According to Nolan (2010), the right incentive program can help with this process. Nolan (2010) reports that a motivated and goal-oriented staff is essential to any optometric practice, since staff / patient interaction accounts for about 70% of the patient's total time in the office. If the staff is not content, patients will not be treated appropriately and will look for eye-care services someplace else. Also, the cost of finding and training new staff members is much more costly than ongoing training and retaining activities. In addition, staff productivity significantly influences a practice's volume. Nolan (2010) therefore recommends a three-part incentive process: The first is to set annual financial goals for the practice, or else the staff will not be motivated to achieve them. In the fourth quarter, establish specific goals in attracting new patients and retaining present ones, revenue-per-patient, eye-wear sales and cash receipts. Second is to schedule a staff meeting before the beginning of the fiscal year to cover the budget, goals and projections. People will always support what they help create. Third, implement a financial incentive or bonus that 1) grows practice-collected cash receipts, 2) grows net income or 3) compensates staff to a percent of revenue. Nolan's practice used this approach and turned his practice into a five-day operation, with revenues increasing from $356,000 in 2003 to $432,000 in 2004. Nolan concludes that all staff incentive programs should be based on overall team performance. Instead of pitting one person or group against another, it is important to recognize the overall accomplishments and importance of all staff members (Nolan, 2010).

Opperman (2007) recommends a production-based compensation for associates in a veterinary practice. He says the higher earning potential almost always results in better...

By combining a guaranteed base salary with a percentage of production, it's a "win-win" situation: The associate cannot be paid any less than the established base, but is strongly motivated to offer a full-service approach -- bringing in increased income and offering better levels of care. Thus, this principle should be applied to an entire healthcare team. All employees should be vested in the practice's success and share in the economic rewards. Opperman (2007) adds that most incentive programs are flawed, so it is important to have a program that 1) establishes exact evaluation criteria that can be controlled by the team and communicate it to all team members; 2) measures all team members for their involvement; 3) regularly informs everyone of the practice's success in attaining financial goals; 4) bases rewards on the achievement of the goal and each person's results.
Although traditional employee incentive programs are popular, which range from sales commissions and other pay-by-performance jobs to more individual-specific programs, but most of these programs are not effective. Ben & Jerry's, as well as other companies have found ways of taking the best aspects of these incentive programs and incorporating other factors that make them successful.