Desperate Bosses Give Gifts

Date: February 29, 2008
Publication: www.news.com.au
Writer: Miles Wearring

WORKERS are being showered with gifts such as iPods, housekeepers and even toasters by their employers to stop them taking their skills elsewhere.

In recent months employee reward schemes have become popular with bosses desperate to retain and attract staff as employment levels near 100 per cent and candidates become increasingly hard to find.

Some of the unusual rewards being lavished upon workers are housekeepers, plane tickets, crystal wine glasses, football tickets, golf clubs, frozen turkeys and lifelong memberships to the Qantas Club, a recent survey by recruitment company Talent2 found.

But the most common rewards, according to the survey of 1723 workers, were laptops, bottles of wine and mobile phones.

The property and finance sectors were the most likely to give rewards, while least likely was the legal sector and government.
 
Offer rewards or else

John Banks, director of recruitment firm Talent2, said “most organisations”, big and small, were thinking about putting reward and incentive schemes into place if they didn't already have them.

“Everyone’s doing it. If you’re not, companies are going to find it difficult to compete,” Mr Banks said.

“The whole ‘employee value’ proposition is very top of mind and organisations are looking for innovative and different ways of recognising and rewarding people to provide that level of differentiation and make their organisation an employer of choice.”

Mr Banks said companies which couldn’t afford lavish gifts were doing things like giving staff the day off on their birthday or an extra week of annual leave.

“The day off on your birthday seems to be universally popular. It’s a nice thought, the employees value it highly and it doesn’t really cost anything,” he said.

“Doing something like paying for a plane ticket for an employee to visit a sick relative sends a good message to the whole office that you’re a caring and flexible employer.”

Make mine a widescreen TV

Employee reward company Accumulate - which said its clients include Optus, Connex, ANZ, ING and NAB - said their most popular rewards were Qantas frequent flyer points, David Jones gift vouchers, iPods, kitchen appliances and movie tickets.

Other rewards on offer include cufflinks, widescreen televisions, hair straightening tongs and vacuum cleaners.

Stephen Hoy, the company’s sales manager, said there had recently been a large spike in demand.

“When resources are stretched across organisations there’s a very strong need for recognition,” he said.

Many companies giving rewards did so when key performance indicators (KPIs) were reached. But some were rewarding staff for exhibiting company values, undertaking new training and so on.
Gift vouchers or salary top-ups were a great benefit for employees, Mr Hoy said, but employers don’t get much value from them because people soon forget them.

“If you give someone a tangible product such as a toaster or TV, people are constantly reminded about it and why they were given it.”