"We've heard stories of people with allergies getting flowers, and non-drinkers getting wine"
With the war for talent still raging, employee retention continues to be a hot topic for businesses across the globe.
For organisations looking to increase employee retention rates, a meaningful rewards and recognition strategy can work wonders. Pavestep data found that 63% of employees who are recognised are unlikely to look for a new job, and according to Forbes, 60% of best-in-class organisations agree that employee recognition is “extremely valuable” in driving individual performance.
But while the case for ongoing recognition is strong, backing this up with a clear and consistent rewards programme can be challenging. According to Ross McDonald, country manager at Perkbox, organisations currently sit at “two ends of a spectrum” when it comes to reward and recognition.
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“At one end, some programmes are entirely ad-hoc and inconsistent, and nobody really knows what gets rewarded and why,” McDonald told HRD.
“At the other end, there are programmes which are extraordinarily complicated, or difficult to comply with. You have to have the best sales of the month, and exhibit three key behaviours, and stand on one leg and hop three times, and do a whole lot of other things. People often don’t understand those programmes, and they feel like they’re not fairly recognising their work.”
McDonald says that if organisations want to be successful, they should be looking to find the appropriate balance somewhere in the middle. Organisations need to identify the behaviours they want to recognise, and establish a recognition system that allows people to understand what is being recognised and why.
For employers, another key challenge is finding a reward that is valued by staff. It can be difficult to work out what each individual might want or need, and to distribute that in a clear and consistent manner.
“We’ve spoken to organisations that might purchase and distribute a bunch of gift vouchers, but nobody knows if they were ever received or redeemed,” McDonald says.
“On physical rewards we’ve heard stories of people with allergies getting flowers, and non-drinkers getting wine. Recognising people with meaningful rewards is hard at scale, because it’s difficult to consider individual needs and preferences as companies grow. With Perkbox, we solve that problem by using points as the central principle of our program. Employers work out how many points they want to give to employees, and employees can spend those points on whatever reward they like, no matter where they are..”
With employee retention being a key concern for many organisations, McDonald says that it is almost always better to retain your existing staff than to try and re-hire them. With the talent shortage affecting different roles, locations and countries in different ways, organisations need to think about which roles are really critical to them. They can then consider how they offer recognition for these roles, and how they can boost retention rates most effectively.
Utilising over 10 years of experience in rewards and recognition, Perkbox has developed a global rewards and benefits platform. The platform is based on three key steps - caring, connecting and celebrating, and uses a points-based system that allows employees to choose their own rewards.
McDonald says that consistency was a key consideration for Perkbox when developing the platform. With a large number of reward partners, including supermarkets, retailers and online experiences, the platform offers a very similar experience to all employees, no matter where in the world they are based.
“Employers can use our platform to support their staff in any way they want to,” McDonald explains.
“We believe that high-performing organisations can really demonstrate those three things - caring for, connecting with and celebrating their employees - consistently.
“Our platform allows peer-to-peer recognition, as well as manager-to-employee recognition. That can be shared privately with the individual, or it can be shared with their team or the entire organisation. This way, those three steps can drive any organisation’s strategy.”
Perkbox’s platform is also covered by a comprehensive reporting suite, which will tell employers who got which reward and when, and allows them to keep track of whether or not rewards have been redeemed.
“That removes the administration burden that a lot of companies face, and streamlines the whole rewards process,” McDonald says.
“There is a pressure on organisations to retain people, and so organisations need to think about how they offer recognition for their key roles. If you have that culture of reward and recognition, you get more collaboration - and all of this can definitely improve employee retention.”
To find out more about the Perkbox global rewards and benefits programme, click here.
