GiftCard Partners Blog

Initial engagement in employee health and wellness programs doesn't always drive long term participation like healthy employee cultures. While new employee health and wellness programs often drive short term engagement through the first few months, or maybe even the first few years, creating healthy employee champions and a culture of wellness is what creates long term employee participation. Providing non-cash rewards as a component to a healthy employee culture is a great way to drive long term participation. One example of this was offering a discount in the employee portion of the health insurance premium which almost doubled employee participation in
Herman Miller Co's employee wellness program; jumping from 40% to 79% year over year for the first 3 years, but seeing a plateau in participation levels in subsequent years. Offering small denomination gift cards to retailers like GNC, Nutrisystem and CVS/Pharmacy are another way to promote a healthy employee culture by assisting employees in forming a healthy lifestyle. Instead of using typical carrot tactics to get employees to change habits, providing an environment for creating a healthy employee culture will provide longer term results that will have a greater impact on your workforce and healthcare costs.

Employee turnover is constantly on the mind of human resources professionals in all types of organizations. However, once you see the infographic from TribeHR below you might put some urgency behind an employee retention initiative. On average, a new employee costs over $57,000 in lost productivity, on-boarding costs, benefits application, and that figure does not even include the cost of training. For the cost of $57,000 could pay a junior level employee for an entire year, which has much greater potential to have a lasting impact on your business than simply bringing on a new employee. Want to lower the cost of employee turnover? Keep your current employees on board! Make sure employees feel appreciated through recognition of exceptional actions. Provide opportunity for learning and growth through professional development. When employees feel appreciated and feel like their employers are investing in them, employee turnover will decrease and retention rates will rise.

It's a question many brands face.
How can I increase my company's gift card sales? Perhaps you already have a point-person in charge of gift cards, or you're looking to adopt a gift card strategy for the first time. Either way, the opportunity is grand.
Gift cards are a mainstay - more than half of U.S. households report receiving a gift card in the last 12 months, and 85% of those recipients redeem the cards within the same time frame. Without a focused effort and a sound, smart plan for spreading the word and increasing awareness of your gift card program, it can be difficult to reach the many potential customers likely to be interested in your offer. We just
published a free guide that covers
five of the key strategies we've used with our clients over the last several years. From optimizing your in-store and online presence to thinking more strategically about third-party relationships and B2B programs, this guide is sure to help spark some ideas. Let us know what you think!

How well do you know your neighbor? With the hustle and bustle of everyday life many are finding themselves more and more dettached from their neighbors and the community as a whole can end up suffering.
Using small rewards to incentivize community engagement can help not only accomplish community goals, but engage a certain subset of your community to slow down and get involved. Whether you need to clean up the neighborhood playground, seed the community garden or encourage young adults in your community to get in the habit of giving blood, a small incentive could do the trick. Offering a $5 gift card to retailers like
Subway or
Speedway to incentivize either your whole community or a specific group, like young adults or seniors (or both to get cross-generational volunteerism going!) can provide a small boost to get community members active. Whether your goal is to make a positive impact on a small budget or to bring the community together as a whole, gift cards are a great motivational tool and something everyone can appreciate. How is your community incentivizing community engagement? As the summer comes to an end and fall is quickly approaching, what are you doing  to bring your town, city or community together in a unified effort to make your community a better place? Leave us a comment with your ideas!

CVS Caremark, the parent company to CVS/pharmacy, recently
announced its acquisition of Navarro Discount Pharmacy. 
"The acquisition of Navarro will strengthen CVS/pharmacy's position in the Hispanic marketplace, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., and we are excited to be adding the Navarro Discount Pharmacy brand to the CVS/pharmacy family," said Helena Foulkes, President, CVS/pharmacy. CVS/pharmacy continues to expand with this acquisition, adding to its now has 7,600 locations nationwide. Navarro customers will also benefit from the Minute Clinic services, bringing urgent health care services into new communities. CVS/pharmacy gift cards are now an even stronger brand to make available to your employees as part of a health and wellness initiative, or rewards through an employee recognition program. Gift cards are useful to employees in any denomination, large or small, which helps fit into an employer's budget for the remaining part of 2014, or as we all begin to look ahead to 2015 planning. With
four options to choose from, CVS/pharmacy corporate gift cards offer a card to fit your program.