GiftCard Partners Blog

The UK Gift Card & Voucher Association recently announced that the sales of vouchers and gift cards increased by 9% last quarter (Q2-12), while the gift card/voucher industry as a whole has grown 5%.
GiftCard Partners believes so deeply in the corporate use of gift cards as employee incentives, like health  and wellness program incentives and sales incentives, employee rewards, and customer loyalty tools, that a growing percentage of our staff is focused on selling gift cards in bulk to the corporate channel. GiftCard Partners recently launched
maxchoice international vouchers, which offer great options to reward employees with vouchers that are redeemable at more than 1,000 top retailers throughout Europe and leisure and service providers throughout Europe, Asia and Australia. maxchoice brings you options that allow your corporate incentive program the flexibility of choice:

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vAs employers continue to try to control costs of health insurance benefits they are turning to incentives more and more frequently for their Health & Wellness programs. Incentives motivate employees to evaluate and improve their health, which obviously benefits employees and simultaneously helps lower costs for employers. Aon Hewitt’s recent survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. employers, their combined 20 million U.S. employees and their dependents found that 84% of employers offer employees incentives for participating in a health risk questionnaire (HRQ) and 64 percent offer incentives for biometric screenings to help employees evaluate their health status. 51% of employers provide incentives for participation in health and wellness improvement programs as well. The incentives used here do not need to be big, but rather need to be meaningful. Helping employees maintain their health and reach new health goals can be as simple as offering 
a gift cards to 
CVS/Pharmacy or GNC. A small investment such as this easily provides noticeable ROI  to employers and employees feel support from their employer;
,that their employer cares about them as a person, not just a part of the organization. Bettering your employees' health can often better your bottom line.  
For more information on Aon Hewitt's survey on Health and Wellness Incentives check out this article from Insurance Journal.

HR Morning recently reported on a massive study that shows the true return on wellness plan investments. An analysis of 56 published studies on work site health promotion programs by The American Journal of Health Promotion determined the true ROI and impact of corporate wellness programs. “According to the American Journal of Health Promotion’s in-depth analysis, employers with work site health promotion programs see on average:

Using gamification as a tool for employee motivation is a fairly new strategy, but continues to prove its effectiveness in many different applications. Gamification can be used for Health and Wellness programs, to motivate a company to complete a specific goal, or as a running motivator to balance the seriousness of the workplace with some old-fashioned competition and non-disruptive social interaction. Keeping gaming in the workplace up to date, simple, and competitive are the most important, and often challenging aspects of this type of reward and recognition program. Gaming is not as effective or engaging if employees cannot view the standings and identify their competition continuously. Gamification of employee engagement can also help create a model for future engagement efforts. Since the game takes feedback from employees it creates incredibly useful data on how to engage your specific employees and what will get them excited about work, the competition, and socializing with their co-workers. This data can hel pemployers decide how to spend their rewards budget. Whether your workforce is interested in extra vacation time, a gift card to a favorite restaurant, or another type of reward the gaming data will help you determine how best to reward your employees. Gamification provides incredible ROI because it solicits a consistent feedback loop from employees to management and helps to retain employees and keep them satisfied in their professional setting. How do you use gamification in your rewards program?
For more information on gaming in the workplace check out this article from Mashable.