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Ultimate Choice Blog represents the views of experts with over a hundred years of experience in the recognition/incentive industry. In this space we will explore the use of gift cards as recognition/incentive awards, provide insight into various awards in recognition and incentive programs and share information on employee and channel recognition/incentive programs.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Wishing You a Happy New Year!
Ultimate Choice wishes you a happy, healthy and safe new year and wants to thank you for the many positive comments and support we have received on our recognition award systems!
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Holiday Shopping and Recognition Awards
What does holiday shopping have to do with recognition awards? It is the best time of the
year to prove to recognition specialists that giving your employees a choice of any award they want it is a key
to the success of your program.
This holiday season sales are expected to be in excess of
$655 billion. Online Black Friday sales
alone exceeded $3 billion! So what did
they buy and where did they buy it? You name it, anywhere and everywhere. Certainly the national bricks and mortar retailers
and their websites got the lion share of the sales, but many regional retailers
had millions in sales as well. In
addition the online-only companies achieved huge sales as well, the foremost
being Amazon.
Our point, when you plan an incentive program, it is
virtually impossible to pick the handful of retailers or merchandise items that
will appeal to your entire workforce, so why try.
Almost all incentive
studies have shown that gift cards are the most popular and effective options
within the safety incentive category. Over 80% of respondents to Incentive
Magazine’s “Gift Card IQ” survey are currently using gift cards in their reward
programs.
Some gift card suppliers
would like YOU to choose which gift cards to offer in your incentive programs
and will recommend what gift card brands would be most effective based on the
unique composition of your employee base. That may be one way to do it, we
however think you should give that option to your employees and let them choose
the one they want.
As mentioned, it is
virtually impossible to pick the handful of card brands that will appeal to all
your employees. Use a gift card system
that will allow them to choose from a much larger list of brands that comprises
over 95% of all retail sales. Then you
will have an incentive with far greater motivational appeal.
For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s
products or services or other white papers please contact us at
Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Friday, December 9, 2016
Should Gift Cards Be an Option in Years of Service Programs?
Believe it or not, the latest market research conducted
by Incentive Magazine showed that close to 40% of all Years of Service programs
use gift cards as some of their award options.
It wasn’t too long ago that you would never see gift
cards in employee anniversary programs for several reasons. First, the major recognition companies spent
millions of dollars marketing their traditional awards such as company
identified jewelry items, crystal, clocks, watches and the like. Second they used very sophisticated training
programs for their sales forces as well as for clients building a mystique that
only deluxe trophy type merchandise would be proper to recognize an employee
who remained at a company for a period of time usually in 5 year cycles starting at 1, 3, or 5 years. And lastly, they created excellent software
platforms that made is very easy for a client to purchase a turnkey employee
service award program.
So what changed?
How did gift cards start to become an option in these programs? It certainly wasn’t because the companies
that specialized in gift card systems spent millions in advertising, or
marketing or a sales force that was trained to call on the clients. And it
wasn’t because they built sophisticated electronic platforms to implement
them. It came about because clients were
getting tired of paying very hefty premiums over retail price for these traditional trophy type items and hearing from employees that they were tired of being told an item as valued at $500, but they could see it every day online for a lot less. Employees simply wanted more choice at a better value.
With the age of the internet anyone could do a quick
search to determine the value of an award, it didn’t take long for the
employees to ask why the award that they understood cost $250 or $500 actually
had a value of only $125 or $250. That
was the rule rather than the exception.
Gift cards are a part of Years of Service programs
because it gives your employees what
they want without incremental cost to you. If you are going to spend $250 or $500 on an
award, wouldn’t it make sense to make sure that your employee receives as much
of that budget as possible? The
traditional recognition companies will fight long and hard to keep you from
putting gift cards in your program. They
know that once in, they will lose prized profit dollars year after year. But do you really want to support their Taj Mahal
corporate offices at the expense of your employees?
If you would be interested in how to use our gift card
systems in your employees years of service programs please contact us at
ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net.
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Your Employees Make a Difference!
Shouldn’t
the main focus of management be to maintain a work environment that keeps your
employees coming back every morning? Do
you believe that the way you treat your employees is also your instruction to
them on how to treat your customers? As
Richard Branson once said…
”It’s
all about people, people, people!
No
matter what industry a company is in,
its
employees are its biggest competitive advantage.”
Ultimately
successful companies not only know that their employees matter, they act on
that principle in very simple ways:
They Know That Every
Job is Relevent
If
you can’t explain why each job matters, you probably shouldn’t have it in the
first place.
And you need to know how to
explain how each job function contributes to the success of the company as a whole
Make Sure Each Employee
Knows Why Their Job Is Significant
It’s the job of
management to explain to everyone why their job matters and how it impacts the
business. Connect the dots for them; make it easy for them to understand their
company from the top of the organization to the outside customer.
When Employees Know Their Job Matters, They Do a
Better Job.
It’s difficult to pick
up a magazine about human resources and not see an article about the importance
of employee engagement. Employees often become
engaged simply when they know how important their performance is to the success
of the company
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Compare Open & Closed Loop Recognition & Reward Cards
Companies purchasing gift cards for recognition, loyalty,
and goal achievement often debate the advantages of purchasing and awarding open loop cards vs. closed loop gift cards.
Open loop payment cards are prepaid cards carrying the
MasterCard, American Express, Discover, or Visa logo. These cards may be used
like cash wherever credit cards are accepted.
At first glance, it appears that open loop cards are the
best solution as they offer the widest range of purchasing options. But before you make that decision, consider
these open loop attributes:
n Often
impose a per card fee above the face value – can be as much as $5.95 per card;
n Often
expire and/or decline in value after 6 or 12 months if full balance is not used;
n Often
impose fees when the card is swiped, when you check your balance via customer
service, and other situations included in the “fine print” on the card;
n Often
result in a decline at the merchant location if cardholder does not know the
exact balance and the merchant cannot tell the cardholder how much remains on
the card;
n Can
be confusing at checkout if the cardholder wants to use an additional method of
payment for any outstanding balance on his/her purchase (i.e. a “split tender”
transaction).
Closed loop merchant cards, while restricting the cardholder to a speciic merchant, have no declining values and rarely impose expiration dates. In addition, the merchant can "read" the card and tell the cardholder the exact balance that remains. The user experience is usually much smoother with closed loop cards than with open loop.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg88YMTfJPOsKfflg_bOk-h2SKF64x1hl6GPKHFsCuJgTVaqaUc7mfGbmlCxpncE5JGcUgxSAoWaZDqX0qzwNINxWLX7onnW6reDv8DaY0asVMAb9ohVdkv8UnV7o04sKqhfeJ9fIicVl4/s200/AOC_2016_std+Card_tilt+right.jpg)
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Friday, November 18, 2016
Reward Managers and Have More Engaged Employees
Managers and supervisors are essential players in any type of employee reward and recognition plan. In fact a study conducted by Dale Carnegie Training few years ago showed that an employee’s relationship with their direct supervisor is one of the top drivers of employee engagement.
However, it is our
experience that while many corporations today have a reward and recognition
program in place to recognize the achievements of employees, too few have
specific initiatives in place to reward managers for how well they manage and
support the recognition system all together.
As supervisors and
managers are often involved in the design, implementation performance metrics,
measurement and feedback of the programs, they can be reluctant to insert
themselves in the reward phase, but that can be counter-productive.
They should be
involved, they need to recognized for how engaged they are. Their enthusiasm will spread to their
employees.
- Train them so they understand not only how to explain the program to their reports but to be excited about its success.
- Specifically define management engagement and include it as a goal for each manage
- Develop specific performance metrics that encourage managers to encourage engagement
- Give them the authority to make decisions and set the direction of their areas of responsibility
- Be available as a sounding board to help them determine the right course of action.
- Formally reward them with tangible program awards and with greater responsibility when appropriate
Formally
recognizing managers or supervisors sends a strong message that giving proper
credit and recognition is not a task reserved for a select few, but something
the organization values from the top down.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
RVOLPC
RVOLPC
is an acronym coined by Dr. Brooks Mitchell of the University of Wyoming and
founder of Snowfly, an incentive company specializing in gamification. RVOLPC stands for Readily Verifiable On-Line
Price Comparison.
After
years of study within the behavioral sciences field and firsthand experience in
implementing incentive programs, Dr. Mitchell soon learned (as we have) that
the traditional merchandise awards used in the incentive industry are extremely
overpriced and the companies that use them run the risk of having unhappy
participants, which can result in de-motivation.
With
RVOLPC it is easy for your employees to compare prices of your awards on-line
and
determine the real value. Even with
points based applications where the reward company attempts to hide the
pricing, it’s not too difficult for an industrious web surfer to uncover the
price. Rest assured that not long after
that all the employees know about it as well.
Do you think they will be satisfied with a wide screen TV that cost them
(you) $2000, when they see it all day at Best Buy for $699?
There are definitely negative consequences of having an incentive or recognition award that
is priced higher than even the highest retail are.
Your
employees start to question many things about the program value. They see the company wasting money at a time
when budgets could be scarce.
With
more and more millennials now in the workforce, the use of technology is almost
inbred. They are more than comfortable
on the web, and can easily become disgruntled when think their company is
wasting money.
Overpriced
merchandise awards are a fact in the award industry. You can see them in any loyalty program
you participate in. If you are bound to
use some of these types of merchandise systems in your incentive or recognition
effort (especially long term years of service programs) you might want to
consider giving your employees a gift card option. Your merchandise award supplier will fight
you on this with a lot of hocus-pocus about trophy value, but your employees
know better. When employees have a
choice of gift cards over merchandise awards, they choose merchandise over 90%
of the time.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Friday, November 11, 2016
Does Higher Employee Engagement Really Produce Better Bottom Line Results?
In October 2012, the Employee Engagement Alliance
created a stock index (ECSI) to attempt to show a connection between a company’s
performance in the stock market and employee engagement. Engaging the
services of McBassi & Co (an HR analytics expert) the EEA developed the
ECSI based on McBassi’s Good Company Index which tracks several hundred public companies based on their levels of
customer, employee and community engagement collected from about a dozen
different sources.
From the Good Company Index list of companies, the EEA extracts
about 45 each year to form their ECSI. Traditionally
it turns over about 40% of that list as it calculates new scores. The methodology for the Good Company Index
can be found here.
The current ECSI showed it outperformed the S&P by 21.4% over
four years. Obviously from this perspective, you may want to conclude that the
companies with higher employment engagement, as measured by McBassi, had great
bottom line results than those that don’t.
However the stock market has volatility based on a number of various
factors.
Is this a case of the tail wagging the dog? Maybe. Is this empirical proof that recognition and employee engagement
produces better bottom line results? No. Are ECSI companies cherry picked to skew the outcomes? Probably not.
As one of these articles mentions “Companies that ignore stocks selected based on
environmental, social and governance factors (ESG sector) do so at their
peril…Good corporate governance plays a winning hand in capital allocation and
is critical to corporate longevity.”
From our experience we know that highly motivated
and satisfied employees will produce dramatic results. And that employee recognition is the cornerstone
of a highly satisfied employee.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Monday, November 7, 2016
The Tug-of-War Between Recognition and Engagement
The
incentive industry has been struggling with putting teeth into employee
recognition programs for many years. Most
of the large performance improvement companies of today were founded to create
and manage incentive programs to increase sales for their clients. But in the last two or three decades, the
entire landscape of the business awards industry changed. Executives realized that if merchandise and
travel awards could motivate their sales force as well as their channel
partners to increase sales and profits, many of the same techniques and strategies
could be used to motivate their non-sales personnel to better performance as
well.
But
for one simple reason, the incentive companies ran into a roadblock and it wasn’t
as easy to sell these new programs (commonly referred to employee recognition). Sales programs had a built-in a measurement
and an ROI. That isn’t true for the employee
recognition efforts where the goal was more loosely defined and based on
satisfaction levels, rather than clear cut bottom line performance. And executives wanted to see more results
they could take to the bank. Recognition budgets were a hard line budget item with
no or little ROI. Sales programs were
implemented based on incremental performance, often without the constraints of
the budgetary process.
So
now, over a half century after the large incentive houses were selling millions
of dollars of sales incentive programs, the other award companies are competing
to convince the C-suite to spend more and more on their non-sales personnel,
and it seems to be working. Now they
have another interesting quandary, the recognition programs have been overtaken
by the employee engagement programs. And
it appears that some of the same issues exist…how to justify the expense to
senior management.
This Recognition & Recognition Network article of the same title as this blog provides a comparison and insight
into the
In
reading the article, there are two perspectives we feel need further
examination. First, the three “industry leaders”
as mentioned amount to only a fraction of the sales revenues of the top three
full service performance improvement companies who that are still with us, and
still selling “recognition programs” so the lines of “leaders” are blurred. And second, the distinctions between
recognition and engagement programs offered appear to be without any empirical
evidence to justify the distinctions…and the lines between recognition are
still somewhat blurred as well.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Friday, November 4, 2016
Unspent Recognition Budgets Don't Improve Performance.
You don't have to throw your remaining 2016 recognition budget down the drain. Here's how you can use it in 2017.
If you have incentive dollars that are as yet unspent, be sure to use them! Often unspent funds can be “found” by the budget police looking for ways to cut back next year. So adopt a “use it or lose it” attitude and protect your employees from missing out on recognition and reward resources. Anticipate future needs and use those dollars to secure awards that will neither expire, decline in value, nor become outdated.
When your first 2017 recognition event rolls around, you’ll be happy you did. If your organization is mandating budget cuts and perhaps suggesting that recognition is one of the “best” areas to reduce or eliminate, do not allow your reward and incentive programs to fall prey to those cuts!
Statistics gathered from an actual program with a life-cycle of 10 years reflect that engaged employees will perform better in ANY market condition. In an up market, a recognition and incentive program will help exceed performance; and in a flat market, a reward program will help you maintain your performance. In a down market, taking care of your employees helps you protect your position and lets your key stakeholders know that you are grateful to them for sticking it out during the rough ride.
At Ultimate Choice, we can suggest ways to ECONOMICALLY recognize and engage employees with our gift cards solutions that do not expire or decline in value. As always, we impose no program or per card fees, no expiration, and no minimums. Each employee gets his CHOICE of what is personally most enjoyable, meaningful and engaging.
If you have incentive dollars that are as yet unspent, be sure to use them! Often unspent funds can be “found” by the budget police looking for ways to cut back next year. So adopt a “use it or lose it” attitude and protect your employees from missing out on recognition and reward resources. Anticipate future needs and use those dollars to secure awards that will neither expire, decline in value, nor become outdated.
When your first 2017 recognition event rolls around, you’ll be happy you did. If your organization is mandating budget cuts and perhaps suggesting that recognition is one of the “best” areas to reduce or eliminate, do not allow your reward and incentive programs to fall prey to those cuts!
Statistics gathered from an actual program with a life-cycle of 10 years reflect that engaged employees will perform better in ANY market condition. In an up market, a recognition and incentive program will help exceed performance; and in a flat market, a reward program will help you maintain your performance. In a down market, taking care of your employees helps you protect your position and lets your key stakeholders know that you are grateful to them for sticking it out during the rough ride.
At Ultimate Choice, we can suggest ways to ECONOMICALLY recognize and engage employees with our gift cards solutions that do not expire or decline in value. As always, we impose no program or per card fees, no expiration, and no minimums. Each employee gets his CHOICE of what is personally most enjoyable, meaningful and engaging.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Friday, October 21, 2016
Did You Know This About Employee Recognition?
We’ve all
seen surveys that address employee satisfaction relevant to job
performance. While we are always
hesitant to report on these surveys for a variety of reasons, collectively they
can form a solid impression when addressing specific subjects. In the case of employee recognition,
following is another set of statistics recently released through the Employee
Engagement Alliance. Without knowing the
methodology employed in conducting the survey or specific definition of terms
used, in general the results might be something you may to consider:
- The number one reason employees leave their job is because they feel underappreciated
- Employees who are highly satisfied with the job are 12% more productive
- Sales reps with high job satisfaction levels produce 37% more sales
- Peer to peer recognition produces a 41% improvement on customer satisfaction
- Companies with formalized recognition programs have 31% less voluntary turnover than those who don’t have one
- Peer to peer recognition has a 37% greater positive impact on financial results than manager only recognition
- 85% of companies that spend at least 1% of payroll on a recognition program report a positive effect on engagement
- Thanks and praise tops financial incentives for 67% of employees
- Less than 15% of companies provide managers the tools or information they need to implement effective employee recognition systems
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKy2_c7v6IfQP6QB6iVjtDZ-bWF7KOJnFtU3NI1QAU6yFSvheuNt7jAx7AJNZRm5ycPfBPM4X06wV6VlD9GOdfHSvGVnMbrhqH3tnhj2jJBrLcTCgetPy5KQUHvOSkhLnN6oC0F8J-92k/s200/unhappy+emp7.png)
You all
heard the expression about how ‘figures can lie’, etc. Research is often conducted by companies as a
way to enhance their selling proposition with “facts” that support their
positions, making their products and services easier to sell. We are not a
research company, and we have no way to validate the above points. But the one thing we do know is that employee
recognition does work and will produce positive results. We do know that a satisfied employee base is
a powerful influence on the success of a company. We have seen through the implementation of
hundreds of recognition programs that it works.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Friday, October 14, 2016
Just Say Thanks
We
are constantly amazed at how far the employee recognition industry has come
from the early days of presenting someone with crystal bowl for 25 years of
continuous service.
And
we at Ultimate Choice are happy it has; we have been able to build a
multi-million dollar enterprise because of it.
But it also amazes us of how complex the entire employee recognition industry has
become. When HR professionals embark on
building an engaged employee culture with reward and recognition as a
component, they can be bombarded with more award ideas and systems than they
can be expected to consider. Does the
research, the training, the in depth communications strategies, the
sophisticated feedback methods all combine to make employee recognition more
multifaceted than it really needs to be?
When
you get right down to it, shouldn’t it just be as easy as saying Thank You?
- Do you thank at least one employee a day on average?
- When was the last time your manager said thanks to you?
- When was the last time senior management said thanks to anyone, not in an email?
- When was the last time you wrote a quick hand-written note to someone for doing a good job?
- When is the last time you received one?
- When you recognize someone do you also tell their supervisor?
- Do you look forward to thanking someone, or do you consider it a chore?
When
you foster a culture of
gratitude, it can be a game changer for sustainably better performance.
Organizations aren’t necessary stingy with saying thanks, the
problem is that employees do something all the time and no one knows about
it. All you need to do is create a
simple process for any individual in any location to feed a suggestion for
recognition of a peer up the management chain, and then have a quick and easy
process to make it happen
Many organizations over-engineer their recognition
programs. Making a genuine connection
with someone who has done something you appreciate is a powerful management
tool. Don’t neglect it…
Just
Say Thanks!
And remember...
"the more personal the thank you
is, the more value it has."
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Monday, October 10, 2016
Kiss Recognition – Simplify Your Employee Recognition
As all the talk of employee engagement swirls around us,
just remember that recognition is a very key element and the more complex you
make RECOGNITION, the less likely it will remain the simplistic HR practice
that is should be.
If you want your employee recognition program to be successful and sustaining here are some very basic
simple things to do:
- Tell then what you want them to do
- Measure their performance
- Tell them how they did
- Recognize them for doing it with something that they want
Oftentimes
employee recognition doesn’t need to be any more complex than that. For a short paper that will give you some
great tips and show you some essentials for building the simplest recognition
program, please click here.
Oh,
and remember the most fundamental thing!
JUST
DO IT!
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Primary Objectives of Gift Card Award Programs
The
“2016 Gift Card IQ” research conducted by Incentive
magazine was recently released.
Following are the results to the question of “What are your primary
objectives for using gift cards?
Following
is a recap of that research and a comparison of those same questions to 2015.
Answers
|
2016
|
2015
|
Boost
Morale
|
65.7%
|
61.7%
|
Improve
Performance
|
47.6%
|
56.0%
|
Build
Employee Trust/Loyalty
|
44.8%
|
42.9%
|
Increase
or Maintain Sales
|
33.6%
|
34.9%
|
Foster
Teamwork
|
31.5%
|
23.4%
|
Build
Customer Loyalty
|
30.1%
|
26.3%
|
Improve
Customer Service
|
23.8%
|
28.6%
|
Start
or Maintain Business Relationships
|
16.8%
|
20.6%
|
Improve
Safety
|
9.8%
|
12.0%
|
Create
New Markets
|
9.1%
|
6.3%
|
Improve
Employee Health
|
8.4%
|
10.3%
|
Other
|
7.0%
|
4.0%
|
If
you are sourcing your own gifts cards and want to view a gift card system that
has $ for $ pricing with NO FEE and allows your participant to redeem for over
500 of the most popular brands of gift cards in the country, please let usknow.
Here's just a few of the over 500 gift card brands that we use in our systems.
For more
information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white
papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net
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