Your Employees Know What Motivates Them. Do You?

As mentioned in our previous blog post, The 10 Best Ways to Successfully Reward and Recognize Employees, it is more important than ever to entice your employees with relevant rewards. With that being said, there are two takeaways from that tip.

1. The pins, crystal vases, t-shirts, hats and plaques that used to motivate and excite 25 years ago, don’t have the same impact today.
2. What might inspire one person, may have the opposite effect on another.

So what is an employer supposed to give to their dedicated employees that will motivate and excite them?

In 2014, gift card sales topped $124 billion, which is a 5% increase over 2013 (according to CEB). Gift cards allow individuals to purchase something that they love, rather than something someone else loves. This idea is consistent with the findings of Incentive Magazine’s 2014 Gift Card IQ Survey. 80% of the survey’s responders said they thought the effectiveness of using gift cards as a tool for employee incentives was “extremely effective.”

When asked how they used gift cards in their incentive programs, 73.6% of responders said to “recognize performance” – up almost 4% from 2013. Other responders said they use gift cards for ‘on-the-spot’ rewards, wellness programs and safety awards – up an average of 6.8% in 2013. What these numbers are telling us, is that companies are understanding the importance of rewarding their employees more frequently, rather than just on the employee’s service anniversary.

Bear in mind, not all gift card solutions are created equal. Certain bank-affiliated gift cards that advertise ultimate flexibility and encourage the recipient to use their gift card anywhere, can often be more trouble than they’re worth. Many of these bank gift cards come with a monthly maintenance fee, or even charge you just for initially loading funds onto the card. Those same bank cards may also limit the recipient’s options on where and how to use it, causing unnecessary costs to the purchaser and frustrating limitations to the recipient.

Ultimate Choice Drives Motivation

What if there was an award card that carried no fees, no expiration date and gave your employees the gift of nearly unlimited choice? With the Award of Choice recognition card, your employees essentially have a shopping mall in their hands. Upon receiving an Award of Choice card, the recipient gets to choose between 500+ gift card options to their favorite places like Walmart, Starbucks, Target, Best Buy, Amazon.com, Chipotle, Disney, Bass Pro Shop, The Home Depot and more!

Program Benefits

1. This program eliminates the guess work for employers to find that one-size-fits-all gift to satisfy all of their employees.
2. There are no fees associated to this card – it’s 100% dollar for dollar.
3. Your employees get to be excited about their gifts because they choose what motivates them!

To learn more, visit www.AwardofChoice.com and find out why companies like McDonald’s, Ace Hardware and Dun & Bradstreet use Award of Choice to engage and inspire their workforce!