Rewarding at Perkbox

Dates in the diary

Recently, for Employee Appreciation Day, every Perkbox employee received a sum of Reward points, along with a message of — you guessed it — appreciation from the CEO Gautam.

Things like this go nicely alongside all the other things within our People initiatives. It’s a good idea to draw up a calendar of key dates and select the ones you feel are most appropriate (we also create a quarterly calendar which might come in handy!).

Popular holidays can also be used as a time to give people that little bit extra — for example, one of our clients has employees in India and sent Reward points to them for Diwali.

You can also look at dates which are specific to your business, such as your company’s birthday. These have the extra advantage of tying rewards in with your values… which leads us neatly onto our next point.

Meeting your values

In our experience, the best results come by rewarding people who live up to your values, or do things that are aligned with who you are as a company.

This has a dual benefit — not only does it make the people being recognised feel good, but it shows others exactly what behaviours you expect from them. This makes it more likely that they’ll replicate it going forward.

Our Employee Experience Lead Laura Lloyd explains:

"Every quarter we hold One Vision awards to celebrate champions who’ve really shown the behaviours we want to encourage as part of the company values. Winners are announced at all-company meetings which gives us the opportunity to re-emphasise the values. Other people then see Reward points being given for championing those values."

 

By doing it consistently, you’ll hammer home the message about your values with each act of appreciation.

Extra economic help

It’s not a reward in the way we’ve discussed so far, but it is true that Reward points can be used as part of your overall benefits offering — particularly in a tough economic environment. As our Chief People Officer Mona Akiki reveals, it’s a way to help people who may be especially affected.

"We gave people a salary increase, but for lower paid employees, we also gave them a one-time deposit of Reward points which they can use in any way they want. Whether it’s groceries or clothing or books — whatever is important for them and their families. That’s one of the great things about Reward points — that choice element."

 

This leads to a wider point about the cost of living crisis. While businesses want to help their people financially, it’s also important to empower them. In other words, let them take control of their personal situation. It can be tempting to give them a specific voucher to a specific grocery store — but what if they don’t shop there? What if they’re fine with groceries but actually need help getting cheaper wi-fi?

By giving employees choice with Reward points, you can guarantee they’ll find something meaningful to their individual lifestyle.

Micro-rewarding

This is where you give employees a small amount of Reward points on a frequent basis for completing tasks or reaching small goals. By constantly getting rewards for performing well, their motivation levels will increase. It’s something managers at Perkbox also do, especially in teams like Marketing where big objectives are made up of a series of smaller tasks.

There’s a bit of science behind this as well. A study by researchers Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It revealed that people who received immediate rewards for completing smaller tasks were happier and remained more interested in their work.

At Perkbox, we also use the micro-rewarding method to encourage people into the office, as Mona explains:

"Instead of using the stick, we use the carrot. For things like coming into the office, we’ve provided a lunch subsidy via Reward points. So if you’re in the office, you get a certain number of Reward points. That encourages people who might be thinking about things like the cost of travel or lunch — it helps them a bit with that."

 

The key takeaway

Our reward and recognition offering is a bit like your favourite pair of jeans — it serves a purpose pretty much all year round! These are just some of the methods we use to reward our employees, and hopefully it’ll spark a few more ideas for you to apply across your business.

For more help on getting the most out of Perkbox, get in touch with your Customer Success Manager!