GiftCard Partners Blog

As certain benefit costs shift from employer to employee, there are key benefits that will have a high impact on satisfaction improvements. Health and wellness benefits are expected from employees and they assume that employers are going to cover a significant portion of the costs, regardless of the rising cost of healthcare. Well employers are taking note, 45% are offering HSA's in 2014, compared to 33% in 2010. Other benefits like tuition support or a personal car subsidy benefit have been on the decline since 2010, down 13% and 17% respectively. These are benefits less expected by employees and therefore have a lower impact on employee benefit satisfaction. Health and wellness benefits have endured for employees as an expected benefit. Investing in preventative healthcare checks like blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI measurements for employees can allow employers to maintain health and wellness benefits without exceeding budgets. Implementing employee health and wellness benefit reward programs can also motivate employees towards health and wellness goals by using small spot rewards to encourage employees who have reached health and wellness milestones.
For more information on how to maintain the level of health and wellness benefits your employees expect, check out the latest SHRM Employee benefits report, and this article from Associations Now.

Holiday season will be quickly approaching and as gift cards are still a growing part of most retailers businesses, they will be paying close attention to their gift card business and new gift card trends for 2014. By 2016 the gift card business is expected to grow by close to $20 billion. Of course this varies by industry, but it’s not all that unusual for a retailer to see as much as 50% of their fourth quarter business come from gift cards. There are several new gift card trends that retailers need to be aware of as they begin preparing for the holiday season.

Employee recognition is a tricky business. Employees all have personal recognition needs. Some are extroverted and appreciate public recognition, some are introverted and would be mortified to be recognized in front of peers. Some are instantly loyal and motivated to the organizational goals, others take longer to build loyalty to the organization. Some employees like gamification, and enjoy the playful nature of that type of recognition, while others don't enjoy the distraction. In the following infographic you will find 5 myths of employee recognition that can apply to all employees. Make sure your employee recognition program is what your employees need to stay motivated and at the peak of productivity.

Employee wellness is a hot topic for employers in an environment where healthcare costs are rising and there can be a lot of confusion around new Affordable Care Act rules taking effect. Here are a few ways to ensure that your employee wellness incentives provide the ROI that you seek in investing in employee wellness.

A new study recently released by the Aberdeen Group suggests that employee engagement and ensuring the satisfaction of your customer service representatives could significantly boost your end customers satisfaction with brand interactions. Consider this: when a customer is calling your customer service line, they are unhappy with aspect of your product or service. If that unhappiness is met with disgruntled employees who are unwilling to go above and beyond to rectify whatever the problem may be, their impression of your brand only deteriorates further. The study shows that among employee engagement "leader" organizations 75% are using eLearning tools to train their employees and gauge employee satisfaction while only 44% of "follower" organizations are following suit. Using these types of tools that easily integrate into your employees' systems helps employees voice their opinions and allows employers to make adjustments to ensure the critical employees who have end-consumer interactions remain engaged and satisfied at work. Employee engagement can take a number of forms outside of a survey. Attendance management is a way to boost employee engagement, especially for those employees who are working more and taking less vacation time. Offering incentives like professional development opportunities or small rewards like small denomination gift cards to
CVS/Pharmacy,
Boston Market or
1-800-Flowers is another great way to reward employees for participating in employee engagement efforts.
For more information on how to use employee engagement to ensure your consumers' satisfaction check out this article from Incentive Magazine.