GiftCard Partners Blog

As summer rolls around, many employees start thinking about vacations, beach days, and time with family. While this season brings energy and joy, it can also test focus and productivity at work. For employers and HR leaders, this is a perfect time to rethink how to keep employees motivated, engaged, and feeling valued—without draining budgets or morale.

April is customer loyalty month, but we need to remember that the root of the customer loyalty lies not in the customer themselves but in their brand experience. Customers are loyal when they have positive brand experiences with happy employees who are knowledgable and motivated doing their jobs. Here are a few ways to keep your employees motivated and promoting a positive brand experience to keep customers loyal:

Poor employee health is never a good thing. However, did you know that if you don't maintain workplace wellness it can cost your company between $1900 and $2250 in lost revenue per employee per year. Maintaining workplace wellness not only keeps employees healthy and keeps productivity at its peak but it can also keep employee morale up. Happy, healthy employees are productive, loyal employees so workplace wellness can go farther than you think. Check out the infographic below for more information on the benefits of workplace wellness.

Everyone's walked into (and presumably grabbed a coffee from) a Starbucks at least once. In many American cities you can't stand on a street corner without seeing that Mermaid logo somewhere in your 360 degree view. Starbucks has led the way in a lot of areas including employee compensation, employee training and consumer experience. Starbucks cares so much about consumer experience that they offer a full feedback loop with consumers and their app is so well designed that it has made them a (if not the) leader in mobile payments. The Starbucks app combines mobile payments and their loyalty program enables them to get consumers through the line faster, reward them for repeat purchases and streamline the consumers' checkout process. Starbucks is the mobile payments ideal, as it exists to enhance a consumers' experience at the point of sale. Setting aggressive goals to almost double their mobile payment transaction this year is what makes Starbucks an example for mobile payments across the board. Since consumers are so attached to their cell phones, bringing the check out process to their device is a great way to ensure the revenue potential skyrockets.
For more information on Howard Shultz' view on mobile payments head over to Bloomberg Businessweek.

A new type of employee is gaining ground: the self-driven high performer. Often mislabeled as “selfish” or “independent to a fault,” these individuals are motivated by internal benchmarks, personal ambition, and a desire for autonomy. They thrive on setting and reaching their own goals, not just company targets.