GiftCard Partners Blog

We use disease related terms to communicate how things, whether it is is the next pop hit, or the flu travel through our networks. As we begin to understand the importance and the value of networks within organizations, we begin to understand how organizations can capitalize on how employees interact, and what the quality of those interactions is. Employers and organizations always want to spread innovation. That is what drives any business forward, and keeps employees engaged and satisfied with their jobs. Organizationally, the biggest challenges can be how to figure out how to pass innovation virally, both up and down hierarchies and across teams. It has been proven by Nicholas Christakis, a medical school professor at Harvard, and his team, that high value employees have wide networks within their organizations and when they find an innovative idea or process they spread it both within their working unit, and across the organization. While some employees would want to hide innovation, in order to claim all of their glory of finding it their own, high value employees seek out different points of view within the organization to test their idea and gain criticism to hone their idea and further innovate to make it better. This philosophy uses the same principles of the virality of that pop song, or the way we all seem to be catching the flu this time of year, and applies it to ideal scenarios within an organization. The promotion of these philosophies can be extremely cost effective within your organization. There is no need to invest a lot in this. Promoting viral innovation can be applied by workshops, or "innovation days" in which employees can be put into teams or introduced to other people within the organization that they do not normally work with. Organizations could even award a small prize for the "innovation day" group that came up with the best idea, incenting employees to better the organization, as they expand their network. Providing a new work environment for a short time-frame allows employees to think differently and expand their networks, making them more valuable to your organization.
For more information on Nicholas Christakis' theory on viral innovation check out this article from FastCompany.

During this time of year employees are looking to maintain their New Year's Resolutions and it’s the perfect opportunity to implement an employee health and wellness program, saving your organization money for the rest of the year. A study cited by 
wellnessproposals.com showed that implementing a wellness program lowered sick leave by 28%, lowered the use of healthcare benefits by 26%, and lowered employee’s compensation claims by 30%. All of these indicators save your organization money, whether it means a smaller, more productive workforce, lower healthcare costs, or lower employee disability and compensation claims. Organizations that implement wellness programs also reduce personnel turnover costs because employees are healthier, happier, and feel supported by their employer which increases productivity and loyalty. Employee health and wellness programs can be very simple to implement. Using a carrot reward philosophy to incent employees to reach health goals, such as quitting smoking, losing a certain amount of weight, or lowering another disease indicating health metric such as blood pressure or cholesterol, is a great way to start. You can even set up inter-office competition for willing employees, allowing employees to compete to reach goals faster, and rewarding the winners. Rewards do not need to be large expensive gifts, rather they can be small rewards that show employees you care without burning all of your organization's newly saved capital. Small denomination gift cards that help employees improve health, such as gift cards to retailers like 
NutriSystem, 
GNC, or 
CVS/Pharmacy can be a great way to reward employees by helping them on their journey while helping your company's bottom line.

It’s not always easy to instill the message of safety within your workforce. So nip the issue in the bud from the very beginning: in the training process. Every employee who is required to follow the guidelines put forth in a safety program should go through this type of training. And to get the most out of this training
Safety Daily Advisor
put together,
50 Tips For More Effective Safety Training.
Here are a few do’s and don’ts from the report.
DO
give handouts,
DON’T
make them as hard to decipher as a 10 year olds art project.
Couple of interesting facts to consider, 90% of what people are told is forgotten within 24 hours and people process written information two times faster than the spoken word. Your handouts should reinforce your basic message, keep the attention of the reader, be easy to follow, and provide a reference point to readers in the future.
DO
consider using a little humor to reiterate your message,

but

DON’T
force it by incorporating
100 Funny Jokes to Tell Your Employees
book.
A little humor gives you the chance to wake up an audience that might be fading at the sight of too many safety statistics and OSHA guidelines. Experts say that using humor can relax an audience, making them more willing to participate. Which takes us to our next
DO.
DO
encourage interactive training,
DON’T
forget the incentives.
Encourage your workforce to get invested in their training program by getting creative with incentives. Create a short quiz at the end of each section, break the group into teams and play a trivial game about rules and statistics or have workers give safety demonstrations themselves. Then reward winners with small denomination gift cards to places like
CVS/pharmacy
or
AutoZone
.
Check out more great tips, news and advice for getting the most out of your company’s workplace safety program from
Safety Daily Advisors
.