5 Employee Reward Ideas for Your Incentive Program
When it comes to rewards or incentive programs within your corporate wellness strategy, there’s a good chance you’ve recently upped your investment. According to NBGH and Fidelity Investments’ 2018 annual wellbeing survey, the average employee incentive amount increased to $784 for 2018, up from to $742 in 2017.
If you’re one of those employers, why not make the best use of your dollars and keep your incentive program fresh? Read on for five ideas, including one great example from a Fitbit enterprise customer.
Offer real-time feedback. A reward at the finish line doesn’t need to be the end goal. Use the opportunity to keep employees engaged from beginning to end by offering them a continuous feedback loop. For example, if you’re doing an activity consider using fitness trackers that auto-sync and provide users with updates on current activity levels and real-time rankings. If you’ve begun offering healthy foods in your break rooms, consider sending employees an encouraging status update that will get their attention: “You went bananas over healthy snacks! Great job finishing all the bananas in a record-setting two days.”
Recognition goes a long way. Company-wide recognition, trophies, or certificates of achievement can make an impact. You can ask employees for their personal success stories and share them in a company memo or blog. If an employee is particularly active in a step challenge, ask them for advice to share with the rest of the company on how they’ve upped their exercise routine.
Be scrappy and get creative. You don’t have to break the bank to offer compelling rewards. Consider offering casual dress days, a sporty headband or maybe even a free half-day or full PTO day.
Foster a culture of wellness with relevant rewards. Use the opportunity within your incentive program to strengthen your culture of wellness and wellbeing. Consider how the rewards can encourage healthy behaviors. Some ideas can be a gift card to a local sporting goods store or salad bar. Or you could offer a fitness starter kit that includes a few gym essentials like a yoga mat and a water bottle (this smart water bottle even glows when it is time to drink, and it integrates with Fitbit).
Add the element of luck with a raffle. To help ensure that everyone has a chance to win, design a raffle with various prizes. One Fitbit enterprise customer even offered a Caribbean cruise as a grand prize.
You can take a cue from this customer by adding qualifications that incentivize the most active participants. In your next step challenge, consider setting parameters so that employees can qualify for weekly raffle tickets. If they average 5,000 steps per week, they can receive 1 raffle ticket. And 7,500 average steps per week can equal two raffle tickets, and 10,000 average steps per week earns three raffle tickets.
At the end of your challenge, many participants would be holding at least one raffle ticket, with the most avid steppers having the most tickets. From there, host a grand prize drawing in your break room (and of course, serve healthy bananas).
This article is not intended to substitute for informed medical advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or condition. Always check with your doctor before changing your diet, altering your sleep habits, taking supplements, or starting a new fitness routine.
