GiftCard Partners Blog

Using gaming to engage employees has been proven effective in a number of different scenarios. Here are three stages of the employment process where gamification has been successful. How does your company use gamification to engage employees?  

Motivating employees is about ensuring that your employees feel appreciated and supported by the organization. Showing your employees you care is the best way to get them to invest their time and energy into their jobs and make a difference. The most important piece of employee motivation is showing that appreciation and giving rewards in a way that works for the employee you are trying to reach. Quiet, hardworking employees do not want public attention drawn to them, but giving a gift, reward, or praise in a one-on-one atmosphere will show them appreciation and motivate them, rather than make them uncomfortable in front of their peers. To an innovative thinker, knowing a bit more about the "big picture" and how their work affects that makes a big difference. Taking time to provide them some more strategic information, in addition to a reward will go a long way. Analytical employees want to know how their piece fits into the greater puzzle, and want to be compensated based on the size of their piece. Giving them spot rewards, such as a restaurant gift card, for small achievements, and larger bonuses for reaching long-term goals will show this employee organizational appreciation, and motivate them into the future. Tailoring motivation and rewards to how an employee will best recieve the praise is important. If you reward and motivate an employee, but the delivery embarasses them, belittles them, or does not speak to their professional goals or intellecutal style the impact of the reward and motivation could be lost.
For more information on how to motivate effectively check out this Time Magazine article.

No matter if you gave your mom a gift in person this past Sunday, sent her flowers, or just called to let her know you were thinking of her, the most important thing was that you sent her a personal message. 1-800-Flowers teamed up with celebrities and professional athletes this Mother's Day to send personalized messages to both their moms, and potential 1-800-Flowers customers. The celebrity Facebook posts about sending mom flowers on Mother's Day served as ads on sponsored pages encouraging consumers to do as the celebrities did, and use 1-800-Flowers's services, but they are also using social media in a dynamic way. Using Facebook as an advertising forum, while still staying true to the traditional form of personalized social media messages is a new trend. Chris McCann, President of 1-800-Flowers noted“Getting customers to tell stories is better than us telling the story,” and went on to comment about how Facebook is used to facilitate relationships. Those relationships can be between a retailer and a consumer, or between a mother and child. How did you celebrate your mom this Sunday? Did you use social media to let your network know just how much Mom means to you? Leave us a comment and let us know!  
For more information on unique usage of social media for mother's day campaign check out this New York Times Media Decoder blog post.

When employees are distracted, stressed, or discontent in their personal lives they often bring that negative energy into the work place. Combine outside stress with the general workplace grind and you are bound to have some unhappy employees. They feel disengaged at work, not supported by their organization's management and begin to resent their position, their professional environment, and ultimately try to change their professional situation. The Corporate Leadership Council shows some staggering statistics about recent employee (lack of)  organizational engagement. 60 percent of organizations report that they are experiencing a leadership crisis, which is an increase of 40 percent from just a year earlier. Weak leadership often also leads to a restless, dissatisfied workforce. Worse yet, the number of employees that are “highly disengaged” has doubled since early 2008. So how do you combat this negative energy in the workplace? Focus your organization's employee investment dollars on the time employees spend outside of the office. Reward employees' desired behavior with spot rewards such as a gift card to a restaurant employees can enjoy with their family, or create a points system so employees can save their rewards points and redeem for bigger incentives, such as an extra vacation day. According to research done by the Corporate Executive Board employees who feel they have a better work-life balance tend to work 21% harder than those that don’t. So instead of investing in employees work time, invest in employees non-work time, so that when employees are at work they are mentally present, physically present, and just as invested in their job, as their employer is in them.  
For more information on creating a positive workplace environment check out this Care2 article.  

Health and wellness programs help employees engage in healthy behavior which drives down health care costs for the employer. These programs also engage employees with their co-workers and with the organization itself. Health and wellness programs convey support for employees from their employer which helps retention rates, employee productivity, and employee emotional well-being. ComPsych 2012, a newly release wellness trend study  showed the following statistics about employee well-being which further emphasizes the importance of health and wellness programs at work.