Posts Tagged ‘health and wellness programs’

GCP Continues to Lead the Way in Corporate Health & Wellness Incentives

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

GiftCard Partners continues its path of helping employers understand why now is the time to include a health and wellness program with incentives. GCP was published in this February’s issue of Voluntary Benefits Magazine, outlining the top 5 reasons why and how to start such a program!

Inside the article, you’ll find:

1. Employers Can Shape a Healthier Workforce

2. What to Expect from your Health and Wellness Program
3. How to Overcome Participation Obstacles
4. How to Measure Results
5. The Thing Most Companies Don’t Get Right

I’d like to extend a special Thank You to Denise Holland, President of Inside Employee Wellness & Consulting for her contributions to this article.

Check out: GCP’s, Start a Health and Wellness Program in 2012

GiftCard Partners Published in Voluntary Benefits Magazine Online

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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Can Smartphone Apps Help Maintain a Healthier Workplace?

Monday, January 30th, 2012

People rely on their smartphones to ring alarms, retrieve all facets of communications, navigate where they’re going, and so much more! But what about navigating one of the most difficult challenges of life…changing behavior to improve one’s health? There is ZERO debate over the attractiveness and popularity of Smartphone, tablet, and computer apps to help us in our everyday life; but can they help change our behaviors, or keep our attention on our goals on a long-term basis?

One of my first experiences with a healthy-app was more than 10 years ago, on my Palm Pilot with a program that tracked the foods I ate (down to the TBSP of milk in my latte). The program allowed me to input my daily exercise, and it would tally up my healthfulness for the day, week,
month and adjust my workout accordingly to stay on track. I have to say, I was pretty good for a few years about tracking those crunches and treadmill walks to counter whatever food I ate.Although the technology became obsolete, the habits of how I make my coffee and the calorie & fat counting sticks with me to this day.

Such apps could certainly be integrated into a workplace health and wellness program. Since tracking health and wellness milestones is an

important cornerstone of any program, apps can be set up with individuals’ health and wellness goals to help employees track, in real-
time, their own success…connecting them closer to their potential incentives or rewards, like the gift cards or premium reductions. With or without a health and wellness program, workplaces can promote such apps to keep healthy behaviors on track through the workday.

Check out this Quora discussion, to find some great ideas that you can pass on to your employees, coworkers,
and teams. By supporting these technologies; you could help create a healthier workplace, one app/one person at a time.

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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Inspiring a Healthy Workforce in 2012

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

This health and wellness incentives article caught my attention since it’s such an important channel for our gift card sales, but what kept my attention was Ken Baker’s sense of humor and fun approach. Baker, CEO of NewAge Industries “is willing to do whatever he can to encourage his employees to live a healthier lifestyle — including making bribes and bets.” His approach is more sophisticated than that statement leads one to believe.

There are many cute snippets in this story, like, if Baker’s sales manager Mike Allard lost 40 pounds in 2 months, he’d produce and wear a t-shirt printed with “The Man” in honor of him…if he failed to lose the weight, Allard would wear a shirt decrying defeat. It worked! The crux; motivation and incentives work to build a healthier workforce. “The programs, while voluntary, can offer financial benefits, including lower insurance premiums, gift cards and employer contributions to health savings accounts.” states Phillyburbs.com in Inspiring employee healthy lifestyles with employer incentives. NewAge Industries is just the kind of company that is taking advantage of federal health care reform policies that offers qualified companies grant money and tax credits to help such companies launch health and wellness programs. “By 2014, companies will be able
to offer rewards of up to 30 percent of the total cost of an employee’s insurance coverage.”

Small to medium sized business owner and not yet conducting your own health and wellness program? Read on, this is a great overview with interesting context and facts:Inspiring employee healthy lifestyles with employer 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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Ramping up for Incentive “Gamification”

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

At GiftCard Partners, we’ve been hearing a lot about how corporations are targeting gaming as a way to attract employees to workplace motivation and incentive programs. Interactive games are a fun and effective way to educate and train employees, and promote behavior changes. According to the National Training Laboratories, learners who engage with games as part of their educational process retain 75 % of the knowledge they acquire. The fun and innovative nature of games may also be key to helping companies overcome the challenges of increasing enrollment and participation in health and wellness programs, sales incentive programs, training, and workplace safety programs.

The corporate gaming tipping point may not be far off. A recent Gartner study says that by 2015, 50% of companies will embrace gamification. “Gamification gets people more engaged, helps change behaviors and stimulates innovation”, Gartner said. “The applications in business include accelerating feedback cycles by incenting users to give feedback. Gamification sets clear rules and a compelling narrative for players to feel empowered at a task. And it sets up tasks that are achievable”, says Dean Takahashi of GamesBeat.

What “prizes” or rewards are utilized for gaming? Many online or computer games include token economies (points) that can be redeemed for rewards like gift cards. Gift cards continue to hold top placement as the incentive of choice with 8 out of ten employees preferring a gift card as incentive. They hold trophy value for program participants of and their flexibility allows employees to select their own rewards, creating motivation for long term engagement with the program. Gift cards like CVS/pharmacy® and Nutrisystem® cards are integrated into health and wellness programs, fashion gift cards like Charming Shoppes (Lane Bryant®, Fashion Bug®, and Catherines®) promote professional dress in the workplace, and employers reward with Brinker gift cards (Chili’s Grill® & Bar, Romano’s Macaroni Grill®, On The Border® and Maggiano’s Little Italy®)

Inter-company social media will be a great vehicle for promoting games. Check out our blogs about how social media is being used to promote employee recognition: Social Media and Employee Recognition and More Ways to Use Social Media for Employee Recognition

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