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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
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