Are Gift Cards Used in Recognition Programs More Effective than Traditional Merchandise Awards?

 

In the fall of 2009, Incentive Magazine compared the effectiveness of gift cards to traditional merchandise awards in employee recognition programs.  Following are the results of that study. 

 

How Effective Are Gift Cards Compared to Merchandise	% of Responses
More effective than merchandise	64.7%
Equally as effective as merchandise	24.5%
Less effective than merchandise	2.2%
Do not use merchandise awards	8.6%

 

The Incentive Research Foundation has conducted this study every year since 2009, and the results have been very similar.  In fact, the data has been within +/- 5% of the original research.  This is not surprising to those of us who implement gift cards award systems in companies.  Gift cards have grown to be the single largest employee award in the industry.

 And the reasons remain the same: 

• Gift Cards aree easy to administer
• Gift Cards give your employees the award they want not the one you think they want.
• With Gift Cards virtually all of your recognition budget gets into the hand of your employees, where it belongs.

 

 

 

 

Gift cards are more effective than traditional merchandise awards for two simple reasons:  they provide the greatest choice at the greatest value to both the client and the award winner.  Nothing else even comes close.  Read more about why gift cards are the #1 incentive award.

 

 

 

 

Employee Recognition Has a Shelf Life

 

Social media has everyone, especially millennials, addicted to instant news.  We have come to expect to know about the movements and events of our family, friends and acquaintances almost from the time things happen.  There is a desire to communicate and share graduations, promotions, engagements, travel, sporting achievements and so forth immediately in the public forum. 

The same holds true in business.  Research shows that employee recognition is an extremely important factor on why employees stay on the job; they want to work where they are respected and recognized.  So too, the time frame for giving recognition keeps getting smaller and smaller.  The days of waiting to be announced as the Employee of the Month, Quarter or Year should have gone the way of buggy whip.  Unfortunately that’s all but true as the remnants of those programs are still prevalent in many companies today.  How many times do we have to see an employee recognized for something that they can’t remember they did???

 Research has also shown that after receiving recognition and positive feedback, employee satisfaction levels can jump up by 40% or more.  It’s just good practice to recognize employees as close to the positive performance as you can.  It’s fundamental to behavior change. A great way for managers to remember this is to think of when the Super Bowl champs receive their trophy…it’s on the field right after the game while all their fans are there. 

That’s the feeling and memory you want to create when you deliver employee recognition.  Obviously, you won’t be doing it on that grand a scale, but the more effort you put into it the more benefit you’ll receive from it, and more pride you will instill in your employee.  

The award industry has several systems that allow you to procure, receive and present recognition awards that make it easy for you to recognize performance.  One of these are instant gift cards that allow your employees to pick the gift card brand suited to them, the one they want the most.  Many of these are digital which allows you to present an award and the employee can actually purchase something online within minutes of the presentation.

Use the Power of Positive Thinking To Get Back to Normal

 While Norman Vincent Peale (1998-1994) was a prolific writer, “The Power of Positive Thinking” was by far his most widely read work.  The book was first published in 1952. Now, over 60 years later, advances in cognitive psychology and neuroscience have added some scientific evidence to his theory. 

These recent advances in cognitive psychology and neuroscience have shown, as the scientists say, “how our life’s ups and downs activate different neural circuits in the brain and create rapid changes in a range of important neurotransmitters.”  In other words changes in brain chemistry can alter how we think which then relates to how we feel and then how we behave.

Consider the following conclusions that were derived from a large meta-analysis combining the findings of over 225 academic studies on employees with a positive psychological wellbeing:

• They have on average 31% higher productivity  
• Their sales are 37% higher
• Their creativity is three times higher
• Are highly predictive to have long-term physical health
• Are less likely to have elevated levels of stress and stress related illness
• Avoid the anxiety that triggers depression

Simply put, these studies point to the fact that negative emotions that are caused by anxiety, fear, anger, stress, self-doubt etc. closes our brain off from the outside world where positive emotions broaden the sense of possibility and opens our mind to more positive options. 

Is it fair to assume that the most engaged employees will be your most positive employees? And building a positive culture will provide some long term positive results.

Certainly, the pandemic and aftermath have made it very difficult to maintain a positive environment when there are so many factions pulling us apart.  But don’t discount the power of being positive whenever and where ever you can in the workplace (and at home for that matter).  It works and can help us all get back the “normal”.

66% of Recognition Programs Canceled?

 

A “Pulse Survey at the end of 2020 by Incentive Research Foundation found that only 34% of incentive and recognition programs continue to operate with minimal change.  As the pandemic lessens, that figure has grown, but it is important to look into some of the reasons why this happened. 

Essentially, in these uncertain times, executives will always look to reduce or delete budget items that are not considered essential to the growth of the business. Unfortunately, some incentives and recognition programs are always in that group.  The 34% of the programs that have remained are those that have are more likely to be considered critical to the organization. About 12% of respondents say their programs are viewed as even more important because of the pandemic.  

Frankly this has been a flaw in incentive and recognition planning for years.  The vast majority of programs implemented did not do a good job of developing, implementing and then measuring and researching the program objectives.  That is still very much the case within generic employee recognition programs where it is a given that these programs produced results.  Some respondents even noted that program growth goals were reduced in order to maintain a “employee motivations.”  

We cannot emphasize enough that proper goal setting accompanied by using a program design with the focus on the goals and then the measurement and reporting of the results is what will keep your program in place.  Not tying your program to overall corporate success can easily put it on the “cancellation list.”