Employee perks 'are needed for happy workforce'

Date: 08/05/2009

A range of reward and recognition options should be made available to a workforce to make them happy, particularly those which come from outside of the box thinking, it has been stated.

In an interview with the Edmonton Journal, Cheryll Watson, the manager of culture and communications at Intuit, stated that her company has 75 per cent of its employees caring for dependents - something which is targeted by a scheme which, in turn, motivates employees.

She explained: "Once a year, employees can go in and say, 'Can you send a recognition award to my mother-in-law, who takes care of my kids after school?'

"It's an interesting programme because it's recognition but not for the employees."

Ms Watson added that as a result, many employees are still rewarded, with the recognition for their friends and relatives coming in the form of gift cards.

Intuit also runs a Day of Caring each year, where operations at all of its worldwide branches are shut down in order to allow people to give back to the community and gain personal fulfilment.

Sadly for many employees around the country, a lot of reward and recognition schemes in the UK are being dropped due to cost-cutting initiatives which could turn out to be counter-productive, with figures announced by the Employee Benefits Research 2009 study.

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