial value that proper recognition of high-performing employees. He described his journey as gradually gaining a deeper appreciation for the importance of recognition and described how now the C-level executives are likely to see the proper motivation of employees as crucial to new initiatives they may be trying to roll out. Abandoning his notes, Hayes-Brown’s extemporaneous comments were well received by the audience, made up of top suppliers to the incentive industry.

Following the address, Incentive’s senior editor, Leo Jakobson, took the microphone and proceeded to honor this year’s Platinum Partners. Based on the votes cast by the 65,000 subscribers of Incentive, the Platinum Partner awards went to incentive suppliers “demonstrating excellence” in all three of the major incentive arenas of travel, merchandise and gift cards. The list of winners was lengthy and diverse, reflecting the industry’s broad offerings. Each winner received a plaque and photo opportunity and following the formalities of the evening, the crowd socialized late into the evening.

Look out for the October issue of Incentive for a complete list of winners and further coverage.