GiftCard Partners Blog

Innovation is an intriguing idea for employees; it keeps them motivated to keep up with the organizational environment and innovation helps drive learning and professional development from within. Creating and maintaining a culture of innovation at your organization contributes to higher employee retention rates. Innovation tends to encourage employees to maintain their positions because they are constantly engaged in their organizations decision-making and direction, while also being given more autonomy to contribute to the future. Here are a few tips to ensure your organization and its employees remain innovative. 1. 
Create a structure for unstructured time: Ensure employees have the time they need to innovate individually, whether they are innovating internal processes or the product your company sells. Having a designated “innovation hour” gets employees creative juices flowing, allowing for more out-of-the-box thinking. “Innovation hours” also give employees a productive, company sponsored, outlet for self-motivation and pet projects. This type of free thinking often raises productivity within the workplace during structured work time, and will also prevent employees from looking outside of work for a distraction or another position. 2. 
Measure what is meaningful: Finding a way to quantify the products of employee driven innovation is key to finding ROI for organizational management. The measurement indicators could be an increased employee retention rate since employer structured innovation was implemented, or your organization is innovating to the point where you can match actual revenue dollars to employee innovation. However you measure the impact of innovation, collecting data and finding what is meaningful for your specific company’s circumstance is important in finding the organizational ROI. 3. 
Give "worthless" rewards: Find non-monetary rewards like poker chips or Monopoly pieces to give employees in any instance of innovation. These rewards can be used as a recognition tool from the boss for solving a problem- either internallyor externally. These rewards can also be used as a “random act of kindness” among peers for doing someone a favor or helping out on a particular project. However the rewards are used, they raise company morale by getting people around the organization talking to each other, interacting, and forming relationships. This type of morale-building will also lead to higher retention rates by making the workplace a fun, vibrant place to work together and collaborate to further common goals. Creating innovation creates a culture of connection and betterment of the organization and its individual employees. This culture often leads to higher employee retention with employees sticking around to continue to build that culture and reach those common goals. 
How do you create a culture of innovation within your organization? For more information check out this article from Fast Company.

Employee motivation can be key to maintaining productivity, especially during times of the year like summer when employees can be distracted with kids ending school, or simply the change of season and the nice weather. Providing incentives to create a positive company culture and make the workplace employees feel motivated and inspired to be can provide the motivation to keep your employees productive throughout distracting times. Check out these three easy strategies for employee motivation and see if you could use them to boost productivity this summer.

New regulations have recently taken effect as part of the Affordable Care Act allowing employers providing health care benefits to employees to steer their workforce toward healthier lifestyles and away from disease causing habits. The new rules enforced last week as part of the law by the Obama Administration guide employees through a classic carrot and stick rewards program. Employees who participate in wellness programs, set goals to live a healthier life, and work towards those goals can be rewarded both financially and with non-monetary rewards, while employees who continue to exhibit unhealthy behaviors; or who not working to eliminate preventable conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol can be penalized similarly. Any outcome based program such as smoking cessation or weight loss programs are often required to have a "cycle of failure and renewed effort" to give employees multiple chances to achieve their goals. These new rules reinforce the effectiveness of the carrot and stick reward/disincentive strategy, rewarding good behavior and penalizing bad behavior. It shows that strategy is financially sound for any size business and can in fact help manage the ever-rising cost of providing health care benefits. Finding rewards that fit each occassion and have value for your employees is key to programmatic success. Gift cards are a great way to fix cost while providing a choice for employees. Using gift cards allow an employee to choose a brand that they value and will use. For health and wellness programs providing a variety of health and wellness retailers such as NutriSystem, GNC, and CVS/Pharmacy show employees that their employer is supportive of their concerted effort to live a healthy lifestyle. Equally important is finding the balance in the disincentives handed out to employees who do not participate in health and wellness programs. The sticks cannot be so big that it makes and employee unhappy with the organization, or makes them wholly averse to ever participating. The stick should be big enough to push employees in a healthier direction. A widely used disincentive is a higher monthly premium for employees not enrolled in the program- encouraging employees to take the step without turning them off totally.

Yo-Fi Wellness is churning some serious waves in the sea of corporate wellness incentives! As employer healthcare costs continue to rise; innovative wellness incentives continue to offer companies of all sizes the latest in corporate wellness incentives and wellness gifts for employees. This online platform brings healthy living initiatives to employees through inspiring and instructive video programs, on any device. Offering expert yoga, fitness, nutrition and meditation video content, Yo-Fi Wellness empowers employees to live a healthier lifestyle, reducing absenteeism in the workplace and improving employee productivity. The Yo-Fi Wellness digital platform is the perfect solution to providing corporate gifts, incentives and rewards via gift cards and e-Certs.

June is National Safety Month, so as we kick off the new month and the summer season, it seems like a great time to put some fun contests and training sessions in place for employees to help promote workplace safety. Here are a few quick and easy ways to make workplace safety a priority at your company this June, and how to continue it throughout the year.