GiftCard Partners Blog

GCP serves many kinds of incentive and gift card programs, including corporate health & wellness programs, workplace safety programs, employee motivation and recognition, benefits and sales incentives, and customer loyalty and rewards programs. This white paper is the result of a comprehensive survey and includes gift card usage success stories offered by HR professionals, sales managers, healthcare administrators, non-profit organization managers, and more. You will find this report full of innovative ways to incent and reward your employees, partners, customers, and volunteers to incentivize and build loyalty.
Click here to visit GCP’s 2011 Gift Card Usage Whitepaper page to download

Internet and social media immersion is without a doubt second nature to Gen-Yers, AKA, Millennials. As a Generation X-er and an early technology adopter; I can clearly see how our most recent generation of college grads were born 1 step from where I was.  We've seen some recent research around shopping habits, customer loyalty, and working tendencies of Generation Y; I’ll bring these findings together here to offer insight in the realm of employee motivation, incentives and loyalty. “45 percent of Millennials would accept a lower-paying job with more flexibility towards social media access, remote work and technology choice than a higher-paying job with less flexibility.
¹” This is a pretty big number, but should not cause much surprise. As an entirely remotely operating company, GCP expects people to work this way, it’s in our company DNA. But we did not expect that almost 50% of a generation would prefer it. (YAY for us/GCP). Are you an employer who will rise to this challenge, knowing that embracing a remote working situation is a core motivator and a recruiting competitive advantage? In a recent national poll conducted by the No. Carolina firm of Public Policy
²; It was found that generations precluding Gen-Y, are skeptical about younger workers' work ethics, motivation and engagement in their workplace. Gen-Yer’s said this about their own generation:

Most employees will say that they are not expecting much from their employers for the holidays. But, in their heart of hearts, most of us feel the pull towards recovery and hope for something extra for our hard work. What kind of gift will employees consider fair recognition and reward for the year to date, while offering encouragement for the year to come? A recent Parago survey indicates that for a whole year’s worth of work:

For many small businesses staying open on the holidays is a key way to compete with major retailers. In doing so, this often causes obvious strain on employees and employee relations. It is essential to the success of the company that these difficult situations are handled properly, and that employees needs are kept in mind. There are some pretty simple ways to say "thank you" to employees. When assigning holiday shifts, keep flexibility in mind. Things like allowing employees to request certain shifts or switch off holidays among employees can go a long way toward boosting morale and making workers feel appreciated. Another way to say "thank you" is by giving small denomination gift cards, as a token of appreciation. Giving small gift cards is like a small bonus, and the trophy value makes employees feel like they have done enough to earn something as a reward. This motivates employees beyond the holidays, and into the new year. Be sure to be sensitive to your employees this holiday season and it will benefit your organization long after the holidays have ended.  
To read more about employee rewards and holiday shifts check out the Fox Business article. 

We’ve been hearing a lot about how gift cards have become the most coveted gift this holiday season, as well as their rise to the number 1 spot for workplace incentives, but; do gift cards have a strong hold on the most redeemed item in loyalty programs? Really…we want to know! A recent study released in the United States, called “Born This Way: The US Millennial Loyalty Survey”, concluded that Gen Y, AKA “Millennial” consumers (those born between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s)  “will change the way companies and brands build sustainable customer loyalty”. HOW?