Employees Wellness Programs Pay for Themselves
By now you are probably familiar with the new laws that took effect as part of the Affordable Care Act earlier this summer. Employers can now offer incentives totaling 30% of total plan cost (they used to only be able to offer 20%) to employees who are healthy, taking preventative measures to stay healthy, or meeting goals to get healthier. The idea is that employers should encourage wellness (not just for the greater good of society) because it cuts down on absenteeism and the cost of health care benefits for the employer…and the benefits keep coming. A review of 72 studies in the American Journal of Health Promotion revealed these staggering figures:
Employee Praise Raises Revenue
Employee praise can actually raise your organization's revenue, so make sure your managers are like good coaches, cheering on players at all times. When managers support their teams and recognize a job well done with public praise, productivity increases and employees get more motivated to contribute to organizational success. There is nothing better for company morale, and peer education, than managers teaching teams and providing positive reinforcement. So start at the top and empower your managers, the effect will trickle down to the rest of your organization. Check out this infographic below to see how much potential there is for improvement with managing employees, and to see how to educate your managers to cheer on their team.
Who Is Engaged at Your Office?
Following the release of the 2013 Gallup "State of the American Workforce" study revealed some astonishing things about how much work employers have to do to engage their employees, since a whopping 70% indicated they were either not engaged or actively disengaged at work. The study also revealed which employees were more likely to be engaged at work. Did you know millenials and traditionalists (people at the beginning and end of their careers) are most likely to feel engaged in their jobs? Only 28% of Generation Xer's and 26% of Baby Boomers indicated they felt engaged at work. These numbers are indicative of a lapse in engagement in the workforce. Whether you engage employees in a health and wellness program (see who can lose the most weight), or a safety program, or provide professional development training and executive access, make sure your employees are happy. Disengaged employees cost an estimated $450-$550 billion per year in lost productivity. Keep your employees happy by providing perks and creating a company culture where team comes first and exceptional accomplishments are recognized. When an employee reaches a goal provide a reward like a summer Friday afternoon off, or small denomination gift cards to popular retailers like AutoZone, CVS/pharmacy or Boston Market, allowing employees to choose their own reward. Engaging employees at work will keep them with your organization longer and help improve your bottom line.
For more information about engaging employees and the new Gallup "State of the American Workforce" Study check out this article from Loyalty360.
Employee Safety Starts at the Top
Employees safety doesn’t necessarily mean "creating a culture of safety." One way to look at safety is to make it a part of the fabric of your organization and part of the culture, and the way to achieve that is to start at the top. Key values of executive management trickle down to the workforce without it seeming like management is trying to will the workforce in a certain direction. Making employee safety a value of management, and supporting that with a cultivation of that value among employees, is the way to go.
2013 IMA Summit, Gamification is HOT in Rewards and Recognition
The GiftCard Partners team is in Denver, Colorado this week to attend the
2013 Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) Summit. GCP joins a large number of other companies that are also part of the IMA, and make up this $46 billion incentive industry. We’re excited to meet, share and learn about the latest in this booming field over the course of the next few days. One of the many sessions the IMA will be holding is
Game Mechanics and the Future of Reward and Recognition Programs. The team is excited to learn more about Gamification and how this popular tool in reward and recognition programs has taken off and what the future holds for it in modern business. As it stands now, according to a recent IRF poll, more than 60% of recognition program owners have started implementing gamification. The session will highlight:
