In our 2024 research, a massive 89% of organisations said they offer rewards and incentives to their employees. And whether your R&I initiatives are managed by your HR team, management team or other departments within the organisation, the reality is that you need your staff rewards to be easy. We caught up with organisations to hear their top tips for easy staff rewards.
1. Look local
When it comes to easy rewards and incentives, the instinctive choice may be national Gift Cards for big name retailers, but what if you’re missing out on a local, and easy, option? David Kiely, director at Jennings O’Donovan explained how they found their local Town & City Gift Card, the Love Sligo Gift Card: “We were looking to organise the reward cards for Christmas 2024, when we received a call from Mark at Miconex explaining the benefits of the Love Sligo Gift Card. A key reason for moving to the Love Sligo Gift Card was the zero commission that businesses have to pay to accept the card. Lots of retailers, restaurants and other businesses accept the Love Sligo Gift Card, so there was plenty of choice for our team. However, the main reason was the support for local.”
2. Ask your team what they want
It sounds simple but often the route to easy staff rewards come in listening to the needs and wants of your team. Kelly Swinney, Head of Customer Hub at Ocado Retail, explained their process of deciding if their local Town & City Gift Card was right for their team: “When it comes to reward and recognition, we are guided by the voice of our people. We hosted workshops where we showed staff the businesses that were part of the Gift Card, and they were happy with the choice on offer through the card. There were lots of big brands that they recognised, but equally there were lots of independent stores and businesses that were new to them.”
3. Go digital
With large numbers of employees, remote teams and differing reward amounts, rewarding your team can often feel like a huge administrative task. A way to make rewarding your team easier can be switching to digital Gift Cards, like Jennings O’Donovan. Director, David Kiely said: “We opted for the digital version of the Love Sligo Gift Card. The ease of use for us in administering the digital Love Sligo Gift Card over a physical Gift Card was brilliant. We have a hybrid working system which means that not all employees are in the office at the same time. In the past, this has meant we couldn’t get the cards to the staff member in person, so they had to then be posted out. With the digital Love Sligo Gift Card, everyone received their reward at the same time. Ordering the cards on the Miconex website was very easy too.”
4. Give your team choice and flexibility
89% of organisations in our 2024 research said offering choice in their rewards and incentives was important. A reward that offers choice for your team, and that works for a range of different staff wants and needs, can also be a route to easy staff rewards for you too. Nicola Everett, Head of People at allpay said: “Different people want different things at different points in their lives, so it’s vital that we provide a range of options for staff in their rewards and incentives. Around two years ago, we added our local Town & City Gift Card to the platform because we wanted to add local options to sit alongside the national Gift Cards already available. Introducing a local option was a pilot to see what the take up from employees would be, and we’ve been shocked by just how much employees value their local Town & City Gift Card as a reward. There has been amazing feedback from staff and they’re continuing to choose it as a reward among the many options they have.
5. Let your team know it’s on its way
To make rewarding your team easy and stress-free, a key step in the process is communicating with your team about what their reward will be, when they’ll receive it, how to spend it and more. David Kiely said: Our employees were told in advance that they’d be receiving their reward by email with the activation code, then they were able to download the Love Local app and add the Love Sligo Gift Card to their digital wallet, ready to ‘tap to pay’ with Sligo businesses. And if you too are opting for Town & City Gift Cards, we’ve got some top tips for your team on how to spend them.
6. Buy in advance and use as required
In our research, 39% of staff said they offer rewards and incentives at Christmas, yet a similar number – 35% – offer rewards and incentives all year round. An easy way to reward your team through the year can be buying your Gift Cards in advance, so they’re ready for when you need them, such as for employee of the month initiatives, long service awards and ad-hoc rewards. Angus Fraser, franchisee of 4 McDonald’s stores said: “The process of ordering our local Town & City Gift Cards through Miconex has been very simple and straightforward. We buy a set amount and then use the cards as they’re needed across the month or quarter.”
7. Give your team chance to feedback
Ultimately, you want to offer rewards and incentives that your team loves to receive and offering the chance for staff to give regular feedback can give you the chance to make any necessary tweaks, making it even easier to reward your team next time round. Kelly Swinney from Ocado Retail said: “Our reward and recognition strategy is closely aligned to employee feedback with a review every 6 months. The feedback we’ve had from staff to our local Town & City Gift Card has been really positive. Colleagues are happy and prefer their local Town & City Gift Card to the Amazon vouchers we used in the past. Post pandemic, and I think staff really enjoy the experiential aspect of the card; they can go shopping on a Thursday night, go for a meal as a team or use it in any other way they choose, and that feels more meaningful and more personal.”
Discover Town & City Gift Cards for your team today.