GiftCard Partners Blog

Employee turnover is constantly on the mind of human resources professionals in all types of organizations. However, once you see the infographic from TribeHR below you might put some urgency behind an employee retention initiative. On average, a new employee costs over $57,000 in lost productivity, on-boarding costs, benefits application, and that figure does not even include the cost of training. For the cost of $57,000 could pay a junior level employee for an entire year, which has much greater potential to have a lasting impact on your business than simply bringing on a new employee. Want to lower the cost of employee turnover? Keep your current employees on board! Make sure employees feel appreciated through recognition of exceptional actions. Provide opportunity for learning and growth through professional development. When employees feel appreciated and feel like their employers are investing in them, employee turnover will decrease and retention rates will rise.

How well do you know your neighbor? With the hustle and bustle of everyday life many are finding themselves more and more dettached from their neighbors and the community as a whole can end up suffering.
Using small rewards to incentivize community engagement can help not only accomplish community goals, but engage a certain subset of your community to slow down and get involved. Whether you need to clean up the neighborhood playground, seed the community garden or encourage young adults in your community to get in the habit of giving blood, a small incentive could do the trick. Offering a $5 gift card to retailers like
Subway or
Speedway to incentivize either your whole community or a specific group, like young adults or seniors (or both to get cross-generational volunteerism going!) can provide a small boost to get community members active. Whether your goal is to make a positive impact on a small budget or to bring the community together as a whole, gift cards are a great motivational tool and something everyone can appreciate. How is your community incentivizing community engagement? As the summer comes to an end and fall is quickly approaching, what are you doing  to bring your town, city or community together in a unified effort to make your community a better place? Leave us a comment with your ideas!

According to a study released last week, employee engagement has reached levels that it has not experienced since 2009. 68% of employees are now engaged based on the survey of 400,000 employees at nearly 5,000 various organizations. The average increase over the last 3 years has been about .43%. If this rate continues, employee engagement could be back to 2007 levels, which was 70.6%. Throughout the past 7 years the same top three items have had the greatest impact on employee engagement:

Marketing has come a long way from the days when it relied heavily on intuition. Today, thanks to a wealth of consumer data available through online transactions, social media, loyalty programs, and real-time feedback, companies can develop data-backed marketing strategies. In fact, 90% of marketers say they rely on data to make decisions that improve customer journeys, increase retention, and drive revenue.

CVS Caremark, the parent company to CVS/pharmacy, recently
announced its acquisition of Navarro Discount Pharmacy. 
"The acquisition of Navarro will strengthen CVS/pharmacy's position in the Hispanic marketplace, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., and we are excited to be adding the Navarro Discount Pharmacy brand to the CVS/pharmacy family," said Helena Foulkes, President, CVS/pharmacy. CVS/pharmacy continues to expand with this acquisition, adding to its now has 7,600 locations nationwide. Navarro customers will also benefit from the Minute Clinic services, bringing urgent health care services into new communities. CVS/pharmacy gift cards are now an even stronger brand to make available to your employees as part of a health and wellness initiative, or rewards through an employee recognition program. Gift cards are useful to employees in any denomination, large or small, which helps fit into an employer's budget for the remaining part of 2014, or as we all begin to look ahead to 2015 planning. With
four options to choose from, CVS/pharmacy corporate gift cards offer a card to fit your program.