Retaining talent is extremely important for the success of any organization. After a year of working remotely, employees may not be as engaged as they previously were, and the pandemic has completely changed the corporate landscape into an employees’ market. Employees no longer have to fight for positions or accept jobs they don’t love. They now have the flexibility to get a job anywhere in the United States; all they need to do is hop on a Zoom interview from the comfort of their couch, give notice, and they could decide to leave your organization in a matter of days or weeks.
Remote work is a big shift in corporate America. Work-from-home has become the new normal and employees now expect this flexibility from their employers. Companies that require an in-person workforce must come up with other benefits that entice their employees to stay. Even companies that do offer the flexibility of remote work need to ensure they have a competitive edge over other corporations in order to retain top talent.
In this blog, we will cover the most impactful ways employers can keep employees satisfied and engaged in their roles to ensure the retention of talent.
Give employees a reason to stay
Executive management, senior management, team leads, and even entry-level positions can all be costly roles to replace and can negatively impact a company if an employee chooses to leave.
To find a replacement, employers must bear the cost of hiring which includes: advertising, interviewing, screening, and onboarding. Training costs alone--during the first 1-3 years--are typically 10 to 20 percent of an employee's salary if not more. Not to mention the cost of lost productivity can take a new employee one to two years to reach that of a previous employee.
With that being said, it is vital to retain employees and make them feel recognized so they do not go looking for opportunities elsewhere. The best method to ensure a high employee retention rate is to have a competitive advantage over others. Companies can establish this by offering: incentives, rewards, higher pay grades, unlimited PTO, flexible schedules, travel opportunities for work, relocation, 401k matching, and a plethora of other benefits.
Using incentives and rewards for talent retention
It can be difficult to decide which benefits to incorporate with so many options available. Incentives and rewards, such as gift cards, have proven to be a very effective retention strategy and they are simple to incorporate into an employee recognition program. A study from the Incentive Research Foundation showed that at an unconscious level, people are overwhelmingly drawn to non-cash rewards like gift cards. On top of that, we know that employee recognition is directly correlated to retention rates.
Now you may be asking “so why gift cards for solving such a complex problem like employee turnover?” Well, studies show gift cards make a tremendous difference in employee retention. An employee who has been recognized is 63% more likely to stay at their current job within the next three to six months and lack of recognition contributed to 44% of employees changing jobs, according to Apollo Technical.
The evidence is clear that employees need to feel recognized and appreciated to want to stay at a company, and the good news is doing so can be super simple. When an employee feels recognized, their loyalty, as well as productivity and morale towards a company improves drastically. To make certain your company is doing a good job making employees feel recognized for their work performance, put an employee incentive program in place that rewards on a monthly or weekly basis.
This can be done in many ways; for instance, awarding sales teams for reaching their goals and managers for leading a team through the completion of a project, or recognizing entry-level employees for a stellar performance and a team-player / positive attitude. There is a myriad of ways to effectively recognize employees with gift cards and we have listed a few in the next section.
Integration of gift card incentives
If you are not sure which gift card brand to recognize employees with, the Engage2Reward™ Choice Card provides total flexibility by giving employees the freedom to choose a brand that excites them most. After sending out a gift card, employees can redeem the choice card from over 300 retailers ranging from clothing & apparel to groceries & restaurants.
Our Gift Card API offers seamless and secure integration that can be tailored to meet your program’s specific needs. Once a gift card order is placed, you have the option to write a customized message and then the gift cards are instantly delivered to the recipients. It is the perfect solution to enhancing your rewards and incentives program to retain employees.
Register for an account on the Engage2Reward™ platform to access over 300 gift cards to get the best incentives for recognizing employees. Engage2Reward’s robust functionality will help make your engagement programs easy to implement.
