Although the world is slowly getting back to normal, COVID safety is still at the forefront of everyone’s minds. We understand that you as an employer will have various considerations to make.
One of the big parts of the year for companies is festive celebrations. They are a great way to let loose after a work year, celebrate achievements and say thank you for the hard work done that year.
With there still being a risk of spreading amongst groups, many employers are putting necessary restrictions on how many employees can mingle, putting a huge question mark over festive celebrations.
However, in a year where celebration and socialization are arguably needed more than ever, it’s important to look at other options than parties and buffets.
A great way to give your employees the thanks they deserve and make the festive period special is through your employee benefits package. In particular, through reward and recognition.
Monetary rewards
One way to allocate rewards to every employee is making use of monetary gift cards.
This allows employees to spend the gift card on the items that they want or need.
Most restaurants and retailers have gift cards available, giving them more freedom with how and where they spend them.
Another option would be to add a bonus onto the employees’ salary around the festive season. This can help to ease the strain of the cost of Christmas or give the employee a little bit of extra money to treat themselves!
Through our Salary Extras platform, you have the option of introducing flex benefits. This gives you as an employer the opportunity to allocate an allowance to your employees to spend on their employee benefits. Approaching employee benefits like this creates more flexibility for the employee without taking too much of the control away from you as an employer.
You can set a budget for your employee benefits and stick to it, without taking away the opportunity for your employees to spend it however they wish.
Non-monetary rewards
Although a bonus or gift card are a great way to say thank you, implementing rewards that are non-monetary is just as important. It will likely become a huge perk for your employees if you include rewards that make their job easier. For example, an early finish or longer lunch break one day.
These kinds of rewards help your employees create a better work-life balance whilst still feeling rewarded for the hard work they’ve done.
Another great thing about non-monetary rewards is that they are instant. Sometimes when you set up a monetary reward for someone, it can take a while for them to receive it and spend it.
However, you can give non-monetary rewards like an early finish for example, and the employee could take it on that day if they wish.
Recognition
Whilst rewarding employees for a successful year is important, the simple act of recognising their hard work can go a long way too.
Working on a project for a long time and not receiving feedback or recognition can easily lead to dissatisfaction and lack of motivation. If not addressed, there may be an increase in employees leaving the company.
Luckily there are options available for recognising your employees’ efforts. Both in your day-to-day actions and through your employee benefits.
When we’re busy and a stressful request comes in that requires the help of a colleague, it can be easy to forget in the moment to show gratitude for their time. An employee who feels like their time is valued though, is more likely to do the work to the best of their ability.
ECards
On your employee benefit platform, you can send ECards across the business, both from yourself and from employee to employee.
This helps to facilitate recognition for employees across the business.
At a time where employees have arguably worked harder than ever and have experienced severe amounts of stress and upheaval – it’s important to say thank you.
Teamwork has also become important in problem solving and ensuring that things run as normal as possible. Peer to peer Ecards allow employees to send a thank you card to colleagues that have helped them, either on a work project or through something more personal.
A couple of perks of peer-to-peer cards is the ease of setting them up and the effect that they can have on your company morale.
If you host your peer-to-peer cards through an employee benefits platform, like our Salary Extras offering, you can get all the things your employees need to send personal thankyous to each other, including a fun range of designs available and the standard space to write their own message.
Part of the reasons why employee retention and satisfaction levels are high within a company is often to do with receiving recognition for hard work.
If they are working hard and meeting targets but not getting recognised for it, they are likely to become unsatisfied with their job.
Giving employees that opportunity to send thank you cards to each other makes it easier than ever for them to ensure that everyone feels appreciated for their hard work.
The great thing about these Ecards is that everyone in the business can have access to them. Both management and otherwise which means that no matter how colleagues have supported each other, they can send their gratitude.
Spreading the benefits of being rewarded and recognised to all employees will in turn have an effect on overall employee satisfaction.
The option to send personal ones that just send good or festive wishes to someone is also available too.
So, whether someone is looking to show gratitude or just spread holiday cheer, they can.
Awards
Most companies incorporate some kind of award celebration into their seasonal party. Whether this is a professional, achievement-based award r a more fun, personal award.
These awards can increase employees’ sense of feeling appreciated, boosting the fun amongst employees and help improve team building.
You have options on how these are done too.
With a platform like Salary Extras, you can send awards to employees easily and even add a gift card/monetary reward if you wish. Then you can choose if you want to do this quietly or announce to the business the success of a particular employee.
Even though there is a question mark cast over in person parties, there is nothing stopping you from getting together virtually – like many did last year. If you are handing out several awards, then this can be a great way to announce the winners, particularly if there are more fun awards amongst professional ones.
We hope this article helps you to find different ways that you can still reward your employees over the festive period.
Contact us to find out more about how you can use your employee benefits to replace your in person festive activities!
