At Bank of America, travel incentives are not reserved for the corporate elite — top salespeople. Every one of the company's nearly 200,000 employees is eligible to qualify for recognition rewards that include incentive trips.

“Bank of America is totally focused on recognizing all of its associates,” says Kevin Cronin, senior vice president, recognition and rewards, when asked about BOA's five-part recognition and reward program. “Just as we take care of our shareholders, we also take care of our employees. It's a great way of rewarding associates who have demonstrated the core values so important to the company and the communities that we serve.”

According to Cronin, employee recognition at BOA starts at the most basic level. For example, team leaders start meetings by recognizing associates for their recent efforts, company executives often remind employees about the award programs for which they are eligible, and associates nominate peers for recognition and rewards when they have seen a job done well.

The Ticket? Travel

Every Bank of America employee is eligible for each of the five recognition and reward programs: Spirit Celebration Cards, Spirit Rewards, Spirit Medallions, Anniversary Awards, and the Spirit Award of Excellence. While each is valued, the Spirit Award of Excellence — essentially an incentive travel reward — is the most prestigious, and it “creates a tremendous amount of excitement among our associates,” says Cronin.

Only about 1 percent of the BOA work force wins this coveted award. Winners are selected yearly by the leadership teams from every line of business in the company, based on such factors as customer service excellence, productivity gains, and other criteria, depending on the associate's job responsibilities. They are flown to a number of resorts throughout the U.S. for a four-day recognition event.

The highlight of every Spirit Award of Excellence program is a teambuilding project. In 2006, award recipients attending a program at the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., participated in a “Build-a-Bike” project in which they assembled 200 bicycles and donated them to children living in a public housing development in Phoenix. As a company, Bank of America “is really focused on understanding how we impact the community,” says Cronin, both on an everyday basis and during incentive travel programs when groups visit different destinations. The use of a teambuilding event as a charitable endeavor, he adds, has a positive effect on both BOA employees and the local community.

Spirited Away to San Diego

Five of the most well-received Spirit of Excellence travel programs in 2007 were held in San Diego. Ranging in size from 550 to 1,100 attendees, the wave of programs began in early March and ran into May. Two were held at the Hotel del Coronado on the island of Coronado; the other three took place at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina. A total of more than 4,000 associates participated in the five programs.

Access San Diego Destination Services — which received its own Spirit Award of Excellence from BOA — designed the program content. On the third day of each trip, attendees were divided into teams of 15 to 20 people to participate in a “Big Red Wagon” community service/teambuilding project. The goal of each team was to work together to build a big red wagon from scratch. Participants were split into smaller subteams and given different tasks to help fulfill the mission. They modeled the wagons on the classic Radio Flyer and assembled a customized care package that fit into each one. The wagons and care packages were then donated to a number of local San Diego charities (such as the YMCA) that had been pre-selected by Bank of America.

Building a wagon is not as hard as it looks, although it required construction decisions such as determining the correct tire pressure and optimal placement of the wagon handle. Beyond the technical process, Access San Diego General Manager Jennifer Miller, DMCP, was particularly impressed with how the BOA attendees took teambuilding to another level.

“During the events, participants in each of the groups performed random acts of kindness for each other,” she says. Another example: One team started a “pay it forward” challenge where each member donated $10 to a particular charity and then challenged everyone else to contribute. With the bank matching each dollar contributed, the group raised more than $17,000 for charity within a half hour. According to Miller, bank execs were so pleased with the red wagon teambuilding activity that they went on to use it for recognition programs in Arizona and Miami.