If your company is thinking about setting up an employee reward scheme, chances are you will already have asked the question: “What kind of rewards should we offer?”
Well, you generally have three options: cash, consumer goods (ordered from catalogues) or high street branded vouchers.
Most companies discourage the giving of cash as an incentive as it can quickly garner negative connotations as being a treat-free bonus or perk. Although consumer goods can be used to far greater effect than cash, they still have certain limitations.
Certainly, consumer goods rewards offer a generally quite restricted choice as it is simply not possible to offer every type of product, or indeed every variant, in one catalogue. Furthermore, the cost of consumer goods in catalogues can be significantly higher than they are in the high street. When employees find this out, it is quite likely that their ‘reward’ will be seen as anything but and the incentive scheme as a whole will fail to function as an effective staff motivation tool.
Voucher-based schemes on the other hand allow hard-working employees to choose any product (or variant model) they like from the various high street retailers included on their voucher. In addition, rewarded workers will know that they are getting their chosen items at some of the best prices available so they can be sure they really are receiving a ‘treat’.
Quite simply, voucher-based reward schemes are generally the most effective as they enable employees to choose their own rewards.