Flexibility Succeeds
When planning an incentive program, the number one consideration is flexibility. Your employees come in all different shapes and sizes, men and women, young and old. They are of different income levels and maybe different parts of the country. With all these differences it is truly very difficult to select one award that will satisfy everyone. The easy way out is to give cash, but it has long been known that cash does not carry the trophy quality and is surely a very short term incentive soon forgotten. Gift certificates are touted as being the answer, but if you will go back into your experience, have you ever used a gift certificate without it costing you some more money once you go to redeem it? It is the nature of people to always want more than the certificate is worth. The companies that issue them know this and they bank on the fact that your gift recipient will usually spend more than the gift certificate worth. For some the gift certificate is a turnoff because they know it will cost them to redeem it.
Gift catalogs on the other hand offer the flexibility that you need without the added expense to your recipient. People like name brands and they love the idea of selecting their own gift. They don't have to travel to a store to redeem their certificate, they can select their gift right from their own easy chair. This form of incentive has all the things that are needed to keep your incentive program flexible and insure success.
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