Blog - Archived 3-21-24 - Page 5 of 23

Mayo Clinic Centralizes Their Discount Program

Courtney Shipshock April 21, 2022

Mayo Clinic is home to 73,000 employees with major campuses located in Rochester, Phoenix, and Jacksonville, with smaller satellite locations across the country. As one of the top healthcare providers in the nation, patients from around the world travel to Mayo Clinic seeking top-notch care. With employees located in different regions, Mayo Clinic was in need of a discount provider that could bridge the gap in their discount offerings.

Prior To PerkSpot

Mayo Clinic previously had their own discount portal but it was a heavy lift to manage and had strict requirements. To be listed, vendors needed 3+ years as a business, 20% discounts or higher, and needed to commit to a year of service. This criteria made it difficult to secure offers and the management of the program was difficult.

Conversely, PerkSpot manages the program for you with a team of client success managers ready to help. We devise engagement strategies, create marketing materials, and more. Additionally, Mayo Clinic’s previous discounts were based on their Rochester location making it difficult for employees elsewhere to benefit.

“We wanted to not only have our employees at Rochester have discounts, but everybody at Mayo Clinic to have discounts”, shared Betty Smith, Employee Purchase Program Coordinator. In 2015, Mayo Clinic made the decision to partner with PerkSpot. Since then, on average 11,500 employees have saved on a monthly basis. With a direct link from their employee intranet, the mobile app, and email communications, saving is easy.

Decreased Turnover Rates

The healthcare industry has seen staggering turnover rates with 19.5% in 2021, a 1.7% increase from the previous year. HR Professionals are being challenged to improve employee morale and decrease employees leaving. In addition, rising inflation and wage pressures are only adding to the challenge. “By having PerkSpot, it gives us a competitive advantage over our competitors that don’t offer comparable discounts to their employees.”

Supporting Local

One feature Mayo clinic has utilized is PerkSpot’s “Suggest a Business” tab to recommend local vendors. “The suggest a business functionality is great for adding additional discount opportunities for our staff. The more the merrier.” One example Mayo Clinic suggested was a local nail salon in Rochester. Following the suggestion, our team secured an exclusive offer for employees to start utilizing in their discount portal.

In addition to local discounts, employees are saving on hotels, groceries, events, and more. In 2022, Mayo Clinic’s most popular savings have included travel discounts along with savings on Apple products.

With the current environment and challenges over the past year, PerkSpot can be the solution you need to reduce turnover and set yourself apart.

Financial Wellness A Top Priority For Younger Generations

Courtney Shipshock April 15, 2022

Free coffee, paid lunch, ping pong tables, and office snacks are no longer going to cut it.

Financial wellness is at the top of the list of benefits younger generations are searching for. According to SHRM, “Many workers over the last decade have been frustrated by stagnant wage growth. Younger workers may be particularly focused on compensation as they pay off college loans and try to establish their savings so they can purchase homes and start families.”

Below are a few different ways you can support your employees’ financial wellness while improving overall retention and morale.

Provide Retirement Planning & Contributions

Although a traditional benefit offering for most, retirement contributions will always be an important financial benefit for employees. Employers that offer a retirement contribution or matching plan tend to have improved employee morale and loyalty. It’s also a great way to attract top-notch talent and interest in your company. In addition, a company sponsored retirement plan can help employees with little knowledge on the topic save for their future. To take it even further, offer your employees automatic payroll deductions for even easier saving.

Offer A Financial Stipend

To further assist employees with their finances, employee sponsored stipends tend to go a long way with younger generations. Onset by the pandemic, employers have begun providing reimbursements for things related to work from home environments. Examples of essentials include office equipment, high speed internet, and other role specific tools to improve productivity. Other opportunities for financial stipends are commuting, parking assistance, and professional development, among many others. Financial stipends are a great way to show employees the value their role brings to the company and reduce employee turnover.

Grant Access to An Employee Discount Program

Daily life expenses can add up, especially with the current challenge of rising inflation. A simple way to offer your employees an impactful benefit is to offer a discount program. What is a discount program? An employee discount program is a marketplace of exclusive discounts, negotiated by a team of experts, from top brands and local businesses. PerkSpot is the industry leader in negotiating, managing, and supporting member discounts programs. We’ve built our platform to help your members save when and where it matters to them by showing the most relevant and meaningful offers. From local deals to nationwide brands, there’s something for everyone.

Younger generations may be eager for financial wellness benefits, but all generations would appreciate the added monetary assistance. There are plenty of opportunities available to lend a helping hand financially, and it will only have a positive impact with your employees.

Ready to start providing financial wellness help to your employees? Get started today with a demo.

Dealing with Burnout as an HR Professional

Max Goldenberg April 7, 2022

In today’s competitive candidate market, life as an HR professional has never been quite so exhausting. Being forced to chase after candidates in the age of work from home and tremendous employee freedom has meant a difficult balancing act between providing appealing, top-quality benefits, managing cost efficiency, and negotiating employee concerns – all while dealing with the fallout of a global pandemic. It’s no wonder that burnout is skyrocketing at HR departments all over the country – but there is a better way. And with World Health Day officially starting today on April 7th, there’s never been a better time to help your department get physically and mentally healthy!

42% of Human Resources teams report feeling overburdened with projects and responsibilities. And on one hand, this is something that should be taken up with management; when HR teams are simply too small or too overworked, there needs to be discussion about expanding Human Resources or offloading responsibilities. But a second, equally important aspect of this equation is learning to deal with burnout individually. And for that, we should first understand what “burnout” really means.

When we talk about burnout, we’re talking about the feelings of dread and exhaustion that rise up when we’re forced to do demanding, repetitive work. It’s the sense of doing tasks purely out of obligation, no longer believing they have any real impact. And the first step in re-gaining your passion is to re-gain control over your schedule.

Set Boundaries

The first step of assessing burnout is setting boundaries. It’s important both personally and professionally to be able to step away from work communications; for instance, turning off Slack and email past six-o-clock. Sticking to a routine that clearly separates work from life is fundamental to having a good work-life balance. Even if you’re on-call for emergencies, emergency should never mean every night, and if they are, then that’s a conversation you need to have with management.

Build Strong Communication Habits

Fostering good communication with management and the executive team at your workplace is another important aspect of managing burnout. That’s because burnout isn’t all about stress, but also lacking a sense of agency and value in what you do. When you feel you’re doing “meaningless” work, or don’t have control over your own schedule, burnout is far more intense. Prioritizing valuable work and setting firm boundaries on your own schedule is often a necessary step in managing burnout.

Break your Routines

More than boundaries, you’ll also want to start breaking your routines. While routines can provide a comforting sense of normalcy in our lives, they can also become trapping. If you notice you’re performing the same tasks in the same way over and over again, then it’s time to find something new. Maybe it’s as simple as switching up your morning routine, maybe it’s taking a new route around town, or maybe it’s shifting into a new aspect of your department’s operations.

Discover Personal Stress Management Solutions

Finally, there’s the most traditional (but still very important!) part of dealing with burnout – personal stress management. Exercise and meditation are the two most common methods, but it’s important to find what works for you; whether it’s walking your dog, paddling down canoe trails, or simply taking five dedicated minutes to focus. By understanding your stress and mentally moving on, you can take control back from your emotions.

Properly managing burnout requires breaking negative feedback loops, getting excited about work, and learning to manage stress. While that’ll require a lot of personal initiative, there are some tools that can help manage burnout stress.

One area you can cut down on stressful micromanagement is with PerkSpot’s single stop benefits platform, which offers countless diverse benefits for your diverse employees. With a suite of discounts at their fingertips, PerkSpot provides employees with the resources they need to cope with stress and burnout – whether it’s deals on ergonomic office chairs and gym memberships or complete getaway vacations to exotic destinations at a discount, schedule a demo today to learn more about the ways that PerkSpot can be a powerful burnout-burning resource for your organization this World Health Day.

Using Clear and Open Communication to Build Better Business

Max Goldenberg March 31, 2022

Thought leaders, motivational speakers and executive strategists alike continue to stress the crucial importance of quality communication for business success, regardless of industry. But at first glance, it looks like they’re just advocating for the obvious; after all, who really needs a guide on how to communicate? If there’s anything that comes natural to us, it’s the ability to communicate what we’re thinking and feeling to other humans, right?

Well, yeah. But when we put communications in the context of massive operations spanning dozens or even hundreds of corporate employees, things can get a lot more complicated, very fast.

The most important thing to remember about quality office communication is that more meetings does not equal better communication. In fact, the opposite is true; the more concisely you are able to express your ideas to the rest of the team, the more clear the final message will be. Don’t just set up dozens of meetings with every employee or invite everyone to technical meets where most won’t have anything to contribute; instead, seek to partition employees into areas where their specific strengths and experience can be leveraged, and only bring them into the loop when their insights will provide some momentum to the larger conversation. To avoid falling into the trap of scheduling meeting after meeting to communicate your intents, remember the three E’s of employee communications; Explain your motivations, manage your Expectations, and lead by Example.

The Three E’s

Explaining your motivations seems obvious, but it’s easy to forget in the heat of meetings! Even though a plan might be perfectly clear in your mind, employees can’t figure out what you’re thinking unless you tell them. If you have a specific vision in mind for an element, it’s essential that you clearly explain that vision right off the bat; don’t just tell your employees that you need a flier, explain how you envision it being used and what audience you want it to hit. Remember that just because you see things a certain way doesn’t mean that everyone else will have the same assumptions!

Managing expectations is the second key step of fostering quality communication. Although it’d be nice to be able to perfectly communicate exactly what you need on the first pass, every time, it rarely works out like that in reality. If you’re returned something that doesn’t match up with your expectations, it’s important to not get frustrated. Instead, try to identify what exactly it was that the other party misunderstood; often, small differences in envisioned use can create significantly different final results. By pinpointing the miscommunication, you identify the root cause of the issue rather than trying to provide touch-ups to the minute details.

Finally, you should strive to lead by example. Making visual aids or other active resources can help enormously in presenting a unified vision on a project, or offering employees a skeleton framework for ideation will keep them tethered to the core concepts you outline. By actively involving yourself in the process in these ways, you can reduce miscommunication enormously and course-correct through showing – rather than telling at a barrage of circular meetings.

Building Effective Communication Structures

Clear and precise communication is also part of what makes PerkSpot such a breeze to use. As a one-stop discount platform, PerkSpot communicates on your behalf to your employees, making them aware of and engaged with their benefits. To learn more about how PerkSpot’s discount program can help boost morale and benefit employees, request a demo and find out!

Hopefully with these tips in mind, you can help make your workspace a less confusing and more productive environment. As long as you remember that honest, open communication is key to any successful business, you’re sure to see the results.

Provide All Things Travel Affordably in One Place

Courtney Shipshock March 11, 2022

For many of us, travel is a part of our everyday life. Whether it be a planned vacation, a business trip, or a journey to see family, traveling isn’t going anywhere. The dreadful part of traveling? The expenses. With employees showing an increased interest in alternative benefits, offer an option that goes the extra mile, providing all things travel affordably in one place.

Why Travel Is Import For Employees

Boosts Productivity

Time spent away from an employee’s normal working environment boosts productivity and morale, equips employees with management skills, benefits the job market, and is good for overall health.

Company Loyalty Improves

Retention is an ongoing concern amongst businesses. Travel allows employees to take the needed time to rest, visit their loved ones, and return less stressed. Studies have shown that when employees return from holidays, they are happier for weeks afterward. Maintaining a happy workforce will help maintain employees long term.

Improves Health

Traveling has been shown to improve health, both mentally and physically. According to Forbes, taking vacations can lower men’s risk of death by 21 percent and mortality from cardiovascular disease by 32 percent. Not only that, but travel has been linked to stress reduction and can alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Offer Employees Savings On The Necessities

We’ve covered why travel is important, but what’s next? As we know, a lot can go into planning a successful journey. Packing luggage, buying airfare, confirming reservations, and securing rental vehicles are just a few of the necessary boxes that need to be checked prior to departure. With a discount program, you can offer your employees savings on all of the necessities in one, easily accessible portal.

Meet PerkSpot’s Travel Discount Center

One of the unique benefits that is part of partnering with PerkSpot is access to the Travel Discount Center. Within the portal, employees can search destinations and access exclusive savings on hotels, flights, rental cars, and cruises worldwide. In addition to transportation and lodging, PerkSpot provides your employees with steep savings on luggage, entertainment, restaurants and more.

Traveling has a variety of benefits but comes with a cost. Help your employees affordably travel with ease with an employee discount program. Interested in learning more about the value these programs provide? Check out our e-book and get in touch with us!

The Importance of Employee Appreciation Day

Max Goldenberg March 4, 2022

Employee Appreciation Day is finally here, and we’re excited to share some advice on making the day special for your employees!

Make no mistake – Employee morale is crucial to the success of your business, regardless of industry. That’s why Employee Appreciation Day is so important, serving as a yearly reminder to treat employees with respect for their hard work and build up the people that make your business special. But if you missed it this year, don’t fret! Employee appreciation is a year-long commitment, not a single-day celebration; it’s never too late to show your employees how much they matter to you. But how important is showing appreciation to employees, when you get right down to the numbers?

Incredibly. Employees who feel appreciated within their organization consistently work harder and more efficiently, both reporting and recording higher returns that scale proportionally to their sense of value in the office. According to the American Psychological Association, feelings of value directly translate into higher productivity, regardless of associated industry. A sense of being valued within the business also has a positive impact on employee wellbeing more broadly, with those who feel valued reporting higher levels of work-life balance and employment satisfaction, even with all other relevant factors kept static.

How does Employee Appreciation affect turnover?

There’s good evidence that employee appreciation is the most important, or at least one of the most important factors in employee retention. A study from the Harvard School of Business found equity, recognition of achievement, and a sense of camaraderie as the three key elements of ensuring high employee motivation, all of which are strongly tied to a sense of employees feeling valued and appreciated. These factors directly correlate to rate of retention.

Considering positive workplace culture increases both productivity and employee retention, it’s easy to see how cultivating a feeling of appreciation amongst employees can lead to direct, significant benefits for your business. Most importantly of all, however, is that employee appreciation cultivates a generally positive work environment, which, in turn, creates a positive feedback loop that encourages good work culture. When employees feel comfortable and safe with their co-workers and managers, every measurable aspect of their work (and indeed often their lives outside of work) significantly improves. While an honest and positive environment also serves as a safeguard against negativity and factionalization that can turn workspaces hostile and severely impact employee morale, job satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

Using Employee Appreciation Day to build a Healthy Work Culture

With all this in mind, making employee appreciation day a part of your workplace schedule can be a great way to show your employees that you care. But ultimately, it’s the little things adding up that build a conducive and healthy atmosphere – even down to simple little matters like remembering to say thanks after an employee turns in something they’ve worked hard on. Small trinkets and signs of appreciation can go an incredibly long way. It’s rarely the dollar value that matters, but instead the fact that you’re putting in thought to show you care.

PerkSpot can help make recognizing your employees easy, giving you a wide selection of customized gifts to make your employee’s days a little brighter – but from gift-giving to a simple heartfelt thank-you, there’s any number of ways to show you care about your employees. How you choose to foster a positive work environment is up to you, but both your employees and your bottom line will thank you for doing so!

How to Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day Virtually

Courtney Shipshock February 25, 2022

Employees should be celebrated on a daily basis but why not celebrate them a little extra this Employee Appreciation Day? It can be daunting to put together a plan with a remote or hybrid work environment. Luckily, there are options available to make your teammates feel valued and appreciated. We’ve laid out simple, effective ways to make this year’s celebration, on March 4th a success!

Send a Personalized Thank you Card

What better way to let employees know you appreciate them, than directly telling them? There are tons of options, physical or digital, to show your gratitude and put a smile on your employee’s face. It may seem old school, but greeting cards are still a thing in the digital age, thanks to millennials. If you’re looking for ideas, Canva has a variety of templates to get you started.

Provide Lunch to Their Favorite Spot

With teammates scattered, make lunch plans simple with a meal delivery credit. Employees can select their favorites and schedule the delivery time. Coordinate it so everyone can to get together (virtually) and chat! Not to mention, PerkSpot offers discounts on a variety of food delivery services to save you time and money.

Attend a Virtual Class Together

With busy schedules, it can be difficult to find time as a team to strengthen your skills. Providing opportunities to grow is an important part of a successful company. Dedicate this Employee Appreciation Day to your team’s expertise! It doesn’t have to be work-related either, Udemy Online Academy offers plenty of course options to enjoy with your team.

Deliver Some Company Swag

When employees feel a sense of purpose at their job, as a result, they tend to be more engaged in their work. Show your appreciation with company-branded apparel, water bottles, or even a gift card to your company store. Improve employee experience by making your employees feel seen, valued, and appreciated. It’s an easy way to retain great employees and attract top talent.

In short, go the extra mile this Employee Appreciation Day and recognize the hard work of your teammates. No matter the environment, there are opportunities available to make your employees feel extra special. If you’re interested in taking your efforts further, fill out a form and see how PerkSpot can benefit your company.

4 Ways to Help Employees Stay Grounded This Winter

Courtney Shipshock February 14, 2022

The winter months often are accompanied by decreased motivation, a lull in energy, and a lot less sunshine. During this season, it’s crucial to keep employees’ wellness at the forefront and provide opportunities to increase morale. Below are easy to implement, meaningful opportunities to help your employees stay grounded this winter.

Encourage Incorporating Movement Into Every Day

Staying active in the cooler months can be a daunting task. Luckily, there are plenty of options available to promote adding movement into your employees’ daily routine. For example, movement can be as simple as taking breaks from your desk or as complex as structuring a cycling class into each day. According to LiveStrong, one way that exercise can help boost productivity at work is through alertness. When you exercise, you are also increasing blood flow to the brain, which can help sharpen your awareness and make you more ready to tackle your next big project. With PerkSpot, employees have access to exclusive perks geared toward a variety of fitness activities that can assist in achieving movement.

Support Employees Taking Advantage of Time Off

What better time to plan ahead than during the winter season! Encourage your employees to leverage their time off benefits and spend time away from their daily work routine. Time off can range from a day here and there to a week-long vacation. Either way, time away will play a positive role in helping employees avoid burnout. In addition, having something to look forward to oftentimes will also boost your employees’ morale and keep motivation steady.

Prioritize Downtime

It can be easy to get caught up in the hustle of everyday life. Downtime during the workday provides employees the necessary time to reflect and come back to tasks with an open mind. Prioritizing employees’ downtime can include things like implementing meeting-free hours, encouraging lunch breaks, or promoting adding pauses directly to their calendar. Psychology Today found that taking breaks refreshes the mind, replenishes your mental resources, and helps you become more creative. Taking the necessary downtime to refresh and regroup is a critical factor for staying grounded this winter.

Inspire Employees to Invest In a New Hobby

With less activities taking place during the winter months, it’s still a good time for investing in a new hobby. Some examples of ways to inspire hobbies virtually or in-person in the workplace include: hosting a monthly book club, gathering for a routine meditation class, bringing teammates together for a cooking competition, amongst many others. A discount program through PerkSpot makes finding new hobbies to enjoy together simple, with categorized savings from Home & Garden to Outdoors & Recreation.

This winter, grasp the opportunity to improve your employees’ overall wellness. Not only will staying grounded improve overall health, it will lead to an increase in determination, improved wellbeing, and a happier team.

Check out more of the perks that PerkSpot has available for your employees. Let’s work together to beat the winter blues!

Building a Better Workplace: Employee Appreciation

Courtney Shipshock September 30, 2021

Let’s imagine your business is a car. It’s not just any car, though. It’s a best-in-class model with all the bells and whistles to really make it soar. But what happens when you don’t have any fuel? This fancy automobile may look great and sound great, but it’s not going anywhere. Here’s where employee appreciation comes in.

What is Employee Appreciation?

Think of employee appreciation as the fuel that drives your business. You can have a car built with all the best parts, but without fuel, it won’t move. We need to continuously keep our employees full by “refilling their tank” with appreciation and recognition for their achievements. Eighty percent of employees say they are motivated to work harder and stay at their jobs longer when they receive recognition for their work. That’s why making employees feel valued and appreciated is one of the best things we can do to build a better workplace.

How Can You Utilize Employee Appreciation?

So, your business is the car. If you’ve successfully recruited, onboarded, and trained the best talent for your organization, then you’ve definitely got all of the best parts. But as we mentioned before, without fuel, you’re not going anywhere.

Make It Regular

Refueling a car once will only get it so far. Eventually, that fuel runs out and the tank is empty. Recognizing employees is similar. While being recognized once is great, for employee appreciation to be truly effective, it needs to come regularly. At PerkSpot, we strive to recognize employees at least once every two weeks, and more if we feel it’s deserved!

Make It Valuable

If you’re driving a car all day, every day, it’s eventually going to need a break. The same goes for your employees! We all need a break every now and then, and a great way to utilize recognition is to give out those breaks. Offer a collective day of rest for your employees or recognize someone’s hard work with an additional day of PTO, allowing them to refuel and reenergize themselves.

Make It Useful

We may love adding new trinkets and fun embellishments to our cars, but the fact of the matter is, they won’t help the car run any faster or more efficiently. Similarly, employees want recognition in the form of something that feels useful. Skip the desk tchotchkes and find something that shows both your appreciation and a better understanding of your employees’ needs.

Build a better workplace with employee appreciation that matters and you’ll have the best car out there.

The Importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Your Workplace

Courtney Shipshock September 24, 2021

The last year and a half have brought to light what many of us already knew: we need to be making a more concerted, concentrated, and permanent effort to incorporate not just diversity, but also inclusion and equity, into our workplace. Furthermore, this needs to be implemented across every stage and area within your organization. Recruitment, hiring, and professional development are all great examples of instances in which your company would benefit from DE&I.

Remember, these three concepts, while typically grouped under one umbrella, still differ significantly.

Diversity

A diverse workplace is one that has a wide variety of ages, races, genders, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and more. Diversity is typically the first step a workplace takes. However, it must be accompanied by both inclusivity and equitability to have a meaningful and lasting impact.

Inclusivity

An inclusive workplace takes this one step further by ensuring that the organization’s diverse workforce is regularly brought into the conversation. This means that decisions and strategies are developed with input from those with different backgrounds, perspectives, and opinions.

Equitability

Finally, an equitable workplace is one that fully understands that not everyone is placed on a level playing field and works to offer support and the necessary tools to give equal opportunities to those without access to them.

How to Implement DE&I in Your Workplace

To develop a workplace and culture that understands and incorporates DE&I, review your current workforce and its demographics so you can find and fill gaps, which is the first step in creating a more well-rounded workforce. Educate your employees on the meaning of each term and what they mean personally and broadly for your organization. Actively welcome the input of every team member. Search for ways to lift up and support those in need to create a more equitable workplace. Be transparent and open about your current workplace’s state regarding DEI. Create a thought out and actionable that can be implemented, complete with measurable goals, to ensure that you hold yourself and your organization accountable when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion in your workplace.