GiftCard Partners Blog

Employee retention can be difficult in today's job market. There is no such thing as a "company man or woman" any longer, and employees tend to switch jobs for one reason or another more frequently than we have seen in the past. Making employee retention a priority for your organization helps maintain continuity in the workforce, which makes the whole organization more productive, happier, and more motivated to succeed within the organization, not outside of it. Check out 3 common mistakes that can drive top talent out, and how you can make employee retention a priority in your organization.

The level of engagement within your workforce will affect your bottom line whether you know it or not. Engaged employees come to work energize and motivated to do the best, and most, they can for their organization each and every day. Engaged employees are willing to use their expendable energy, the extra energy they reserve for themselves, on their jobs when they are fully engaged at work. Employee engagement begins with the employer- ensuring your whole workforce is fully engaged in their positions takes investment from the organization to energize employees. Here are a few proven ways to ensure your workforce is engaged, and as productive as they can be:

Small businesses are often challenged with striking a balance between offering employee loyalty incentives and controlling costs of these very incentive programs. Often some of the most meaningful mechanisms for boosting and maintaining employee loyalty are also the most cost efficient. Here are three easy, low-cost ways to ensure your employees remain loyal for years to come.
Reward Them With Time Off: Offering hard-working and dedicated employees with extra time off in an ad-hoc fashion isa really effective way to keep employees on their toes and make them feel like their effort is appreciated by management. By giving employees a random day off after a long project or a particularly stressful stretch of time, will help keep them motivated and working hard on a long-term basis, since they never know when management may reward them. To employees, time off is extremely valuable and an extra vacation day to take a long weekend can be a great way to de-stress and re-motivate an employee to return to work with new energy and new perspective. Since there is no upfront cost for this type of employee loyalty incentive it can also be a great way to help control employee loyalty program costs.
Give the Right Incentives: When designing employee loyalty incentive programs ensuring that the incentives provided are meaningful to employees is critical. If the incentives do not motivate employees, then employers will not get the ROI they seekand the incentives will not have perpetuated the desired employee behavior. Offering incentives that are flexible and can beadjusted to different employee tastes, with equal value, is the most effective and cost efficient solution. Gift cards can offer flexibility on experience while the cost remains the same. Being able to offer a diverse variety of gift card brands such as Boston Market, to help a working mom take care of dinner one night, or Crutchfield, for an employee who may be looking to make some home improvements, provides an experience for every individual employee, while management can maintain the cost.
Open Door Policy: Giving employees access to senior management is a great way to show appreciation for a job well done orfor reaching milestone anniversaries with the company. This shows both acknowledgment for loyal employees, making them feel appreciated by the organization, while also allowing them to give valuable feedback to management from an employee perspective. The open door policy is mutually beneficial to both parties. Some employees may also view the opportunity to pick the brain of a member of senior management as a unique career development opportunity, which is both valuable to the employee's personal career goals and also helps an organization grow from within. Since this only costs the organization time spent, it can be a great way to provide a meaningful employee incentive experience while controlling internal costs.

Innovation is key to business success. Your organization is constantly striving to stay ahead of the innovation curve, and innovate faster than competitors. The best way to promote innovation in your organization is workforce investment. Investing in your employees is a great way to show support and build a rapport with employees that will increase job satisfaction and retention rates across your organization, leading to a more productive and innovative workforce. Here are 3 easy employee investment strategies that will promote innovation in your organization.

Build Trust: Building trust with and for your employees is crucial to fostering an innovative environment. You have to trust your employees to innovate along with your organization's vision and direction, while employees need to trust their employer and trust their job security to go out of their comfort zone at work and find innovative ways to get things done.

Cultivate Passion: Set an example with your enthusiasm. No one is motivated by someone who is just getting their job done. Employees look up to other employees who are invested in their work. Employee investment starts at the top, when management is enthused with their positions, so will lower level employees. If you are passionate, the people you lead will also be passionate, and passion often leads to innovation.

Inspire Loyalty: When management is loyal to an organization, employee loyalty will follow. Investing in your employees by providing small rewards for milestones reached with a company, such as an annual anniversary, or even a semi-annual anniversary is a great way to show employees their organization cares.

Small denomination gift cards to retailers such as Albertsons to help curb employee grocery costs are a great way to show employees that you both notice and appreciate their hard work and dedication, while controlling organizational costs simultaneously.

Looking to reward employees and show them you care? Showing organizational support with employee rewards for a job well done can be an easy, low-cost way to invest in your workforce. Here are 3 easy ways to incorporate employee rewards into your employee loyalty and recognition strategy.
Take your team out: Using simple gestures like a team lunch out, or a group happy hour after work, or even an activity like a team bowling night, is a great way to reward employees. Getting your team together outside of the office is a great way to bring people together, and form interpersonal relationships while rewarding your employees for the hard work they do. Investing in hard work, and rewarding employees is a great way to keep employees satisfied at work, and raise productivity and retention rates.
Time off: Reward employees with extra time off, or flexible work hours for hard work, or a job well done on a specific project; it’s another low-cost reward strategy that resonates with employees. Time is valuable to employees, especially personal time. Giving employees extra personal time, as a reward is a great strategy to perpetuate desired behavior, and show other employees that going above and beyond will be noticed and rewarded by management.