Building Comprehensive Employee Wellbeing with Gift Card Rewards
As businesses increasingly recognize employee wellbeing as foundational to both employee performance and organizational success, it’s clear that a holistic approach is essential. Gallup’s 2024 report on employee wellbeing highlights the need for companies to address five interconnected elements of wellbeing: career, social, physical, financial, and community. Yet only a small percentage of employees feel their employer supports these elements. This gap can leave employees feeling undervalued, risking burnout, low engagement, and attrition.
Avoid Employee Burnout and Professional Resentment
Roadmap for Improving the Health of Employees and the Organization
As GCP continues to expand our portfolio of gift cards we offer to corporate health and wellness incentive programs; we are always happy to provide you with information that helps pave your way to a healthier and more productive workforce. The Change Agent Work Group published a comprehensive paper (a whopping 75 pages) called Employer Health Asset Management: A Roadmap for Improving the Health of Your Employees and Your Organization, which offers decision makers some great tools to meet the challenges of reducing healthcare costs for their organization. It includes rationale to:
Employee Morale vs. True Engagement
Employee engagement is a proven way to raise employee morale, lower quit rates, and make your workforce more productive. Showing employees how their day to day work contributes to the bigger picture and helps the organization reach its goals leads to engagement. Conveying clear vision and providing a sense of importance is how managers can contribute to overall workforce engagement at an organizational level. Employees are the ultimate driver of an organization to its goals, so it is important to engage employees through training, professional development, and rewards ranging from useful gift cards to larger rewards such as vacation travel and extra time off. It is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between high employee morale and true engagement. According to Ronald Sanders, a senior executive adviser and fellow at Booz Allen Hamilton, engagement entails innovation, commitment, and employees choosing to use their discretionary energy at work. Engagement goes beyond a happy workforce to a deeper level of commitment to work and understanding of the importance of the job employees do every day. It is important to reward employees who reach this level so that they not only feel the importance of their position but so they feel supported by their organization. Reinforcing desired behaviors and attitudes is crucial to maintaining the engagement cycle into the future of the organization.
For more information on deeply engaged employees check out this Federal Computer Week article.
Creating Total Rewards Optimization within your organization
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.
