GiftCard Partners Blog

Employees who feel engaged and appreciated at work are proven to be more productive, more satisfied in their jobs, and tend to stay in their positions longer. So creating a culture of engagement is key to maintaining your organizations greatest competitive edge: your people. Here are 3 quick rules to creating a culture of engagement in your organization.
The Rule of Common Purpose: Iterating and reiterating company goals and beliefs is key to fostering a common purpose among employees. If everyone feels the sense of common purpose, camaraderie and teamwork will grow. Employees will be motivated to work together to reach the common goals of the organization.
The Rule of Selective Membership: Create an atmosphere where membership is a privilege. Unique environments and ensuring employees feel supported and appreciated by the organization will help to attract top talent and retain it for longer stretches. Providing unique perks such as extra time off or gift cards for a job well done, or in-office perks such as free food, or a lounge space can also help attract and retain top employees. Creating an exclusive environment where employees feel "special" as a part of it can promote engagement.
The Rule of Omission: Since people always remember what you don't do, rather than what you do do, make sure that if you want to engage employees and show your appreciation for them, don't deceive or exploit them in any situation. Creating internal practices that would hold up in an external business context will motivate employees to perpetuate that upstanding way of doing business. What core beliefs does your organization promote?
For more information on how to foster an environment of engagement check out this article from Fast Company.

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.