Rewarding your team for reading is what makes the BetterBookClub program truly special. That extra incentive can really help drive participation and engagement with your team. Before you roll out the book club to your company, you’ll need to establish your point system and how team members will be rewarded.

In this guide, we'll cover:

The BetterBookClub program can essentially be summed up in three words: Read, Report, Reward. So, what does this actually look like in practice? It’s simple:

While you can customize your own point system, we typically recommend a 0-100 point scale in 25 point increments. No matter what you decide, just keep it simple and consistent. The key is making it easy for your employees to understand.

Note: You can choose the point value when you add a book to the Library and edit the point value of titles already in the library.

There are no hard and fast rules for choosing a point value for a given title, but typically books are 'ranked' by length, complexity, relevance, and/or importance. In a nutshell, books that are longer, more complex, or more relevant to your industry have a higher point value.

Here’s an example of what this could look like in practice:

Tip: For books on your physical bookshelf, label the inside cover with its point value for easy reference. You can also add your company logo to the label as a means to show ownership of the book.
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In order to earn points after reading a book, team members need to submit a book report for their Champion to approve. Book reports are comprised of a series of questions that members fill out in order to earn points. Completed reports are sent to the Champion, who will either approve or decline the report.

Note: Team members can only earn points for reading a title after the report is approved.

Book reports serve two main purposes:

We provide default questions that come pre-loaded for your book reports. You also have the ability to add, edit, or delete the questions to better fit your book club.

To edit book report questions, hover your mouse over the gear icon in the top right corner and click on Define Report Questions.

Note: Book reports are one size fits all, meaning that members fill out the same report for every book. For this reason, it’s better to stick to universal questions.

As always, keep it simple! We suggest not requiring a ‘minimum word count’ for answers, as this makes book reports a tedious and time-consuming task for both members and Champions. Instead, give members a free reign so long as they provide thoughtful answers. Some may only write a sentence or two while others will write paragraphs – and that’s okay! The important part is that members are absorbing and sharing the information.

The general rule of thumb for Champions is that it should be clear to them whether the team member read and absorbed the information from the book.

Book report questions should be worded in such a way that there is no right or wrong answer. Therefore, as long as a member has fully completed the book report, it can be approved by the Champion.

Flagging a report will likely be a rare occurrence. The most common reasons for flagging a book report are:

When the Champion rejects the report, he or she will have the opportunity to briefly explain why it was flagged. The report will then be sent back to the member to make the appropriate changes and resubmit the report.
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When Arnie, our Founder and President, first started a book club at his advertising agency over 10 years ago, he quickly realized that in order for this idea to work he needed to incentivize his team to participate. It was a win-win – Arnie was thrilled his team was absorbing valuable concepts and everyone benefited from both the knowledge they gained and the extra money they earned from reading.

When you reward your team for reading, two major things happen:

This is the fun part! You get to choose how you will reward your employees for reading. A successful reward system can fit into any budget, big or small.

Rewards are what will motivate even the non-readers in your office to participate in your BetterBookClub program, so it is imperative that the rewards you offer hold real value to your employees. (Receiving a pen or notepad isn’t exactly the best incentive for reading a 300+ page book.)

To make things easy for your team to understand and your Champion to execute, we highly recommend determining a “reading period” for your team (i.e. monthly or quarterly).

Your reading period is when and how often:

Tip: To control cost, set a cap on how many points team members can be rewarded for during each reading period.

Here’s an example of what this would look like in practice: Book reports are due at the end of each quarter and members can be rewarded for up to 100 points per quarter. Once the Champion has approved the book reports, he or she will distribute the rewards. If you have book club meetings, they would be scheduled at around the same time or shortly after book reports are due.
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You can get as creative as you’d like with your reward system – the sky is the limit! Below is a list of ideas to help get your creative juices flowing.

Money or Gift Cards
This is the most common way companies reward their team members. For example, you could reward $1 for every point earned (50 points = $50). For budgeting purposes, set a reward cap such as 100 points or $100 per quarter.

Money could be distributed with Visa or Amex gift cards, or other retail gift cards such as Amazon, Target, etc. 

Gifts or Prizes
​Give team members gifts in the form of an activity, a cool gadget, or a subscription service. Here's some ideas...

Activities:

Electronics:

Subscription Services:

Branded Company Swag
​Your team members can show off their reading accomplishments and company pride with branded swag.

Important Note: Avoid throwaway items such as pens and sticky notes. These types of rewards should be high quality or valuable products.

Here's a few examples:

Free coffee, lunch, or dinner
​Treat team members to a coffee or meal. For example:

Catered breakfast or lunch
When members earn x-number of points per reading period, they can participate in a catered breakfast or lunch.

The company owner, Champion, or other key members of your company could join in an effort to further show appreciation to those who participate in the book club.

A longer break or excused tardy
When members earn x-number of points per reading period, they can have an extra 30-minute break, come in 30 minutes late, or leave 30 minutes early.

Recognition
​In addition to rewarding your team, we strongly encourage companies to further recognize team members for their reading to further engagement with your book club.

Determine whether you’d like your team to meet and discuss the books they read! Learn more about Book Club Meetings in the next guide.