GiftCard Partners Blog

According to a
recent Aon Hewitt survey, most employers do not measure the cost of employee absence in their business. Employee absence and the costs associated can add up to almost 8% of their total payroll in benefits payouts, lost productivity and temporary employee salary. Since most employers see these as a "cost of doing business," those employers are missing the opportunity to combat the issue head-on. Employee wellness programs, such as a quarterly weight loss challenge, biometric screenings or a lunchtime walking club can be an easy way to promote wellness in the workplace and avoid employee sick days. Keeping employees focused on their health is, in a way, keeping employees focused on the health of the business and the culture of your organization. Minimizing work stoppage and maintaining continuity are important in maintaining productivity. When introducing an employee wellness program to a potentially skeptical staff, be sure to communicate the goals and parameters of the program clearly. Adding small rewards like gift cards to healthy retailers like
Nutrisystem,
GNC and
CVS/pharmacy can go a long way in boosting employee participation and bringing co-workers together to focus on employee wellness across the organization. Absences can hurt your business, minimize them by focusing on employee wellness.

Social media has become and integral part of all of our lives, whether we like it or not. Using social media to engage employees can be a great tool, it's become a staple for many Americans in their day to day routine and requires voluntary participation by definition. Here are four great ways to use social media to stimulate employee engagement, no matter your organizations size.

A company's most valuable asset is their top performing employees. Employee engagement and keeping those employees happy are the easiest way to retain those top performers. Most companies focus on finding and hiring the best talent, but the goal shouldn't stop there.  Employee engagement, keeping employees motivated and invested in the company culture, and the strategy behind it all is equally important.  Management must do more than just the "given" benefits, such as compensations, vacation, and paid lunches.

According to recent studies in the U.K., employees would rather be recognized for their professional accomplishments and have a solid benefits package then get paid a higher wage. Is it possible that our neighbors across the pond are on to something we can apply here? We can all agree that it feels great to get recognized by your boss for a job well done, almost more than getting that paycheck we all expect twice a month, however, could it be true that we might all pass up a raise for some good old fashion employee recognition. These numbers seem to indicate that if Americans are anything like Brits, we would:

We talk a lot about employee engagement, but today let’s focus our attention on customer engagement (and as you may know, customer engagement and employee engagement correlate with each other).  The best companies know that acquiring new customers and customer retention are key to real sustainable growth, no matter what industry your company is in.  Jobs follow customers. Without your customers there would be no company. Over the last 5 years, gaining and retaining customer has been difficult and the customer base has changed dramatically.  Customers are more cautious about spending and demanding more in return. Over the next 30 years, roughly
$140 trillion in new customer spending will be up for grabs! The best companies set out to win their customers over for life. They also understand that customer engagement is not something that happens overnight. Each encounter with a customer has a chance to strengthen and even undermine a customer/company relationship. Strong customer engagement creates customers that spend more, visit more, and promote your company, all while resisting competitors and forgiving mistakes. The economic landscape has improved over the last year and companies can make significant progress in growing their customer base. Last year the greatest percentage of customers were fully engaged based on global data analysis – more than at any other point in the last 5 years.  Companies should focus on optimizing every customer interaction, create emotional connections with their customer, and constantly measure customer engagement (a good method is surveying customers either online or in-store). With meaningful data, companies can easily spot positive trends to build on and eliminate negative issues before they become problematic. Want more insight into your customers?  Download the State of the American Consumer:
Insight for Business Leaders from Gallup, Inc.
here!