Posts Tagged ‘gift card incentives’

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The History of Prepaid Infographic

Friday, April 6th, 2012

Thank you to the Prepaid Expo for bringing us this interesting infographic, which was commissioned by CoreCard®. The History of Prepaid Infographic highlights the progression of Prepaid, starting in the 1970’s and heading into predictions for 2013. The future of prepaid is not just about spending and consumerism; prepaid will thrive in government and healthcare sectors via benefit payment programs.

Thanks to CoreCard for creating this and PrePaid Expo for bringing it to us

The author:

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

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Posted in General, Gift Card Events, Gift Card Trends | 1 Comment »

Creating Total Rewards Optimization within your organization

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Rewards are great for keeping employees engaged at work, but Josh Strok, Director of Rewards, Talent and Communication, for Towers Watson has a much broader view of how to make your rewards dollars go much further. Creating Total Rewards Optimization, which includes not only rewards benefits such as bonuses or gift cards for engagement, but combines this with other elements such as health and wellness benefits, career development opportunities, trainings, and corporate social responsibility workshops. Putting all of these elements together, Strok believes, creates a total package for employees that not only help retain them, but can be used as a competitive edge to attract employees from other competing companies. Strok believes that Total Rewards Optimization will help attract and retain top performers in a corporate climate where work hours are increasing, and will continue to do so.

It is important to build your Total Rewards Optimization program not only to fit your organizations budget, but to cater to the needs and wants of your employees. For example, if you have $100 to spend on employees, would they rather that go to a reward or loyalty program or would they rather have a lower insurance deductible? Would employees rather have a stronger retirement program or a better career development program? Finding out what employees are interested in and tailoring your organizations program to employee needs is critical to the success of your program and the investment of your rewards dollars. Total Rewards Optimization is a win-win for you and your employees when implemented successfully.

 

For more information about Total Rewards Optimization programs check out this Smart Business Network article.

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Posted in General, Incentives & Engagement, Loyalty | 1 Comment »

Giving Credit Only When it is Due

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

Rewarding employees for desired behavior is essential to keeping employees engaged and happy at work. When to reward employees and for what is important, so rewards remain a special occurrence and not something that can be achieved easily or often. Maintaining trophy value, even for small rewards like a small denomination gift card, is what makes rewards programs work. Here are some occurrences of when employees should be rewarded.

Give credit where credit is due: Giving credit based on performance, rather than status or power is important. This keeps employees engaged and maintains the possibility of upward mobility within their organization.

Credit team members for crediting one another: Acknowledging peer accomplishments is important both for the obvious positive reinforcement but also for rewarding employees for acknowledging other’s performance incentivizes peer leaders and motivates them to continue that behavior.

Avoid the temptation to blame: Ensuring that your team reacts well and maintains solidarity in a crisis is important, and should be rewarded.

 

For more information on rewarding employees appropriately check out this Harvard Business Review article.

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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4 Ways to Improving Employee Satisfaction Through Engagement

Thursday, March 29th, 2012

A recent research study conducted by TNS Employee Insights shows that engaging employees at work through programs like incentive rewards and loyalty programs, can improve the overall functionality and performance of a company by 20% points. MolsonCoors found that engaged employees were five times less likely than non-engaged employees to have a safety incident and seven times less likely to have a lost-time safety incident.

Using these types of programs by giving small incentives such as a small denomination gift card, or larger gifts for bigger workplace milestones makes employees feel noticed. Employees who are engaged at work feel as though they have a meaningful voice within the organization, and recognize effective leadership more readily. They feel as though they are being noticed, invested in, and guided professionally. Employees who feel engaged are also more productive, which leads to greater company revenues and 87% reduction in likelihood of employee departure. Here are four ways to invest in employee engagement and increase performance.

1.    Link employee engagement to business objectives and measures of effectiveness. The more substantial the direct connection the more clearly employees can view their role.
2.    Invest in employee programs specifically designed to increase engagement by supporting business objectives.
3.    Establish a system of measuring engagement and the effectiveness of these programs. Getting employee feedback about the programs is the best way to gauge their success.
4.    Make adjustments based on the discernible results. Maintaining flexibility in employee engagement programming is key to a positive outcome for both employees and the employer.

 

For more information on engaging your employees to improve your company’s performance check out this PR Web Article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Gift Cards, Perfect Workplace Social Incentive

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

Although the roots of the term “social incentives” goes back to the positive feelings humans gain when interacting with friends and peers; the term and concept has been leveraged in the workplace with great success. Historically, social incentives include the positive feedback one receives from peers, and even the presence of friends can be considered a social incentive.

In the workplace, it has been proven that the presence of friends affects worker’s attitude, behavior and their levels of productivity. Employers can help forge new friendships and relationships in the workplace by formalizing social incentives as part of their ongoing motivation, recognition and rewards programs.

Employers would thereby use the concept of social incentives as a way to encourage teams of coworkers to work together for common goals. Teams, cross-functional teams or randomly assembled  groups can join forces in a health and wellness program to collectively improve a workplace health and wellbeing outcomes, while driving individuals’ positive behaviors, keeping participants engaged and ultimately, drive results.

Where’s the proof? In the article Increase Participation with Social Incentives, by Wellsource; it is reported that a rate of 64% participation was garnered for individuals on a team, versus 44% participation for those in the same program, with the same incentive, but without being part of a team.

Now add a carrot like gift cards for successful participation, reaching milestones, and continued engagement and you are employing a well-rounded idea to keep your programs fresh. Why gift cards? Rewarding with a gift card like The Cheesecake Factory or Subway and the teams can dine together or get healthy take-out together to further develop the Comradery created by your program.

Are you encouraging teams to work together for common goals and individual productivity?

Source: Wellsource: Increase Participation with Social Incentives

The author:

Stacey Sicurella is a 15 year marketing veteran, working in the Boston area for GiftCard Partners. Recent accomplishments include blogging with abandon, acquiring work-life balance and building amazing sand-castles with her children.

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Posted in General, Gift Card Trends, Health & Wellness, Incentives & Engagement | No Comments »

5 Qualities of a Remarkable Boss

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Great bosses lead to happy, content, motivated employees. When employees feel like their boss is investing in them they are much more likely to invest more of themselves into their work, which reflects positively on the business, and the office environment. Here are 5 qualities of a remarkable boss, and how it can help your business and employee productivity.

1. Develop every employee: Provide the training, mentoring and opportunities to allow your employees to develop and grow in their roles. Implementing goal oriented incentive programs that provide rewards such as gift cards, or extra time off is a great way to provide growth opportunities while providing added incentive for employees and staying within the employer’s budget.

2. Deal with problems immediately: Ignoring problems can kill team morale. Addressing problems and changing processes internally in a timely manner can be difficult and time consuming but it maintains a positive, focused atmosphere in the office, free of politics and distractions.

3. Rescue your worst employee: Work with the “weak link” on your team to try to rehabilitate their image to the rest of the team by stepping up the coaching and mentoring you provide.

4. Serve others, not yourself: Putting yourself second to your employees and acting selflessly goes a long way in your role as the supervisor. It instills greater confidence in employees and reinforces their support system within the organization which will directly increase their productivity and motivation.

5. Always remember where you came from: Spend time with your employees when presented the opportunity. Spending small moments with employees provides a unique opportunity to inspire, reassure, motivate, and even give someone hope for their professional future. The higher your station in the company the greater your responsibility is to spend time with more junior employees.

 

For more information on becoming a great boss and how to inspire your employees check out the Inc. article.

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Reward and Recognition- The Latest Trends

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

The Incentive Research Foundation released an executive briefing entitled 2012 Trends in Rewards and Recognition, which shows emerging trends for 2012. Some of the top trends include:

  • Personalization. Increased use of award elements such as gift cards allow employees to discount “fun purchases” or use the reward to ease up their monthly bills. Using flexible award elements such as gift cards allows employees to choose how they want to direct their award currency.
  • Participation. Using incentives as part of a health and wellness program have been shown to increase participation by 26% to 90%, and offer employers an ROI of about $3 for every $1 invested.
  • Convenience. Integrating incentives programs across multiple platforms like mobile applications increase communication between employees and employers, as well as provide more convenience, flexibility, and ease of use for the employee.
The IRF briefing included many other trends, some of which we have covered on the GCP blog before, such as “gamification” of reward programs and the increasing presence of virtual workplace creation through various social media channels. Check out more on the Incentive Research Foundation executive briefing and let us know which trends your company is following.
The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Gamification Keeps Employees Engaged and Brand Image Strong

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

According to Gartner Inc., of Stamford, CT 70% of the top 2,000 publicly held companies will use game-like applications to engage and reward their employees by 2014. Gamification is changing the employee engagement and rewards landscape. Gamifying employee rewards falls in line with social media and the concept of social sharing to create brand awareness and positive brand image. Whether applications are used internally, based on employee performance or externally, rewarding employees for promoting the company and bringing in referral traffic, the trend is growing.

Gamification can reward employees in a number of ways. Some applications are designed for employees to accrue points for larger rewards, but others reward employees more frequently with smaller rewards such as gift cards to a choice of retialers, allowing the employee to essentially choose their own gift. The combination of the social component of game-like applications and the rewards employees work toward through the use of the applications makes gamifying employee engagement productive for both the employer and employee.

 

For more information on gamification and to check out some existing examples check out this article in “Entrepreneur.”

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Posted in General, Incentives & Engagement, Loyalty | No Comments »

Health and Wellness Programs: Not Just for Large Corporations Anymore

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

Small businesses are increasing implementation of health and wellness programs to lower the ever rising cost of health care coverage. With insurance premiums rising as much as 30% annually, it is becoming essential for small businesses to keep their health care costs low, and keep their employees as healthy as possible. Small businesses tend to use a carrot approach, incenting employees who engage in health and wellness programs, as opposed to a stick approach, which would penalize employees who engage in unhealthy lifestyles. Incentives offered can include monetary bonuses, gift cards to retailers that assist employees in maintaining a healthy lifestyle, as well as other vehicles to support employees’ healthy lifestyles.

Health and wellness programs have proven that they pay for themselves, with research from Partnerships for Prevention showing that for every $1 a company pays for health and wellness program execution $3.50 is saved in health care coverage costs. This figure is staggering, especially for small businesses who need to manage budgets and expenditures very closely. Additionally, an Israeli study showed that employees who engaged in some form of exercise had lower rates of depression and job burnout, which proves that the benefits of health and wellness programs do not just serve employers but also employees and their interests.

Health and wellness programs are growing more and more popular, especially among small businesses. What are you doing to keep your employees healthy?

 

To learn more about small business health and wellness check out this article from msnbc.com.

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Is your Health and Wellness program up to date?

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Some interesting findings from our neighbors to the north. Striking data about the discrepancy between where companies see their health and wellness initiatives at the present versus where they think this programming needs to be to have a real effect on their company’s bottom line. Do the following 3 areas apply to your health and wellness program?

1. While employers are articulate about what they want to accomplish with health and wellness programs…

    • 75%—healthy workplace culture;
    • 54%—cost reductions;
    • 54%—improved productivity/performance;
    • 51%—higher employee engagement;
    • 49%—better health status of workforce; and
    • 15%—assistance with recruitment and retention.

…almost one third of employers did not know which risk/disease categories were driving their health care costs. Ensuring that all available data is used to craft an effective employer health and wellness program that will have measurable results on the company’s bottom line health care costs.

2. The majority of health and wellness programs focus on education and awareness, when activity based programs that focus on improved health practices and reduced costs are more effective. Changing employee behavior and rewarding health habits through small denomination gift cards and other rewards can help achieve the desired behavior.  The will also have lasting impressions on employees and employers’ costs.

3. Integrating measurable goals and objectives for health and wellness programs with traditional elements such as HRA’s and awareness and education elements is a key to success. 87% of employers think that health and wellness programs must take an integrated approach to lowering costs, while only 15% feel that their programs are integrated. Taking this next step in integration is key to moving health and wellness programming forward in a climate of sky-rocketing health care costs.

For more information check out the BenefitsCanada article.

 

 

 

The author:

Rachel Merkin is a digital marketing professional . She has been exploring the worlds of social media and B2B gift cards since 2006. When she is not blogging, tweeting, or finding ways to leverage Facebook as a marketing tool, she spends as much time at the beach as she can.

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Posted in General, Health & Wellness | No Comments »

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