GiftCard Partners Blog

When it comes to employee engagement the best companies strive to not only lead but also inspire their employees. They create a vision for their company that allows them to grow by valuing their employees and giving them a voice within the company. Here are some best practices that company leaders can use to help engage their employees:

As certain benefit costs shift from employer to employee, there are key benefits that will have a high impact on satisfaction improvements. Health and wellness benefits are expected from employees and they assume that employers are going to cover a significant portion of the costs, regardless of the rising cost of healthcare. Well employers are taking note, 45% are offering HSA's in 2014, compared to 33% in 2010. Other benefits like tuition support or a personal car subsidy benefit have been on the decline since 2010, down 13% and 17% respectively. These are benefits less expected by employees and therefore have a lower impact on employee benefit satisfaction. Health and wellness benefits have endured for employees as an expected benefit. Investing in preventative healthcare checks like blood pressure, cholesterol and BMI measurements for employees can allow employers to maintain health and wellness benefits without exceeding budgets. Implementing employee health and wellness benefit reward programs can also motivate employees towards health and wellness goals by using small spot rewards to encourage employees who have reached health and wellness milestones.
For more information on how to maintain the level of health and wellness benefits your employees expect, check out the latest SHRM Employee benefits report, and this article from Associations Now.

We can't say it enough, a successful wellness program can benefit both employees and companies in drastic ways. With reduced healthcare costs for both employee and company, more productivity at work, and less absenteeism, workplace wellness has been shown time and time again to be a smart investment in a time of rising healthcare costs. Here are 10 more tips for implementing a successful wellness program: 1.
Understanding your workforce: Reviewing items such as prior health insurance claims, health assessments, and employee surveys can help you to understand what concerns your employees have with their health. 2. 
Create a plan: All programs should have some kind of plan in place, start by developing a plan with both short and long term goals, along with a budget and expected outcomes. 3.
Include everyone: Make the plan available to all employees and their spouses/domestic partners. 4. 
Offer biometric screenings: Many employees do not know the current status of their health. Offering screenings during work time or during company health fairs allow more employees to participate in screenings. 5
. Select wellness leaders: Set up a wellness committee with wellness leaders to help drive wellness programs. Choose highly respected employees. 6.
Communication: Communicate your wellness program as much as possible with things like, company emails, flyers, and in-person meetings.  Employees can only participate if they know the details. 7.
Offer incentives: Gift cards, reduced premiums, cash bonuses and discounts on various health and wellness based incentives (i.e. gym memberships) will significantly increase employee participation. 8.
Provide employees with digital tools: Online, mobile, and tablet updates can help employees keep track of their health and healthcare costs. 9. 
Track results: Assess your wellness program on an annual basis. Assess both the costs benefits with your healthcare provider as well as evaluating employee participation. 10. 
Solicit Feedback: Remain flexible and listen to your employees. Your employees are your foundation for a solid wellness plan.

Employee retention is a hot topic in a job market where there’s no such thing as a “company man” anymore, and changing positions every 2 years has become the norm. For employers, employee retention should be a top priority for any HR staff because frankly, new employees are expensive. Between onboarding, training, manager’s time lost, break in team rhythm and potential costs of signing bonuses, relocation or travel and new employee socialization taking on new employees are expensive. Check out the infographic below for a full breakdown of why making employee retention a priority can help keep your organization in the black for the back half of the year. Employee rewards programs can often fall victim to budget cuts, or not get approved at all due to lack of executive buy-in. However, make smaller investments in employee rewards like gift cards or extra time off can actually provide ROI, not only in the saved cost of employee retention but also in increased productivity and further employee motivation across your entire workforce. Positioning employee rewards programs as promoting employee retention, and even the “lesser of two evils” can help any executive see the benefits of employee retention vs. employee on-boarding. Thanks to 
SHRM.org for this great infographic on the ROI of Employee Retention

A study released by Performance Improvement Council suggests that implementing an employee engagement program can breed a culture of leadership within your organization.