GiftCard Partners Blog

Many organizations take a "grocery shopping" approach to finding talent. They continuously look to cultivate new resources to fuel growth. This approach can and does work, but it may not be the most cost-effective or growth-effective strategy. Challenging both your organization's management, and its employees to dig deeper into their capabilities and potential, given the intelligence of the current human resource pool, and the learning and development provided by the organization, can save your organization thousands of dollars in salary costs. Setting goals to reach a higher potential, whether it is that of a smaller team, or across the organization, will motivate employees to work towards internal growth. A fraction of the potential salary money saved can be used to provide rewards for the group that reached their goal. They can be rewarded with intangibles, such as an extra day off, or they can be rewarded with a small gift, such as a
Cheesecake Factory gift card, so they can enjoy a nice meal with the family, courtesy of their employer. Leading with an internal growth strategy, rather than raising your organization's head count can be a great learning experience for your employees, and a great money saver for your organization. That kind of smart leadership can help you maximize the investment in your employees, while making sure they feel their worth and importance to the organization.
For more information on leading smart, and using internal growth tactics check out this article in Harvard Business Journal.

vAs employers continue to try to control costs of health insurance benefits they are turning to incentives more and more frequently for their Health & Wellness programs. Incentives motivate employees to evaluate and improve their health, which obviously benefits employees and simultaneously helps lower costs for employers. Aon Hewitt’s recent survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. employers, their combined 20 million U.S. employees and their dependents found that 84% of employers offer employees incentives for participating in a health risk questionnaire (HRQ) and 64 percent offer incentives for biometric screenings to help employees evaluate their health status. 51% of employers provide incentives for participation in health and wellness improvement programs as well. The incentives used here do not need to be big, but rather need to be meaningful. Helping employees maintain their health and reach new health goals can be as simple as offering 
a gift cards to 
CVS/Pharmacy or GNC. A small investment such as this easily provides noticeable ROI  to employers and employees feel support from their employer;
,that their employer cares about them as a person, not just a part of the organization. Bettering your employees' health can often better your bottom line.  
For more information on Aon Hewitt's survey on Health and Wellness Incentives check out this article from Insurance Journal.

Trust isn't a "nice-to-have" in the workplace—it’s a business imperative. When employees trust leadership and leadership trusts employees, organizations thrive. According to the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer, 79% of employees say they trust their employer—a higher trust level than government, media, or NGOs. Trust is now one of the strongest competitive advantages a company can build.

When was the last time you really looked at your customer loyalty program? If it’s been a while—or if it’s something that only gets attention during the occasional Thursday meeting—it’s time for a refresh.

Using gamification as a tool for employee motivation is a fairly new strategy, but continues to prove its effectiveness in many different applications. Gamification can be used for Health and Wellness programs, to motivate a company to complete a specific goal, or as a running motivator to balance the seriousness of the workplace with some old-fashioned competition and non-disruptive social interaction. Keeping gaming in the workplace up to date, simple, and competitive are the most important, and often challenging aspects of this type of reward and recognition program. Gaming is not as effective or engaging if employees cannot view the standings and identify their competition continuously. Gamification of employee engagement can also help create a model for future engagement efforts. Since the game takes feedback from employees it creates incredibly useful data on how to engage your specific employees and what will get them excited about work, the competition, and socializing with their co-workers. This data can hel pemployers decide how to spend their rewards budget. Whether your workforce is interested in extra vacation time, a gift card to a favorite restaurant, or another type of reward the gaming data will help you determine how best to reward your employees. Gamification provides incredible ROI because it solicits a consistent feedback loop from employees to management and helps to retain employees and keep them satisfied in their professional setting. How do you use gamification in your rewards program?
For more information on gaming in the workplace check out this article from Mashable.