Employee rewards on the decline

Seems like rewarding employees for doing a good job is waning.

While a majority (89%) of working Canadians say they appreciate when they get a reward for doing their job well, the number of Canadian businesses using rewards to motivate employees dropped to 61% in 2015, down from 69% last year, reports Berkeley Payment Solutions’ 2015 Canadian Incentive and Rewards Trends Study.

More than half (55%) of Canadians polled say their employer doesn’t even offer a rewards program.

But even if a company has a program, it may not be that helpful in motivating employees. The study shows that 60% of Canadians surveyed say their employer’s rewards program doesn’t motivate them to do a good job.

While Canadian companies realize employee rewards are important to their business success, they are aware of the economic and administrative obstacles that get in the way.

For example, one-third (33%) of HR managers surveyed anticipate program cuts this year. And, 52% of those Canadian companies that don’t have rewards programs say it’s because they don’t have the budget.

Still, other companies say the rewards programs are difficult to manage (16%) or hard to measure for success (13.8%).

The study also identified the inconsistency between the incentives companies use and the ones employees actually want.

More than half (57%) of Canadian companies offered company-branded merchandise in 2015.
 However, employees surveyed prefer prepaid cards 16 times more than company-branded merchandise.

The 2015 Canadian Incentive and Rewards Trends Study polled 500 Canadian full-time employees from across the country, as well as 1,100 Canadian HR professionals from companies of all sizes and across various sectors.

Also read: