ConnectThe Edenred magazine – bringing people together

Issue 2 | Winter 2018

Get engaged in 2019

Our top tips for boosting engagement at

work – straight from the HR experts

End-of-year employee

rewardSpread festive cheer in

the workplace and build motivation for 2019

Shop ‘till you drop

Why every employee should have access to

a discounts platform

Contents 4 Expert view

How to truly influence employee behaviour for the better

5 Focus on SMEsEffective end-of-year employee reward without the hassle and cost

6 Beyond the Christmas rewardEmployee recognition for business success throughout the year

8 Hit the ground running in 2019Tips and tricks to increase motivation and performance from Q4 through to Q1

10 The battle for customer loyalty at Christmas

Converting the seasonal rush into loyalty that lasts

11 Financial wellbeingEmployee money-saving tips to help with the rising cost of Christmas

12 Engaging your people5 top tips from HR experts to boost employee engagement

13 OpinionWhen peer pressure can be a good thing

14 News in BriefReports from the Edenred Group across the globe

Let’s connectWelcome to the second issue of Connect. 2019 may well be the year the UK finally breaks its formal connections with Europe, but let’s make it the year for building stronger connections with our employees, and utilising the power of recognition to make this happen.

Employee recognition and wider in-company ‘cheerleading’ and celebration builds ripples of positive feelings and engagement which can help support achievement of the wider business and customer goals during the year.

In this issue, Charles Cotton, Senior Performance and Reward Adviser to the CIPD, gives us his expert view on employee reward and recognition. Our own champion for recognition, Jamie Clarke, provides his opinions on social recognition, and we talk about recognition throughout the year, and of course the time at the end of the year when so much recognition and reward takes place.

For many businesses, recognition, and indeed reward strategy, goes beyond employees and is extended to their customers. We are increasingly working with businesses to support their customer acquisition

ConnectEditor:

Sophie Kennedy

Contributing Editor: Wendy Blanton

Contributors: Andy PhilpottJamie ClarkeSteven Morris

Charles CottonStella Campbell

Nikki DaviesKaty Edwards

Design: TinCat Design

and retention programmes and we explore this in an article about the ‘battle for customer loyalty’.

Christmas is just a few weeks away, unless of course you are late getting to this issue. And for all those many businesses that recognise, appreciate and reward their employees at this time of year, digital reward is a fast growing trend. Our Compliments Select solution will be used by hundreds of companies of all sizes to quickly issue personalised appreciation emails and eReward codes, enabling their employees to select their own reward online and fast. Give it a go.

You don’t have to be a big organisation to deliver digital appreciation and rewards. We discuss Christmas tips and tool-kits for SMEs in this issue.

And, as we enter the high spend shopping season, we provide a few updates and tips on how we can

help employees make their money go further this year. We are busy refreshing our Employee Savings platforms and adding new content to provide wider savings offers for the hundreds of thousands of employees that login each month.

We wish all our customers a successful end to 2018, a happy festive period, and a fast start to 2019.

Andy PhilpottSales and Marketing Director, Edenred UK

PS: Go on, show someone or a team some recognition and appreciation today. It really does make a difference.

3edenred.co.uk 3edenred.co.uk

The importance of transparency and communication in influencing employee behaviour The point of reward is to influence behaviour. Historically, base pay was seen as influencing decisions to join an organisation, benefits as a way of persuading someone to stay, while variable pay as a way of raising performance.

However, while this looks quite rational, insights from behavioural science suggest how we reward people can influence their behaviours in unexpected ways. For instance, it finds

that we value tangible and timely rewards more than those that are intangible and take longer to arrive. This suggests that paying an employee’s salary in cash would have more impact than doing it through electronic transfer to their account. Being given a wad of cash with your payslip is far more memorable than an email alert informing you that your payslip is ready to access on the company intranet. Of course, giving people their pay in cash is problematic. For instance, there is the security issue of having large amounts of money in the office. The challenge for us is how to get across our messages with the similar impact that cash has via an electronic payslip. To do so, it’s important to create a compelling narrative for employees explaining what the employer wants and why and how it will reward and recognise them in turn. As HR and pay professionals, we need to ensure that how we determine, structure and manage pay and benefits, supports this narrative, as well as being open and transparent about our reward processes and outcomes.

By Charles Cotton

EXPERT V IEW

HR textbooks highlight the importance of aligning reward and organisational objectives. For this to happen, HR and reward professionals need to be able to help our organisation determine and then articulate what business success looks like. In turn, we need to know what our employees have to do for our organisation to be successful, in terms of their behaviours, skills, values, performances, etc. Following from this, we need to think how to reward and recognise them for their achievements, involving considerations of what we reward, how and when. In addition, we need to take into account employee reward preferences as well as the business, economic and legal contexts in which we operate. After these steps, we should be in a better position to reward individuals and teams for the right things, in the right way, at the right time.

We should recognise the various ways that different communication methods can amplify our message, from face-to-face discussions with the line manager to the creation of online

communities for staff to discuss their reward issues. While technology can help broadcast our messages more widely in a cost effective manner, it should not replace other means of communication because people can behave in different ways to the same message depending on the media used and when it’s communicated. At this time of year, Christmas is an opportunity of highlighting the importance to the organisation of collective behaviour and then rewarding and recognising it. Similarly, it can be a chance to profile those elements of the benefits platform that can help staff stretch the value of their pay packet as well as flagging up the start of the New Year and how the financial wellbeing package can assist employees to make more informed spending and saving decisions.

Charles Cotton is Senior Performance and Reward Adviser to the CIPD

As HR and pay professionals, we need to ensure that how we determine, structure and manage

pay and benefits, supports this narrative, as well as being open and transparent about

our reward processes and outcomes.

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The importance of transparency and communication in influencing employee behaviour

Autumn is here and we are into the final countdown to the end of the year. And that means putting in that discretional effort to reach the final targets, closing out key individual, team and company projects, and finalising plans and budgets for 2019.

Finding time to plan any end-of-year initiatives for employees can often be a challenge. Will there be a party, what planning needs to be done and will there be an end-of-year bonus or gift?

However, this really should be seen as a great opportunity and not just a task to fit into a busy workload:

● An opportunity to show your team how much you appreciate their efforts during the year and their importance to the business

● An opportunity for your employees to feel good about the company and their role in it as they head off for the festive break

● An opportunity to have employees feeling motivated and engaged at the start of another year and not thinking about applying for a new job

Make it personalMany organisations choose to use the end of the year to provide a gift or financial bonus as a mark of their appreciation. But it is not all about the size of the reward; the way it is delivered and communicated and the experience for the employee is what counts and makes the difference.

Think about personalising the message of appreciation to individuals and teams, rather than giving the same message to everyone. It is worth taking some time over the communication and messaging.

Think also about personalising the end-of-year reward or offer the choice to an employee to choose their own reward. This really can make a big difference.

Whatever you do, make sure the act of appreciation is not just hidden away in an email or letter - appreciation and communication is reinforced through face-to-face engagement too.

SME FOCUS

Motivation in December and JanuaryConsider treating December and January as a key period of engagement. Think about the importance of appreciation at the end of the year and have some empathy with people in January who may be a little poorer after Christmas and lacking in motivation in a dark, cold month. That’s why it makes sense to split reward over this period – a little something in January could really make an impact and further build your connections with your people.

Keep it simpleFor those companies without an internal team to help organise this, managers want an option that’s as quick and painless as possible.

So if you haven’t done so already, start planning your employee reward now to avoid a stressful festive period. Ending the year positively can help you start the year positively too. Motivation to beat the January blues is not only important; it could be the key to a successful 2019!

Appreciation and recognition is important throughout the

year, and Christmas is a time to really make it count.

For most small businesses, a hassle-free, speedy, low-cost solution to

employee reward and recognition is even more important in the run-up to Christmas – when life is busy enough.

Compliments Select lets you personalise a message and creative in an email, allocate a reward and

distribute it to everyone in a few simple clicks. Employees receive the email with a monetary

code, which they redeem online against a wide catalogue of big brand eGift cards and gift cards.

Speed, impact, personalisation and choice. We use it for our own employees – we know it works.

Go to www.edenred.co.uk/christmas-rewards

to find out more and get started.

A little appreciation at the end of the year can do wonders for motivation and performanceBy Wendy Blanton

5edenred.co.uk

Beyond the Christmas reward – recognition for business success throughout the year

Winter is here and the arrival of cards, decorations and gifts in the shops well and truly signals the start of the festive season.

By Sophie Kennedy

With Christmas being the season of goodwill and giving, there is no better time to recognise your employees for their hard work throughout the year. For many organisations, employee effectiveness during the final quarter of the year is a good litmus test for overall performance – annual targets must be met and customer contracts renewed.

So a gift of thanks at Christmas time is both a good way to close the year and start the new one with renewed staff energy and motivation. But the truth is, employee recognition isn’t seasonal, it’s an important part of company culture all year round.

How can organisations ensure they’re maximising the opportunities to increase motivation during the busy Christmas season and benefit from the positive impact it creates throughout the year?

Ho ho how to get end-of-year recognition and reward right There are many ways in which employers can thank and reward their people at Christmas time, but whatever they do, it’s essential to make it meaningful and ensure the impact is lasting.

Considering the diversity of today’s modern workforce, adding a personal, thoughtful touch to the end of year reward will make all the difference. Just as not everyone celebrates Christmas in the same way, it’s unlikely that the same Christmas reward will have the same impact on everyone. And let’s be

EMPLOYEE RECOGNIT ION

honest, giving someone a gift without any thought is almost worse than not giving one at all.

While a cash gift in the December pay slip may seem like an easy option, Edenred research shows that today the majority of people (58%) would prefer something different. That doesn’t mean spending big, but spending smart on something which is useful, flexible and personal. Vouchers, gift cards or digital rewards have double the impact on your employees: once when the reward is received and again when the reward is redeemed and spent.

And it’s the thoughtful little touches at the end of the year that help to make your people feel even more valued. Nikki Davies, Learning and Development Manager at Allianz Partners UK explains that her company run a number of initiatives around Christmas time. From a ‘busy day’ tea and coffee run for their call centre, Christmas lunch provided on Christmas day for those working on shift, to vouchers for permanent employees and half day on Christmas Eve for some areas of the business.

Importantly, managers and team leaders have a vital role to play in delivering end of year reward and recognition to their team. In this case, words speak as loudly as actions: each member of staff needs to hear and understand clearly why they are being recognised.

This positive behaviour by managers also reinforces the values that matter to a business, encouraging buy-in from employees and ensuring the good will created by the Christmas reward extends way beyond the festive season.

So a gift of thanks at Christmas time is both a good way to close the year and start the new one with renewed staff energy and motivation. But the truth is, employee recognition isn’t seasonal, it’s an important part of company culture all year round.

Importantly, managers and team leaders have a vital role to play in delivering

end of year reward and recognition to their team. In this case, words speak as loudly as actions: each member of staff needs to hear and understand clearly

why they are being recognised.

6 edenred.co.uk

Employee recognition for business success 365 days a yearBeyond the Christmas reward, the key to unlocking employee performance through employee recognition is to put in place a programme and a platform that can bring consistency and visibility to employee recognition.

So says Nikki at Allianz Partners: “As we are a 24/7, 365 days a year business, every day is important to our clients and customers, and therefore it is important that our employees feel valued and motivated throughout the year.

Our reward and recognition portal, ‘Thank-you’, ensures every employee has the opportunity to be recognised whenever they go above and beyond. The portal has helped us to build a culture of reward and recognition, where any employee can ‘thank’ another colleague for their hard work or support.”

Allianz Partners’ portal demonstrates how the right recognition platform enables an organisation to acknowledge the actions and behaviours of its employees that will make a difference, and ensure this happens consistently right across the organisation. It will feel like part of the business, fully reflecting its values and behaviours, as well as its corporate identity and style of communication. This is critical to employee buy-in and ensures it is aligned to a company’s wider employee value proposition.

“New starters are automatically enrolled and receive an email to join the Thank-you platform” explains Nikki. “We also discuss it as part of our on-boarding for new starters. We link business wide schemes such as our Innovation Awards back to the Thank-you portal, and also recognise Learning and Development achievements through Thank-you; this promotes the portal’s use throughout the employee lifecycle.”

Some traditional parts of the recognition mix like face-to-face feedback and team celebrations will always be important. But in today’s workplace where teams collaborate across different offices at different times, the ability to deliver social recognition is critical. A good platform will enable an organisation to do this and for everyone – from managers to those on the front line – to be aware of the individuals and teams who are doing a good job.

“Cost obviously has an impact, but the ease of use and management of the system along with the social recognition side is paramount for us”, says Nikki. “We have a young workforce who are used to having a social presence, so we wanted something that would be intuitive for them to use. However we also have a section of the workforce who are not as social media savvy and for them it had to be easy to understand and simple to use.”

With business priorities changing quickly and often, any recognition platform must be adaptable and updateable at the touch of a few buttons and at no extra cost. This enables an organisation to remain agile and consistent in its approach and prevents the recognition programme from feeling haphazard and disjointed.

A dashboard to track interaction between individuals, teams and managers means the performance hot-spots and not-spots are immediately apparent, giving HR and managers a highly valuable tool to support performance management.

“Recognition has always been the emphasis of our programme”, says Nikki. “Whilst employees appreciate a monetary reward, the recognition from their peers and managers is what drives our programme and has made a positive impact across the company.”Ultimately, a high impact employee recognition scheme relies on a platform which takes away the hassle and guesswork for managers and employees around how and when recognition should be given, and which shows that employee recognition is something that matters to the organisation.

Transforming a piecemeal approach to employee recognition to one with a clear strategic focus on business priorities, and the behaviours which will help achieve them, is one of the biggest opportunities available to organisations to motivate and improve employee performance.

“Recognition has always been the emphasis of our programme. Whilst employees appreciate a monetary reward, the recognition from their

peers and managers is what drives our programme and has made a

positive impact across the company.Nikki Davies, Learning and Development

Manager at Allianz Partners UK

7edenred.co.uk

From Q4 to Q1 – keeping momentum going through effective incentives and rewards

The last quarter of the year brings with it a whole host of changes and challenges. Christmas, as we are constantly reminded, is only a few short weeks away and your people will be gearing up for the festive season before you know it. But what does that mean for your business?

By Wendy Blanton

SALES INCENT IVES

For many it’s year-end targets and a final performance sprint to the finish for a successful financial year. For others, the autumnal changes are merely a reminder that the end of the year brings the start of the new financial year’s challenges.

The real question is, can you do both? How can you push through the final quarter, hit the ground running in 2019 and keep sales teams motivated through the January blues?

Plan, prospect, achieve

For your sales team, the answer is prospecting. Prospecting is the process of searching for potential customers, clients, or buyers in order to develop new business. It means understanding where each lead is in your pipeline, frequent forecasting, and sharing this information with your team so everyone is clear on the goal for that individual prospect – monthly, quarterly and annually.

Employee engagement can feel a bit like prospecting. Understanding your employees’ needs will help find the right drivers to motivate them for that final Q4 push. That being said, keeping the momentum going throughout Q4 and planning Q1 simultaneously means that your team will have to be at its best.

Knowing what your employees want

Prospecting assumes that you know what your buyer wants – think about this in terms of employee engagement. Do you know what drives your employees? What are their interests and goals? A high level of information sharing, planning and forecasting

are all key to a successful motivation plan for the end of one year, and the start of a new one.

A recent employee survey in the US found that recognition is the number one thing employees say their manager could give them to inspire them to produce great work.

Highlight good work openly by embracing employee recognition and peer-to-peer social recognition. Examples in the team of positive role models should be championed by both managers and their peers. Communicating recognition across the organisation is a good starting point and targets the whole team, encouraging everyone to get involved in the final quarter push.

Keeping the momentum for Q1

A significant 73% of workers describe the mood at work on the first working day of January as either lethargic or resigned. This is in stark contrast to less than a quarter of respondents (24%) who describe the mood as motivated.

The first day back in January doesn’t have to be different than other months. According to a recent survey, almost half of employees (49%) view day one in a month as a chance to plan their workload or get ahead of their targets. A similar number (45%) leave feeling challenged and motivated for the next day. Understanding your employees’ key motivators and how to communicate with them is the founding of effective leadership. Effective leadership

Obviously it’s easy to say that effective leadership is necessary for positive Q4 and Q1 results. That being said, sales leaders have a big job – not only do they have to deliver on their own sales targets, they also have to support and mentor their teams to do the same. Strong leadership can take many forms and include effective review meetings, communication on client updates, staff one-to-ones and a good incentive plan.

Fill diaries well in advance so your team has something to work towards as soon as the New Year starts. This

A recent employee survey in the US found that recognition is the number

one thing employees say their manager could give them to inspire

them to produce great work.

8 edenred.co.uk

not only enables you to free yourself of the pressure to set resolutions and targets in January but you may even have some impressive results to show by then. Think of December as a fresh start, and then slide into January ahead of the game.

As the fourth quarter ramps up, encourage your team to schedule one-to-ones with you to find out what areas of concern they may have. Are there weaknesses in their communication within the team? This might highlight overall weakness on communication – which could affect client relationships as well.

Strategic incentives and rewards

It’s in a manager’s best interest to create a recognition strategy that uses incentives and reward to reach all members of the team, from the top achievers to those experiencing challenges. Finding the right incentives

to help propel your sales team through the fourth quarter and enabling them to create opportunities in Q1 means knowing what works for your team.

What is the right incentive? During one-to-one meetings, ask individuals what type of incentive would encourage them. Would it be a gift card or a hot air balloon experience? What if it’s as simple as an extra day of holiday? Prepaid cards are another useful option as it enables your team to spend their reward on what they want.

Incentives, autonomy and responsibility

Knowing there are many options for rewards might be the incentive your staff need to dig deep and build out their preparations for a superb first quarter – squashing any January blues that come along. Seeing the reward at the end of the tunnel is not only motivating, it also contributes to your employer brand and strengthens employee engagement.

Encourage autonomy, responsibility and consider ways in which you can offer your team more flexibility, which will make them feel valued and secure in their position. Most importantly, keep the momentum of your fast start to 2019 going by celebrating your team’s success at the end of the first month. This will set the tone for employee motivation throughout the year and ensure your team is always ready to jump at the chance to succeed.

With Q4 for closing and Q1 for kicking off, look at the opportunities. Engaging employees, using incentives to motivate and seeing a successful end of year, will feel, well, like Christmas!

Fill diaries well in advance so your team has something to work towards

as soon as the New Year starts. This not only enables you to free yourself of the pressure to set resolutions and targets in January but you may even have some

impressive results to show by then. Think of December as a fresh start, and then slide into January ahead of the game.

9edenred.co.uk

Steven Morris, is Director of Key Accounts at Edenred UK

Loyalty is for life, not just for Christmas Retail sales ramp up at Christmas time but how can you convert the seasonal rush into loyalty that lasts?

to differentiate with personalisation to become connected to their audience. A wide range of instant rewards and incentives will give your consumers the ultimate in choice and flexibility and demonstrate to them that you understand and respect their individual needs.

2 They give you great insight

If executed properly, your customer reward programme will be a two-way process, enabling you to develop bespoke rewards that resonate with your target audiences and gather the insight needed to analyse their behaviour and identify what’s important to them at the same time, thus creating a virtuous circle.

At Christmas time, when the retail landscape is noisier than ever, access to this powerful customer reward data will also enable you to partner strategically with the right brand or retailer in a mutually beneficial collaboration, making any offer more compelling and attractive to the customer.

This will add value to both parties, giving you a competitive edge during a crucial trading period and increasing engagement in the long term.

CONSUMER REWARD

The festive season is when everyone is fighting for attention and sales. It’s an expensive time for any brand or retailer, as everyone wades in to pay-per-click, social media channels become flooded, customers become bombarded with messages and loyalty is rare.

It’s a similar scenario on the high street, where there can be discount anarchy and the sales and offers begin earlier each year. That means you could find yourself in a race to the bottom unless you can set yourself apart from the competition. But shoppers aren’t only interested in the best deals and cheapest products. They have become used to the huge discount available and it’s the brands that develop a personal, ongoing relationship with their customers who achieve the most cut-through during this peak spending season.

Here are three reasons why instant digital rewards help to create engagement and build loyalty with your customers at Christmas time and beyond:

1 They make your customer feel good

During the ultra-competitive festive season, it’s more crucial than ever to get customer reward right and not simply adopt a scattergun approach to loyalty in an attempt to engage customers. The key differentiator is to offer a positive experience and make the modern customer feel valued.

Research shows clearly that flexible and personalised rewards are increasingly popular, with 71% of consumers citing those elements as the most appealing loyalty feature for a brand.

So since price is no longer the key point of difference, brands need

3 They enable you to be nimble

Today’s tech-savvy, ‘always-on’ consumers have high expectations of their daily interactions, where everything they engage with is easy, fun and immediate, leading to instant gratification.

The technology behind digital rewards not only gives consumers a sense of immediacy and control over curating the rewards they want, it also enables you to be responsive as a brand and react quickly to urgent needs in changing circumstances, without months of campaign planning.

Take Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which provide huge opportunities for brands to generate increased sales, acquire new customers and drive the consumer behaviour they want by enhancing the reward offer even further. A brand’s ability to be quick on their feet with digital rewards makes the offer more relevant and appealing to their customer, making them feel they are getting even better value.

This means you can respond to what your customers want at the touch of a button, creating a relationship of trust and loyalty that will last way beyond the proverbial tin of chocolates.

Today’s tech-savvy, ‘always-on’ consumers have high expectations

of their daily interactions, where everything they

engage with is easy, fun and immediate, leading to instant gratification.

To find out more about how Edenred are helping big

brands gain loyal fans through innovative reward strategies,

visit www.edenred.co.uk/incentives-and-rewards

By Steven Morris

10 edenred.co.uk

The countdown is on, the big brands are launching their seasonal advertising campaigns and putting sparkle into their displays. Christmas is on its way, and so is the most expensive shopping period of the year!Of course, this is the time employee discounts and savings platforms can make a big difference for employees and as a result have a positive impact on their employers too.

Edenred has exciting savings, offers and campaigns lined up for the Christmas period for our clients’ employees. And before that, our Black Friday offers will provide the opportunity for big savings on gift cards and eGift cards to add to the savings available online and on the high street.

Great brands are continually being added to the platform. Over the last couple of months we have seen Jet2holidays join a large range of travel brands, FatFace, Uber, notonthehighstreet.com, Now TV and Hawes & Curtis. These are just some of the other great brands now on the platform with offers not available on the wider web.

And we are really excited about Sony Pictures who joined the platform at the end of September. Look out for great film releases and amazing savings; perfect for Christmas presents.

We are making a few changes to our platform to improve the look and feel and speed up the process for users to access the key spend categories. And we have some really exciting plans for our platform in early 2019.

For any employer without a savings platform for their employees now is the best time to put one in place.

Lights, camera, action! Edenred welcomes Sony PicturesWe are really excited to have Sony Pictures, one of the world’s leading entertainment companies, as a partner on our employee savings platforms. With Christmas just around the corner, everyone should check out the range of content available this season.

Who is Sony Pictures Home Entertainment? Sony Pictures Home Entertainment represents a diverse range of quality entertainment products catering for all tastes; from blockbuster hits and popular franchises

to family-friendly animation and exceptional TV – there really is something for everyone. Alongside major movies like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Peter Rabbit, there are captivating TV dramas such as The Crown and Outlander Seasons 1-3, as well as an extensive back catalogue bursting with entertainment including Call me by Your Name, Blade Runner 2049, Hotel Transylvania and Ghostbusters to name a few.

What are some of the biggest movie releases?Edenred users can look forward to the return of Hollywood super-star Denzel Washington and long-time collaborator Antoine Fuqua in the exhilarating Equalizer 2; Tom Hardy portrays the streetwise Eddie Brock in Venom, an anti-hero movie perfect for Marvel fans; visual feast for the eyes, Alpha, is the inspirational survival tale centred around a primitive teenage boy and his dog; and the BAFTA Award winning actress Claire Foy graces our screens in the lavish second season of The Crown. What’s on offer for the users of Edenred’s savings platform?Edenred users can receive savings of up to 30% on the cheapest online prices for Sony’s DVDs, Blu-rays and 4K products. Treat yourself, loved ones or enjoy a movie night in with friends.

With Christmas just around the corner, what movies are on offer?There’s plenty on offer this Christmas including box office smash, Peter Rabbit. This modern take on a British children’s classic will be available with a 30% saving. Monster hit animation Hotel Transylvania is back for a third instalment and finally, Sony has an amazing family vault including the much loved Annie, Oliver, Arthur Christmas and many more!

Every employee should have access to a shopping savings platformBy Andy Philpott

F INANCIAL WELLBE ING

Andy Philpott is Sales and Marketing Director at Edenred UK

11edenred.co.uk

gratitude for their work. Combining a programme with work practices that promote a culture where employees have higher levels of autonomy, the ability to grow and learn new skills and to feel that they contribute and have a purpose in the company are also key. Katy Edwards, HR Manager at Ledger Bennett, notes that they have celebrated company achievements with champagne toasts for the whole company on a Friday afternoon.

3 Take a personal interestShow interest in employees’ lives and share your own stories to create a warm, trust-built workplace. This can help identify coaching needs as well. As Nikki Davies states, “A lack of self-confidence can negatively impact on various aspects of someone’s life. Coaching can help an individual recognise their top qualities and past successes before setting some realistic goals. Coaching can happen at any level and at any time in an employee’s lifecycle. We offer and deliver coaching as part of everyday performance, as well as for those who are looking to develop and promote themselves.”

4 Recognition strategies that work“Our recognition scheme offers a variety of rewards for all life stages and situations, as well as a discount scheme which again offers up to date discounts from a multitude of suppliers,” notes Stella Campbell, HR Director at Edenred. Reaching all the demographics of your workforce is key to implementing a successful recognition strategy encouraging employee engagement.

Nikki Davies said, “We link business-wide schemes such as our Innovation Awards back to our Thank-you portal, and also recognise Learning and Development achievements through Thank-you. This

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

You might want to compare notes – a recent study shows that 53% of employees work harder and stay longer with employers that show appreciation for their work. This involves encouraging employees to engage with their team, managers, and company as a whole. We asked a few HR experts how they show their appreciation and more importantly, how they boost employee engagement.

1 Communication is keyThe right channels of communication are the essential tools in your employee engagement strategy. HR experts know which tools to use to get the job done and how to use it effectively. Nikki Davies, Learning and Development Manager from Allianz Partners UK, suggests using a

variety of avenues to reach all areas of the age spectrum. “We have a young workforce who are used to having a social presence, so we need communication processes that would be intuitive for them to use. However we also have a section of the workforce who are not as social media savvy and for them it has to be easy to understand and simple to use.”

2 Appreciation all aroundIt’s good to share appreciation across the whole company, especially when you want to show an employee

promotes the portal’s use throughout the employee lifecycle.”

5 Get away from the deskStretching out, away from the confines of the office, enables employees to down tools and enjoy some quality time. Katy Edwards shares their latest employee engagement initiative.“We run a Feelgood Fortnight event

to promote health and wellbeing. We organise a timetable of events over two weeks – yoga sessions, mindfulness sessions, personal trainer demos and nutrition talks. The idea is to encourage better work habits that enable people to balance work with health and wellbeing. It also gives people tools to deal with stress at work.”

Find out how Edenred’s Connect employee recognition

platform can enhance your employee engagement at:

www.edenred.co.uk/connect-employee-recognition

Nikki Davies is Learning and Development Manager at Allianz Partners UK, Katy Edwards is HR Manager at Ledger Bennett and Stella Campbell is HR Director at Edenred UK

A recent study shows that 53% of employees work harder and stay longer with employers that show appreciation

for their work.

Reaching all the demographics of your

workforce is key to implementing a successful

recognition strategy encouraging employee

engagement.

5 top tips from HR experts to boost employee engagement By Wendy Blanton

Calling all human resource professionals! Want to know how the HR experts do employee engagement?

12 edenred.co.uk

Social recognition: Can ‘peer pressure’ at work be a good thing?Peer pressure doesn’t usually carry positive connotations. Primarily used to describe situations in which impressionable people feel compelled to join in with something in order to conform, often despite their better judgement, it’s generally something we are encouraged not to succumb to.

HR or by senior managers. It is a work community with recognition at the core, providing a valuable tool for moving away from the habit of linking recognition with reward.

2 Supports knowledge sharing

The power of social recognition goes beyond recognising good performance. It also captures the reasons why recognition is given, providing a valuable platform to share knowledge around best practice and innovation which takes place in the business every day.

3 Recognition wherever your employees are

Social recognition is built for today’s flexible work environment where people are on the move using smartphones and tablets, and not tied to a desk. This means good work can be recognised and shared immediately wherever your employees might be.

4 Is about more than values

Aligning recognition to company values is a priority for most businesses but managers and employees also need a way to say a simple thanks for a job well done, or to a particularly supportive team member. Social repetition enables employees to recognise the everyday actions which matter to them as well as the behaviour that helps the business.

5 Unique insight into performance hotspots

Using social recognition gives you a dashboard which you can use to follow interaction between individuals, teams and managers. This means you can identify the biggest gaps and the best opportunities to use social recognition as a tool to support personal development and performance management.

6Tailored to your organisation

Social recognition is designed to flex around the needs of your business. That means you can recognise teams around projects, or introduce recognition for specific business initiatives. By using cloud-based software there’s no need for complex IT implementation to get social recognition up and running in your business. Social recognition platforms can be used by any business of any size.

7 Fits with existing recognition and reward

Social recognition compliments your existing recognition activity. Because it can also be used to manage and deliver reward for your organisation, adopting social recognition can help organisations move towards improving the way they manage performance-related reward.

Many companies understand the principles of social recognition but fail to promote a workplace culture in which it can thrive. Endorsing recognition frameworks based on financial incentives alone can be counter-productive. A culture of positive feedback where success is shared and celebrated is in fact both cheaper and often more effective.

In their pursuit of increased engagement, motivation and productivity, employers should harness the positive power of peer pressure as much as – if not more than – the desire for financial reward.

However, in the right context, peer pressure doesn’t have to be bad. In the workplace, when managed properly, it can be a great motivator. Group monitoring of behaviour and peer-to-peer recognition can provide a powerful incentive to do the right thing.

The rise of social at workPeer-to-peer, or social recognition is now a mainstream phenomenon. According to statistics, two-thirds (66%) of today’s UK population are active social media users. Liking, sharing and discovering things on social media are now part of people’s daily experience.

This activity is redefining our expectations around how communication works and employees are now importing these expectations around transparency and speed into the workplace. As a result, progressive employers need to accept the benefits of mirroring the more democratic peer-to-peer experience that is now a feature of the consumer world.

Here are our seven top reasons why ‘positive peer pressure’ in the workplace is a good thing:

1 Puts recognition into the hands of everyone

Social recognition enables employees and managers to recognise each other’s good work in a way which is visible to everyone. Because everyone can contribute, it isn’t ‘owned’ by

EMPLOYEE RECOGNIT ION

By Jamie Clarke

In the right context, peer pressure doesn’t

have to be bad. In the workplace, when managed

properly, it can be a great motivator.

Jamie Clarke is Product Manager, Incentives and Motivation at Edenred UK

13edenred.co.uk

News in brief

NEWS

Edenred’s Ticket Restaurant card gets the Uber treatmentUber Eats and Edenred France have teamed up to enable Ticket Restaurant® card holders to have their meals delivered in a simple, fast and secure way via the Uber Eats application.

Edenred’s 600,000 Ticket Restaurant card users can order their meals in the 42 French cities where Uber Eats is available. Uber Eats’ mission is to enable anything to be delivered anywhere and anytime, in a few clicks and with as many choices as possible.

“A leader in the meal voucher market, Edenred is the only provider in France to offer a comprehensive range of payments, from cards to mobile payments and integrated payments in an application. With this new service, Edenred is strengthening its position as leader in digital services combining fintech and foodtech and offering a high-quality experience to all its users”, says Julien Tanguy, General Manager of Edenred France.

8,000 Edenred employees dedicated to solidarityEdenred contributes to wellbeing in the workplace and takes an active approach to corporate social responsibility. The Group organised a day during which its employees, clients and partners share a moment of solidarity, known as Idealday.

On 21st June, 46 different solidarity or environmental initiatives took place around the world. In the UK, Edenred employees improved the garden of a London children’s hospice. They also supported a film night with the hospice for the children, providing goody bags full of themed treats. They also donated a table tennis table for the older children.

Chester employees spent the day on the beaches of Llandudno, Wales, to clear litter and plastic. Employees also had the opportunity to learn how to cut down on their own plastic footprints with a plastic pollution awareness session, held at their office.

“I am proud of the employees who are taking part in Idealday; they uphold the Group’s commitment to local communities. Success is only sustainable if it is shared for the benefit of all”, says Jacques Adoue, Edenred’s Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Edenred sponsors first sailing venture in FranceEmmanuel Le Roch took to the seas this summer with the support of the Edenred Group and its 8,000 employees.

The skipper, Le Roch, prepared for his greatest personal and sporting challenge, which is a single-handed transatlantic race in a 12-metre monohull boat. By choosing sailing and enabling a skipper to enter his first major single-handed race, the Group is promoting its core values of imagination, simplicity and commitment.

The Route Du Rhum commenced on the 4th November and is a childhood dream for Emmanual Le Roch, who said, “it will come true thanks to Edenred”.

“Emmanuel can count on the enthusiastic support of our 8,000 employees in this human adventure”, commented Bertrand Dumasy, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Edenred Group.

Employee recognition rebooted – Edenred’s new Connect SaaSEdenred UK has launched a cutting edge recognition platform. Connect is an innovative SaaS technology which delivers efficient and effective employee recognition that makes a measurable difference to engagement.

Connect empowers employers to improve the effectiveness of their existing recognition programmes and help those looking to use recognition to support their wider people and strategic goals.

“Connect puts the power back into recognition,” comments Andy Philpott, Sales and Marketing Director at Edenred. “It is a technology enabler which can help companies use recognition to help achieve their people and business goals. Market leading UX and UI combine to enable peer-to-peer and top down recognition in a fast, simple, and effective way.”

The cleverly designed admin interface means that the set up and on-going management of the tool is faster, easier, and more streamlined. Branding and customisation can be managed on the fly and the reporting dashboards provide intelligent insight into KPIs and engagement scores, ensuring the recognition activity is fully measurable.

14 edenred.co.uk

Edenred supports start-up, Beekeeper, in a $13 million new funding roundThe Edenred group, via its venture capital structure, Edenred Capital Partners, is taking part in the funding round for the Swiss-based start-up Beekeeper.

Beekeeper has developed an app for HR departments that enables employees without email addresses to instantly exchange files, plan their meetings, leave and work schedules, or to receive and archive their pay slips. Everything is accessible remotely via a simple and intuitive mobile interface. Several groups such as Domino’s Pizza, Heathrow Airport and Mandarin Oriental already use Beekeeper solutions in more than 130 countries.

By contributing to the development of Beekeeper, Edenred Capital Partners is continuing to support efficiency in the professional world. Faced with the challenges posed by modern workplaces, this investment will enable Edenred to extend its expertise in communication between companies, employees and self-employed workers.

“We take pride in supporting Beekeeper in this new phase of its development. This new investment demonstrates our willingness to get a better grasp on how digital technology improves communication in an ever more mobile world of work.” declared Philippe Dufour, Edenred’s Executive Vice President, Alternative Investments.

If you’d like to chat with us about any of the issues discussed here, or to find out more about how our

solutions can help you achieve your business objectives,

call 0333 400 5311.

hello@edenred.co.ukedenred.co.uk

@edenredUK

edenred.co.uk