Award Employees

We are often asked by prospective customers why we feel that gift cards make the best employee awards.  The simple reasons are that they provide the best value and choice than any other merchandise award, mainly because with gift cards you can get just about any kind of merchandise available in the incentive industry, but your choices of just the right one will be dramatically greater, and the cost will be dramatically less. 

In our daily surfing of the net on the subject of awards we come across many articles, this one, giving us another reason why gift cards make great awards, caught our eye.  It relates a new shopping event for the after holiday season designed to entice those who received gift cards for Christmas to come in and spend them on a certain weekend…the GCW or Gift Card Weekend Sale.  Many partner companies have used this concept to drive incremental sales in January.  The gift card recipients can redeem their gift cards from participating retail partners and receive extra value through special deals posted on the GCW website that will be offered that weekend only.  

As a very large percent of the incentive and recognition awards budgets are paid out to participants at the end of the year, having sales like the GCW actually increases the value of the award to the participant.  If they earned a $100 gift card, it could be worth $125 to $150 on these sales. 

For years, the traditional merchandise award companies have used “sale” pricing on a few of their items to entice participant redemption, unfortunately most of the awards in the typical incentive catalogs are so overpriced that even by offering a discount the prices are still quite high compared to the sales that a gift card holder can take advantage of. 

If you want to give your participants the items they really want, let them have the gift card that they want.  Let they choose from over 500 of the most popular gift cards in the country by giving them the Award of Choice card.

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There is some interesting data that has come out of the 2011 gift card survey of subscribers to Incentive magazine.   

First, the number of responses from large budget incentive users has nearly doubled over 2010 figures.  Traditionally companies with these large programs who have used other forms of awards for their programs now seem to be embracing gift cards as their award of choice.  One reason we believe is the value and choice given by gift cards that was not readily apparent in the traditional merchandise awards.  This trend has been increasing for several years, but 2011 seemed to be a peak.  According to the survey: 

“Of special note to gift card suppliers are the survey responses that place more value on gift cards than merchandise – gift cards are overwhelmingly seen as a more influential incentive or reward than other options.  Since 57 % of respondents said their budgets were untouched for 2001, the outlook for gift card suppliers is even brighter this year.” 

A significant survey question was: 

How gift cards compared to traditional merchandise awards? 

• 59.6 % said more effective
• 27.6% said equally effective
• 5.7% said less effective
• 7% didn’t use merchandise. 

These types of responses would have been unheard of twenty years ago.  Traditional merchandise awards had been the backbone of the incentive awards industry because they drove all the profit.  There was only a small handful of suppliers selling gift cards and only to a limited market.  Today gift cards are very well accepted as an award that will drive performance.  They no longer have that “impersonal” label that was given to them by all the traditional merchandise suppliers when faced with them as competition. 

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Award giving can be a difficult business. Tastes change, trends fade and what someone may have wanted a couple of weeks ago isn’t what they want today. We all face the same situation when it comes to selecting awards for incentive programs, and for many of  us  the best conclusion in these fast moving times – let them get what they want! 

The gift card has been a godsend for anyone who can’t pick out the perfect thing that someone wants. And they’ve grown in popularity faster than anything else in the retail world. In 2004 we spent $20 billion in gift cards. Last year we spent over 4 times that. Gift cards have gone from being considered impersonal gifts to being the most thoughtful gift of all. The gift card is a sign of the times – tastes change quickly, options should remain open, and you never know what you’ll spot something you just can’t live without! 

Why the huge increase in demand for gift cards? Simple. Not only does it let someone buy what they really wanted (but were maybe too polite to say), it also lets them get it at the best price possible. They can wait until the sales, they can take advantage of special offers and maximize that gift. But there’s still a problem – what gift card to give?

 You can try and pick the specific store they want to go to, but more often than not they might want to go somewhere else or they don’t get the chance to visit for some time. And those gift cards sit on dressers, or in the back of wallets until they’re forgotten. There is the universal Visa or American Express card, but with those you have hidden fees, fine print and expiration dates. Not the mention the many problems some purchasers have had with these types of cards. 

That’s where we come in. The Award of Choice is the ultimate in flexibility when it comes to award programs. It can be redeemed when the time is right, for cards from hundreds of your favorite retailers, hotels, theatres and restaurants. And best of all the certificate will never, ever, expire, so they can take as long as they like to choose where to spend their gift. All this choice, and you can create it right from your computer, customized for your special someone. 

We think this is the ultimate award, we know it’s something we’d like to get for every occasion and we hope you feel the same way.

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Are all incentive programs successful? No! In fact there are some studies that show that as many as 66% don’t produce results or in fact have negative results.  Why?

An incentive program is not a panacea for all employee performance issues.  It is not a substitute for all the right things you know to change employee behavior.  It is not a substitute for poor leadership or unfair compensation.  But when used in the right context, it will definitely highlight all the other programs that you implement and can motivate your employees to improve performance.

Like the proverbial story of making the horse drink at the trough, you can avail your employees of all the programs necessary to make them successful, but with some of them you will not be able to make them “drink.”

An incentive program is nothing more than a tool to motivate your employees to want to take that first sip.  Once they do, the vast majority will want to continue the experience for the simple reason that there is something in it for them.

Incentive program can fail for a variety of reasons.  Following are some of the more typical things that will negatively affect them:  Read the rest of this entry »

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Industry research constantly points to Gift Cards as the #1 choice by participants in award programs.  Gift cards are also the #1 award used by companies implementing these programs.  The reasons are simple: they provide the greatest choice at the greatest value to both the client and the award winner.  Nothing else even comes close.  But how did this happen?  Gift cards have only really been predominate in industry since the early 1980′s. Read the rest of this entry »

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