On The Spot Employee Recognition

There is no question that employee recognition is important for your company’s long term success.  This is emphasized in study after study in employee engagement strategies. 

It is a puzzle why there are still many companies that just don’t recognize employees as well as they should, or at all!

Do your front line and middle managers recognize and thank employees often, sometimes, not at all? Are you making it easy for them to do just that?

According to SHRM Resource Management:

 “Spot awards—given immediately upon witnessing outstanding employee performance—are a powerful motivator for desired behavior, just as predicted by the classic operant conditioning model.”

Our On the Spot card was developed for just that situation.  It is extremely easy to use, cost effective and is guaranteed to give your employees the recognition award they really want.

For a flyer that will highlight several features and benefits of the On the Spot please click here.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

More Recognition and Reward Firms Shifting to Engagement

Lately several traditional incentive companies (those whose core competency is to sell merchandise/gift cards and travel to motivate or recognize employees) are shifting their focus to being a part of the Employee Engagement community.  Actually, this is not too unusual as some of the very large incentive houses did just that back in the 1980’s when market conditions eroded profits and they needed to open new areas to produce sales.

From a purely unscientific viewpoint, the simplest way to explain why all these companies are now making this shift to an already crowded field of employee engagement companies is…. MONEY!  They all want a piece of the growing pie. 

Merchandise/Gift Cards and Travel are commodities, and the price is more or less governed by market conditions.  Because they are commodities, those margins tend to be far less than the services sold using the traditional time and materials model used by suppliers to the employee engagement programs such as consultants, research, training, advertising, social media and communications agencies. 

In the last ten to twenty years there has been considerable budget growth in the employee engagement activities, and less in the traditional recognition programs.  Essentially, traditional incentive companies make the shift to employee engagement because they want to swim in a larger pool where the water is warmer

To make the shift effective and be considered a serious competitor in the employee engagement world, each of these companies has to build or buy a complete technology platform especially designed to address the key components of employee engagement as mentioned above. In addition these platforms also contain an awards mall which, in effect, sets them up to be a “one stop shop.”

As a prominent gift card supplier, we interface with many different tech platforms to provide over 500 of the most popular gift cards in the country.  If asked by a client, we will be glad to source a technology platform, or to recommend ones that have proven successful.  Our core competency is implementing gift card award systems, and we excel at it as attested by long time clients. When putting together your platform, don’t forget that gift cards are by far the number one award redeemed in these points based programs.  In fact in the largest loyalty bank card programs redemption for gifts comprise over 95% of all the redemptions of all merchandise type awards.

A word of caution for those who are considering or have a points-based employee engagement rewards platform…

It is better for you to invest separately in the technology platform and have complete control over the purchasing of the awards.  Remember…they are commodities and as such should command a lower price. 

When the incentive supplier sells you everything as a package, your control of cost and value of points, how many points an award can be redeemed for, what extras are involved, etc., all usually left up to the supplier.  It is not unusual in cases like this for the supplier to garner high margins on things like gift cards…and that only hurts your employees at redemption time.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Is There a “Sea Change” in Recognition Strategies?

A recent study by Baylor University suggests that employers who promote ethics should reward their employees who exhibit them.  They make the case that when you build the culture and reputation of the company from the inside out, and when employees rate the company highly as an ethical place to work, that it can promote a competitive edge. Along with this of course, you also need high quality products and services and a customer service attitude that second to none.

Is this really a “sea change” in how and why we should recognize our employees?  Is this much different from traditional strategies used to recognize employees using the companies “mission, vision and values”?  While company ethics has always been a fundamental precept of an organization, is it something that has taken center stage in your efforts at internal branding?  Or is ethics something that has just been “understood” as being a value, mentioned often but rarely defined as the fundamental building block of your company?

We have all seen where questionable company ethics, at whatever level, can destroy a company.  When employees don’t trust the management from the board room on down, when they see first-hand questionable customer dealings, when they see management looking like the three monkeys, ethics will erode.

This is a “sea change".  It is fundamentally a new focus on internal branding that will support your objectives and values. According to the study, when you tie the communications and training to honesty and respect and include it in employee awards and job performance evaluations, you can decrease turnover and improve performance.  Many companies are now looking at internal branding as a marriage between Marketing and HR with a more holistic approach that aligns corporate communications with all the elements that engage and inspire the employees.  Rewards should mirror that shift.

According to Baylor researcher Marlene Neill, Ph.D,

“If workers come to believe that an employer does not ‘walk the walk’ touted at orientations and in communications, they may decide that the company violated a psychological contract…That may lead to turnover, job dissatisfaction, distrust and reduced performance, despite good salaries, benefits and chances to advance.” 

The study offers the following Best Practices for including ethics in the entire onboarding process: 

• Employers should communicate ethics in a relevant way, such as employee testimonials and historical anecdotes. 
• Employers should review their core values to be sure they mesh with policies and reward systems. If not, they should make revisions. 
• Employers should review recruitment and orientation materials to include core values. 
• Employers should evaluate their ethics programs and see if they should add more resources, such as ethics audits or decision-making trees. 
• Employers should do routine surveys to see how employees rate the company’s performance in regards to core values. 
• Employees who model ethical behavior should be rewarded through positive job evaluations and awards programs.  

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Recognize Good Performance with an Award, not a Gift

                

This may seem like splitting hairs to some and just semantics to others, but an award for performing well and a gift typically have very different meanings to both the giver and the recipient.

What is often common to both rewards and gifts is “Thank You,” although there are times when thanks are not even mentioned for either.  A gift is something you give to someone you care about.  When you give a gift to someone you are not rewarding them for anything you’ve asked them to do, you’re simply adding generosity to “thanks” in a meaningful way.  When you ask someone to improve on performance, and they do, they have earned an award. 

Everyone loves gifts for doing nothing other than being themselves.  Folks also take a great deal of pride in accomplishing something and being recognized for the achievement.  Gifts have no strings attached.  Recognition and incentive programs have lots of strings attached, some so sophisticated that they have to have computer programs to implement and sustain them. 

Incentive and recognition programs are all about changing behavior and producing results.  Without getting deep into the science and psychology of behavior modification, let’s just use this fundamental outline of the behavior model…

• Explain What You Want Someone to Do 
• Tell Them How to Do It
• Measure their Performance
• Provide a Positive Consequence upon Achievement
• The positive consequence you give them is an AWARD, it is certainly not a gift. 

Semantics?  We don’t think so.

If you want a real fun discussion, what is the difference between a reward and an award??  Many think it’s interchangeable, one a verb and one a noun and vice versa.  Webster defines it both ways, and I guess that’s good enough for us.  As long as you give us call when you want to reward some awards.  Then you can buy some gift card awards and present them as positive consequences for almost any objective.  

Thank you to Jennifer one of our most recent clients who asked the question that prompted this post.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Compare Cash or Non Cash as Employee Awards

Many people in the incentive industry will say that cash as an award doesn’t motivate as well as non-cash.  Frankly to say that cash doesn’t motivate is disingenuous. It is innately tied to our perceptions of reward as a universal motivator in this country.   It is easy to use, easy to distribute, and fulfills many of the needs that people have.  In difficult economic times it can certainly be very motivating. 

However, there are two sides to using cash as a motivator, and to understand when to use cash and when to use alternative awards requires an understanding of both sides.

Over the years we have spent a great deal of time researching cash and non cash as an employee or sales award and have come up with at least eight reasons why non cash may be a better choice when attempting to motivate and award employees. 

All too often when faced with the choice of choosing an award in a program designed to change behavior, the planners immediately go to cash thinking that it is the best way.  There are times, especially when the objective is to increase sales performance, when cash may not be the best award and in fact may not motivate at all.  In the least, research has shown that it takes 3 times more cash than other rewards to receive the same results.  That reason alone may be sufficient to investigate other reward options.

For a systematic and thorough review of the features and benefits of cash and non cash please click here.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

What Wellness Awards Do Companies Use?

Incentives “Safety & Wellness IQ” survey, the top rewards in wellness programs are:

Award Type	Included in Program
Retail & Bank Gift Cards	58.9%
Merchandise	41.2%
Cash	27.9%
Insurance Premium Reduction	25.5%
Individual Travel	10.3%
Experiential Awards (Spa treatments, etc.)	7.4%
Group Travel	4.4%

It’s no surprise that gift cards are the number one award group as the vast majority of individual budgets for these types of achievable objectives are less $50 to $100 ea.  And gift cards are by far the best value in that denomination of award especially considering the high margins on merchandise that tends to deflate the value and group or individual travel awards that are quite expensive.  

Communications and Technology Are Key

Communicating the range and complexity of health services can present a challenge. Individual motivation or apathy, sensitive health issues, and the cultural, geographic and demographic differences in your organization can all pose problems that need to be addressed when deciding on the communication strategy. Intranet portals, email campaigns, mobile devices, well thought out promotional items and the use of a host of Technology apps that speak to fitness can all help to make your program a success. 

Activity trackers and wearable devises such as FitBit and smart watches are simple ways for employees to measure performance against goals.  The American Council on Exercise reports that “people are 30 to 40 percent more likely to be active just by wearing a fitness tracker.” By using gift cards redeemable for Amazon and other online suppliers you can help offset the cost of activity trackers that can be expensive. Two top apps that unlock this ability for iPhones and Android devices are Argus and Pacer, both free, as are a host of others..

Safety programs for years have used triggers to motivate intended behaviors to avoid accidents.  Wearables are a great trigger.  The device on your wrist, the blinking light and vibration are physical reminders to change your behavior. 

The Future

When you add financial planning, life style education, stress management and life-stage management to the equation, you move into the future from the wellness of the past to the entire well-being of the employee in the future.  With a wellness program designed to change every day habits and reinforce improvement, these holistic well-being programs can help improve business outcomes like productivity and employee engagement, essentially the health of the business. 

 

Companies that have seen measurable success know that these wellness programs take time to show results.  They are long term objectives with very positive long term consequences. 

There is abundant evidence to support the return on investment evident in the wellness programs of today.  A quick search of the net will provide many.  How is your wellness effort going? 

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Wellness Award Programs Today

According to Incentive magazines “Safety and Wellness IQ,” almost 50% of companies today have some sort of employee wellness program in place.  The biggest difference today is that most CEOs while eager to invest in wellness efforts, are demanding a better return on these investments.  Healthcare costs and healthcare insurance are high, too high, and companies are looking for everything they can do to reduce them.  With an aging workforce these numbers may only get higher.

A study conducted by the Global Wellness Institute, “2016 Future of Wellness at Work”, states the economic enormity of worker health is approaching 10-15% of global economic output.  Some economist’s estimate this can amount to over $2 trillion each year.  According to the research company Gallup, the cost to U.S. employers is $153 billion a year just counting workdays missed.  Whether these global estimations are pertinent to your company or not, unhealthy workers have been a persistently growing problem.

Wellness efforts of the past amounted to websites with articles about exercise and nutrition with links to other resources; and wellness coaches and or company nurses who did health risk assessments (HRA).  This communication effort often left it up to the worker to motivate them to “get healthy”.  Today, doing an HRA is just the starting point, the admission ticket to the program.  From a push using incentives to get employees involved by taking the HRA, today the effort is on participating, doing something to improve your health.  Programs goals have changed from getting employees to join to improving health and fitness and thus reducing costs. 

Participative Goals

Another change in programs is not just focusing on people who are unhealthy, but getting to the rest of the employee base to ensure they don’t fall into chronic health conditions in the future.  Today it’s about what your programs stress, what you want your employees to do.  Incentives “2016 Safety & Wellness IQ” survey showed the top activities a program encourages are:

Activity	Included in Programs
Physical fitness (walking, running, cycling, swimming) etc..	68.5%
Regular Medical Checkups	64.4%
HRA Survey	56.3%
Smoking cessation	54.8%
Monitoring Health Issues (hypertension, diabetes, etc.)	49.3%
Gym, Fitness Classes	41.1%
Obesity Reduction	39.7%

As all of these goals have specific and easy to obtain measurement are participative and outcomes based, awards can be easily used to achieve thems.  By using a wellness portal with video to  provide advice and material on all of these objectives, you  can appeal to your entire workforce, especially millennials.  Challeng goals and team objectives can also add to the interest because you can have groups supporting each other. 

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

"Let Me Have the Gift Card I Want!"

In employee interview after employee interview we constantly hear the complaint that their company just doesn’t listen to them and rarely gives them rewards that appeal to their own lifestyle.

Thousands of companies purchase and issue gift cards to their employees but it is exceedingly rare for a company to purchase and inventory a multitude of the most favorable gift cards in order to give their employees a choice.  It’s just not feasible to spend company budgets on dozens of different gift cards that sit a drawer waiting for the employee to choose it.  It doesn’t even make sense.  It’s also expensive and has the risk of loss.

So the company picks one or two gift to keep around and limits the choice and cost.  Unfortunately that doesn’t do much for the employee, especially if they don’t really like or use the cards the company chose. 

There are several gift card systems that allow an employee to pick the card that best suits their needs, the one that they really want.  One company, Ultimate Choice Inc., sells this system without fees so on a one to one basis the systems can cost you less than doing it yourself, and will provide so much more. 

If they cost the same as buying the gift cards on your own, wouldn’t it just make sense to give the employees the choice?

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Is Your Reward Salesperson Award Neutral?

It’s become common practice in the incentive industry for award and recognition companies to say that they are award neutral.  This should mean of course that they have no bias toward what award you use in your incentive and recognition programs.  Unfortunately for most of them that is completely untrue!  It’s like the politicians telling us anything they want us to hear; they always spin the story to their bias….always!  Do any of them ever tell you the whole truth?

Anyone selling awards has a bias toward what award they are trying to sell...and it will be the one that provides them with the most income.

When you are trying to determine what recognition award to use, the best position you can be in is finding out what awards your employees really want, not what you think they want, or what an award company tells you they want, or frankly what you want them to have.

The success of award programs is often in direct proportion to the motivation appeal of the award that the participants can earn.  When it’s not what they want, they won’t do much to attain it.

So take the time to choose the right combination of awards.  The success of your program will depend on it. 

Just for the record, we are BIASED…have always been.  We believe that when you give your recipient the choice of which gift card they want, instead of the one you want them to have, you will have a more successful program.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

How Effective Are Gift Cards As Recognition Awards?

According to recent research on gift cards published by Incentive Magazine 97.6% of all incentive users reporting felt that gift cards were effective, very effective or extremely effective.  Actual research results were:

The diversity of today’s workforce demands something different from the same traditional merchandise awards that were used for their parents and grandparents.

Total Effectiveness of Gift Cards as Employee Awards	% of Responses
Effective	17.6%
Very Effective	48.85%
Extremely Effective	31.2%

By any measure, gift cards are the most effective recognition award for two simple reasons:  

• They provide the greatest choice and value for the award winner
• Unquestionably they give the client the most cost effective means to recognize performance  

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Millennials Love Gift Cards

If you want to motivate or recognize the performance of millennials, give them a choice of gift cards. 

Recent research conducted by NPD Group and the Wharton School finds that gift cards are particularly popular with the younger generation.  It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that this group is “wired”, they grew up online, are connected always through various devices, and when they shop they prefer to use gift cards, and specifically electronic gift cards.

While various groups can agree or disagree on traditional vs electronic gift cards, in general, most of the younger age groups, and even many Boomers, prefer general purpose bank cards vs specific store cards because they can be used almost anywhere.  Unfortunately, from the perspective of a buyer of employee recognition programs, these bank cards can charge purchase fees from $3.95 to $6.95 per card.  And, as the vast majority of gift cards used in recognition programs are valued at $25, these fees can amount to an additional 15% to 30% added to your budget.

 

When faced with this choice, buyers often consider using one of several gift card solutions that are available in the incentive industry.  These solutions allow them to award one card or certificate that can then be redeemed for large array of popular gift cards.  Many of these solutions also contain a fee per card, but there is one that doesn’t…

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Gift Cards Are a Boon To Employee Recognition Programs

Gift cards as we know them became popular in the early 1980’s and actually started to be used in employee award programs only a few years after that. 

The development of the gift card has been a blessing for anyone who wants to award and recognize employees.  If you think you can find the perfect award that fits every employee you can’t. Unless you only have a handful of employees, you won’t know each of them well enough to offer an award that suits them, at that time.   And we've learned that one size really doesn't fit all.

Employee award gift cards have grown in popularity faster than anything else in the award industry.  In the retail world the growth has been exponential.  In 2004 we spent $20 billion in gift cards and that has grown to over $100 billion annually.  Today it is hard to find company that doesn’t use gift cards somewhere in their recognition mix.

Gift cards have gone from being considered impersonal gifts to being the most thoughtful gift of all. The gift card is a sign of the times - tastes change quickly, options should remain open, and when you use gift cards for employee awards, you’ll always be giving them the award that they want. 

Research shows that:

•         93% of U.S. consumers purchase or receive a gift card annually
•         Consumers spend an average of $213/year on gift cards
•        83% of corporations use gift & prepaid cards for employee incentives

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

What Do Companies Spend on Wellness & Safety Awards?

When considering an incentive effort to drive employee wellness and safety one of the first decisions to make is how much to spend on each employee. There has never been any definitive analytical proof that will show you how much it will take to motivate someone to change behavior, or for that matter what award will induce the most excitement.  For years the incentive industry has provided guidelines to help you decide: example: X% of the salary for the program period, but there has never been any empirical evidence to support these rules.  The chart below will give you a good idea of what type of budget companies are using today.

A number of factors go into motivating behavior change.  And while one is the award itself, it is by no means the only one.  If you think by simply offering some type $50-$100 fitness device you are going to motivate an employee to change years of poor lifestyle choices then think again, it probably won’t.  But in combination with the other pieces of the wellness program (not the least of which is well designed communications) a choice of awards can be effective. 

Low Employee Engagement Equals Costly Poor Work Performance

If you subscribe to the belief that low engagement equals low performance, you’ll understand the importance of keeping your employees excited and sustaining the belief that they are valued and appreciated.

Losing an employee that you’ve spent time to hire, train, and bring up to speed  is significant.  The cost of replacing an employee who leaves is at least 30% of that employee’s annual salary.  To put that in perspective, with a $150M annual payroll, just a 20% turnover would cost that company $9M a year!

Employees often leave due to a LACK OF APPRECIATION AND PRAISE – not money!  A lack of something as simple as an unexpected “you did a great job” –  or “we couldn’t have done it without you.”

Many companies use simple “thank you” recognition programs to foster a CULTURE OF RECOGNITION.  Others allow their employees to say thanks to each other with peer-peer programs.  Over the last few years research has shown that positively engaged employees will perform better, last longer, and provide better and more positive experience for your customers.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

How Much to Spend on Recognition Programs?

We are often asked how much should be spent on average per recipient in a recognition program.  While there is no hard and fast answer to that, the incentive industry for years presented a formula to clients that were based on the employee’s income and duration of the award program.  If they were trying to motivate the individuals to achieve a outcome that
was quantifiable  based on profits, then the recommendation could have been 5% of income for the period if it was long term (9-12 months) and 10% of income during the program is it was short term (3-4 months). 

Recognition programs that couldn’t be quantified were simply budgeted based on what the company thought they could afford, nothing more.  The more emphasis the company leadership placed on the importance on a culture of positive reinforcement for employees who performed well, the hire the budget per employee.

This dichotomy is one of the single most important differences between incentive programs designed to produce results, and recognition programs that were designed to improve employee satisfaction.  However, drawing a line from satisfied employees the company’s bottom line results has always been difficult to do so it has always been difficult to determine a spend rate for it.

The 2015 Incentive Magazine Gift Card IQ survey asked their respondents how much they budgeted per employee for their recognition programs.  The results were as follows:   

$ Spend Per Recipient	%
Less than $25	11%
$25 to $49	28%
$50 to $99	22%
$100 to $149	17%
$150 to $199	4%
$200 to $499	8%
$500 to $999	5%
$1000 or more	5%

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net