Today, businesses are investing more time and money into finding ways to increase the productivity of their workforce. The most effective solutions inspire and motivate employees to increase productivity without necessarily increasing their billable hours.
According to “Incentives, Motivation, and Workplace Performance: Research & Best Practices” conducted by The International Society of Performance Improvement, a well-designed and effectively-executed incentive program can result in a 22% increase in the performance of employees. When incentives are offered inline with achieving an organizational goal, employee performance is bolstered on average by 27%.
While cash has traditionally been the incentive most used by companies to motivate employees, cash has no long-term sustainability, offers no “trophy value,” and will quickly be tied in with regular compensation. On the other hand, many companies have been experiencing amazing success with non-cash incentives, mainly gift cards.
Benefits of Gift Cards
There are several reasons gift cards are becoming the reward of choice for employers:
- Employees Love Them: According to an Incentives Magazine study, 8 out of 10 employees prefer cards over other types of incentives. Employees can use gift cards as they see fit, allowing them greater flexibility in choosing items of the most value to them personally.
- Trophy Value:Â While cash rewards will eventually be seen as just extra cash, a gift card has trophy value, which associates the award with a specific action. Â
- Provides the Ultimate Level of Choice:Â A gift card can be for a popular retailer, a five-star restaurant, or a universal Visa or MasterCard gift card. Businesses can even add their logo to the card or personalize it with the employee’s name.Â
- Socially Acceptable:Â People are less likely to discuss the amount of a cash bonus. On the other hand, the utility of receiving the gift card is bolstered by the card’s physical presence, which makes it much more socially acceptable to discuss.Â
- Viral Value:Â Because a gift card is more socially acceptable to discuss, employees are much more likely to talk about how they redeemed the card. As a result, other employees will boost their own performance to receive their gift card, which is the viral value of the gift card.Â
- Malleable into Many Corporate Needs: The chameleon nature of the gift card changes to fit the needs of the corporation as well. When gift cards are purchased in bulk, there are significant cost savings. As a result, gift cards shouldn’t be reserved just for employees. Instead, gift cards can be used for customer retention and promotions, for vender appreciation, for dealer and reseller awards, and for variety of other uses.Â
parsonsKellogg is your partner in customer engagement. With the parsonsKellogg gift card program, you can offer your employees the ideal incentive, strengthen your association with leading brands, offer your customers retention incentives, or engage other audiences in a highly-effective manner. Best of all, you can use the customized template to design your company’s very own branded gift card. Realize the true power of the gift card and up to 30% off the face value with parsonsKellogg’s turnkey program.
