News update – NCP recognises the need to lock in staff

NCP has introduced a recognition scheme to reward traffic wardens for good performance after it won a new parking contract.

The parking firm, which was contracted by Lancashire County Council to provide parking enforcement teams from September, launched the scheme to give top attendants points that they can redeem against products from high street store Argos.

Andrew Bradley, NCP contract manager for Lancashire County Council, says the rewards are given for “extra work, beyond the call of duty”.

He said: “Everyone’s got an Argos card and the [points] are put onto their card. So if they have 20 points, it’s like £20 and they can either use that against a purchase or use it in full.”

Every month, line managers nominate attendants who have made an impact, but the value of points awarded varies.

“Some people get 20 points, some people get 50 points. It’s not a set thing – it can vary according to what the situation is,” said Bradley.

The firm has 100 employees working in the area’s city and town centre car parks.

Bradley said the scheme is getting off to a good start: “The contract’s only just started so it’s only early days and we’re only starting to come to nominations, but, it’s normally generally accepted that [the retail vouchers] do go down quite well.”

He added that employees like the scheme because “it recognises them in their roles and they’re recognised by their line managers”.

Bradley added that the number of employees able to take part in the recognition scheme could change each month.

He said that it is not easy to predict how many traffic wardens would get the Argos points each month, or how many points they would get, because this would be directly determined by their performance.

“It varies; it’s not as easy to predict [how many employees are eligible each month] as that. You can’t say who would and who wouldn’t,” said Bradley.