How To Choose the Best Employee Rewards Platform for Your Business

Employee engagement is the glue that keeps your business operations and competitive edge together. But in a dynamic business world, the quandary of maintaining loyal employees and attracting top talent takes center stage.

According to one study, a whopping 85% of U.S.-based professionals plan to look for a new job in the coming year. Burnout, the threat of AI replacement, and a lack of advancement and learning opportunities are at the crux of the issue. So, how can companies improve retention and the employee experience?

The answer may lie within employee rewards and recognition.

By rewarding employees for their outstanding performance through prizes, social recognition, and hard work, you can build a workplace culture that entices employees to stay, boosts morale, and improves productivity and workflow.

Use this guide to learn how to choose the best employee rewards platform, build your rewards system, and create a positive company culture based on merit and achievement.

How To Choose the Best Employee Rewards Platform

Like many other operational and human resource information and management systems, you’re spoiled for choice with rewards platforms. However, putting a premium on a platform with functionality and user-friendly layouts can make a drastic difference. By choosing the best platform for your company, you can streamline the process while fostering a culture of recognition and making informed decisions on the recognition process.

In-House vs. Third-Party Platforms

Learning how to choose the best employee rewards platform depends on many factors, but to avoid a convoluted, time-consuming process, we highly recommend a third-party employee recognition software.

Building an in-house platform is problematic at best, especially without the right employees to create, maintain, and perfect the system. With even a small budget, third-party platforms offer robust options that can work harmoniously with current HRIS — giving you access to employee data, payroll, attendance, and other employee recognition metrics.

Personalized Employee Rewards

If you want to learn how to choose the best employee rewards platform, look no further than personalized rewards. A culture of appreciation revolves around the person — not as a worker — but as a recognized individual.

Though they have their place on certain occasions, the days of swag, generic gifting, or monetary rewards are far removed. Today’s effective employee recognition platforms center around a multitude of acknowledgment and reward options.

To some degree, how you showcase your team members’ achievements is every bit as important as the method of recognition. Social kudos, such as online shoutouts, earning badges, and gamification, make employee rewards feel far more personalized. Make sure your employee rewards platform improves your recognition efforts.

The Engagement Factor

As employee engagement is the focus of how to choose the best employee rewards platform, you need something that embraces engagement. In short, that’s simply making it fun. Friendly competition plays into this, but

Many coworkers love friendly competition. Trying to one-up your fellow workers can boost employee morale and productivity while providing a gamified rewards platform. With a rewards platform that embraces real-time recognition, leaderboards, and notifications, your employees can challenge each other to the next milestone or achievement level — bringing a fun yet competitive work environment with it.

Multi-Use

Employee recognition tools can have a single use, but they're much better if you can intertwine them with other milestones/events. If you can use a single platform to reward employees for birthdays, celebrate work anniversaries, acknowledge onboarding new employees, and streamline it with communication tools and social feeds like Slack or Microsoft Teams, more power to you.

The Best Employee Rewards Platforms

Conducting an employee rewards and incentives program in-house is a viable option for smaller organizations, but scalability is an issue. To scale at cost, third-party platforms provide customization and ease of use without major budgetary issues. Let’s take a look at some of the best employee rewards platforms for your needs.

1. Hoppier

With the ability to send e-gift cards to recipients in 60 countries, select vendors, customize each card, and do it all with attractive pricing, Hoppier is the best employee rewards platform available today. The intuitive website and interface offer an easy way to scale your employee recognition program rewards without needing individual gift card purchases or cutting through red tape. Here’s how it works.

Create an Employee Rewards Program

Set up a specific employee gifting program so you can send out virtual cards and stay on top of your budget. You can take your gifts one step further by adding your company logo and colors, effectively reinforcing your brand in real-time.

Set a Spending Limit

Like other types of gift cards, you can select the denomination, but Hoppier lets you choose whatever amount you want to streamline the process and maximize your budget. Whether your budget is $50 or $500 per employee, you can select that exact amount or anything in between — effectively giving you customizable rewards.

Next, set a start and end date to create a timeframe for when employees can spend their funds or leave the card without expiration. Hoppier refunds any money your employees don't use at expiration, eliminating waste.

Choose Your Vendors

Hoppier doesn't require you to select specific vendors for your gift card, but you can choose to do so. If you’re promoting a company-wide health initiative, selecting healthy food stores and wellness companies is an option. If you want your employees to buy from organizations that reflect your company’s core values, that’s also an option.

Send Invitations

Upload a CSV file with all your employee emails to scale your program as needed. Hoppier even has email templates you can send out to help employees and clients learn how to use their funds. With this feature, sending gift cards with a straightforward user experience is quick and easy.

2. WorkTango

WorkTango is a platform that combines employee rewards and recognition systems with employee feedback and pulse surveys. The key to this platform is that it automates many aspects of recognition and feedback, giving you more time for other workday tasks.

HR leaders within your company will love its integration with HRIS, which allows them to input employee data for automated celebrations of work anniversaries or milestones. The employee survey function also allows you to gauge employee engagement and gather insights to drive meaningful change that aligns with your company values.

3. Bonusly

Combining recognition, rewards, performance, and insights into a single platform, Bonusly is an all-encompassing solution for your platform needs. It uses a social media-type feed and a simple interface that motivates your teams and bolsters your peer recognition initiatives.

Bonusly prioritizes peer recognition to improve collaboration and cohesive culture through award nominations and shoutouts. It also has an intuitive points-based rewards system that shows employees' positions on a leaderboard, fostering competition and fun.

4. Awardco

If you’re still on the fence on how to choose the best employee rewards platform, Awardco offers a strong option. Awardco is an adaptable recognition network with an in-house rewards platform to celebrate service awards and incentivize employees to build a solid work culture.

Through the platform, you can send shoutouts with company value-related hashtags that allow other employees to reply, schedule and automate milestones like birthdays or work anniversaries, and customize incentive programs.

A standout feature of Awardco’s platform is an online memory book highlighting each individual's achievements over time. Finally, Awardco’s reward network offers a drag-and-drop interface to select the perfect gift for each worker.

5. Guusto

Guusto is one of the only employee rewards platforms that allows users to choose industry-specific metrics and interfaces for their company. Instead of a single platform, users can change the interface to suit companies in the healthcare, retail, manufacturing, financial services, and hospitality industries.

Another selling point of Guusto is that it uses an expansive rewards system. Employees can earn rewards points and redeem them for swag, or they can stack rewards to get something more substantial. Managers also have the ability to select rewards based on the achievement or occasion or make charitable donations in employees’ names.

6. Nectar

Over 1,400 companies worldwide use Nectar for their employee rewards platforms, and with good reason. This HR rewards platform combines internal communication — perfect for peer-to-peer recognition or spot awards — with recognition and rewards initiatives. Another interesting feature is its nomination program, which celebrates standout achievements from individuals, regardless of whether they’re appreciated by managers, peers, or direct reports.

Nectar also pushes engagement with its communication tools and insights, ensuring that your return on investment for wellness, engagement, and other programs remains at a high level.

Use Hoppier for Robust Employee Rewards Solutions

There’s no single way of how to choose the best employee rewards platform for your onsite or remote teams. As long as you boost morale, improve employee retention, demonstrate employee appreciation, and celebrate service awards, you’re on the right track.

Regardless of which employee rewards platform you select, let Hoppier help you create a robust employee rewards solution. From perks to stipends to other rewards, Hoppier’s gifting platform provides everything you need for a fast, easy, and effortless rewards and recognition program.