Anyone who’s paying attention knows it’s a challenge to keep employees motivated. And right now, it’s even more of a challenge than ever. We’re in unfamiliar territory. In this landscape, the employee holds all the cards. With a market which features more jobs seeking candidates than candidates seeking jobs, employee mobility is at an all-time high. People need reasons to stay and keeping them engaged and doing good, productive work isn’t as easy as it once was. This post is about employee motivation: creating a productive workforce using a travel award program. More than 75% of US companies now deploy this strategy to keep their employees happy, producing and motivated and that’s for good reason – it works.
The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence (SITE) conducts yearly research to underline the inherent value of travel award programs. Conducted in July and August last year, the survey conducted by SITE drew 600 responses from around the world, with 150 responses originating in North America. The final report reveals that budgets for travel reward programs are growing. The $3K per employee companies were ponying up in 2017 has now burgeoned to $4K for 2018. It further reveals that the proportion of respondents who considered travel reward programs “very effective” had grown also, from just over 50% in 2016, to over 70%. And did you know that just a 5% increase in employee retention (a priority for most employers today, due to the high cost of turnover and rare top talent in the market) can lead to an increase in profitability of between 25% and 85%? While that’s a huge diversity of experience, it’s all gravy.
It’s almost universally agreed that having an engagement strategy in place reaps rewards for the employer. But not everyone jumps on board. Sometimes, traditional ways of doing things get in the way of movement. But with numbers like the ones shown above, surely the same employers know that jumping on board the travel reward program train is a business priority. That couldn’t be truer than right now, in this difficult employment market.
Day-to-day motivation isn’t the only consideration. Motivation to stay is huge. And 66% of employees surveyed said that a travel reward program did just that. It made them feel appreciated and spurred them to greater achievement and productivity. Lower turnover saves you money. Everybody knows that. And companies with travel reward programs saw their turnover rates hold rock solid at between 0-5%.
When your employees are engaged with what they’re doing and motivated to shine brightly, customers notice. 68% of customers stop doing business with organizations whose employees seem less than engaged. By the same token, over 40% of customers will stick with a company or brand in appreciation of a superior employee attitude. And that’s a statistic you can’t ignore. Ready for a travel reward program to bring out the best in your people? Contact us.
