The first things that might come to mind when someone mentions company benefits might involve medical leave, dental insurance, retirement, paternal leave, insurance, and so on and so forth. These are all nice things to have and some of which are expected in today’s working environment.
However, we need to face the fact that employees really cannot use these benefits directly. As such, these kinds of benefits are limited in the amount of satisfaction they can garner from workers. After all, an employee can’t utilise their sick leave until after they get sick.
Of course, it goes without saying that many employees are quite happy with existing common benefits. A poll by STJobs found that most employees generally feel content with their benefits package. However, to truly engage and retain employees, companies might want to consider giving employees what they really want as a reward.
Although employee welfare has been a part of corporate culture for a long time, the way that each company interprets employee benefits varies. However, many studies have suggested that offering cash to employees isn’t always the best option. While giving annual bonuses and supplemental wages can motivate employees to work harder, these incentives might not be much of a help if employees are disengaged with their jobs in the first place.
As such, the offering of more exciting rewards that are aligned to the wants of the employees can be the right solution to counteract high disengagement and turnover rates.
A survey conducted by Glassdoor found that one of the most requested benefits by employees that is not widely implemented is the employee discount. Saving money is one of the basic instincts of the average worker. As such, the beneficial impact of employee discounts are obvious.
This benefit could be a little reward system for employees to boost productivity, attract talent and retain a happy and loyal team. Having such an appealing sounding programme can also help immensely with talent acquisition. Telling potential hires that one of your benefits is a nationwide employee discount programme can be the difference between landing and losing a candidate.
There are several methods that an employee discount programme can be implemented.
The first method is having the company create their own discount cards which will be distributed to employees. Usually, the company will have to organise or arrange an agreement with the venues and retailers who are willing to give discounts to employees when they stop by. The problem with this method is that it requires a lot of effort because the organisation will have to source discounts and deals themselves.
Secondly, companies can provide discounts in the form of gift cards, vouchers, e-vouchers, or even pre-paid cards. These vouchers can be given out to achieving and performing employees. Alternatively, they could be allowed to purchase the vouchers in bulk for a reduced price.
The third method is also the most convenient and fairly common. This is to have the company partner up with a dedicated corporate discount platform. There are plenty of online shopping platforms and e-marketplaces around that are more than willing to partner up with businesses to offer their employees discounts.
This method may even allow the awarding of exclusive corporate promos to employees, thus driving traffic towards the discount platform while helping to deliver better employee rewards and great employee benefits. Corporate shopping as a fringe benefit is a sure-fire way to improve employee welfare and satisfaction.
