GiftCard Partners Blog

Timeliness!

Incentive Magazine recently published an article called
“Forget Employee of the Month and Focus on Employee of the Moment”, where they discussed the rise of importance of immediate rewards for brilliant performance. In the past year, our connected sociability brought a 250% increase in tweets per day, 100% growth of LinkedIn users, and Facebook’s increases logins to 250 million each day, indicating a rapidly growing culture of immediacy. How does this effect HR professionals? Razor Suleman’s Incentive article announces that it’s time to institute an “Employee of the Moment” strategy by launching a social networking campaign to:

The Prepaid Press recently published
Employers Find Ways to Say ‘Thank You’ to Employees; Prepaid cards Increasing as Incentive of Choice which highlighted Young America’s recent research regarding prepaid cards (such as gift cards) gaining even more popularity amongst corporate HR incentive programs. With company-wide salary freezes and abandoned bonuses, employers are struggling more than ever to retain their best employees. “…employers who want to retain their best employees admit they have fewer resources to do so, and many are turning to structured incentive programs, which cost less than salary increases and often result in high levels of employee productivity, positive feedback and loyalty," said Joe Custer, president of Young America. A few highlights of the survey findings:

Virtual work-force Promotes Company Growth, Family Values and a Healthier Environment

WELLESLEY, Mass.,
Aug. 16, 2011
/PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Today
GiftCard Partners' (GCP)
Ed Shulkin and Deb Merkin announced 10 years of vision coming to fruition as their virtual workforce now stretches across all regions of the country.
Massachusetts,
New York,
California,
Florida, and
Oregon are just a few of the company's remote workplace "home" offices. Read the rest of the PR Newswire release here:

GiftCard Partners Expands from Coast to Coast with Entirely Remote Workforce.

Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) and the
Incentive Federation recently published a study that highlights gift cards as an employee reward preference over cash rewards. The study about incentive awards recognizes non-cash incentives as a way to control spending, while motivating employees and channel partners. The preliminary results of the study point out that employee cash incentive awards are averaging $732.00, which is triple the cost of non-cash awards. “The study validates our experience and belief that the average cost of a cash award is roughly triple that of either merchandise ($206) or gift cards ($240),” according to Incentive Federation Chairman Stephen Slagle.  “The total cost of incentives is especially important in our post-recession economy, so the data points stimulated extensive discussion around the benefits of each award type,” he explained. To read more about this study, visit
IMA’s Return On Performance. Check back with us regularly; we’ll publish a link to the full study results once they are available.

I recently posted a response and opposing side to a story called “The Myth of Work Life Balance”, which stated that there was no such thing as this balance, that this idea is a pathetic chase and unattainable. Of course, I scathed out my side, practically offended that a woman would advocate “giving up” our journey to work-life balance; it doesn’t exist. Honestly, I’ve felt a bit unsettled that my attempt at debunking this myth was just one mom’s personal story and perspective and not representative enough of others’ truths. However, my company meeting gives us proof otherwise.