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ELEVATE CORPORATE TRAINING WITH EMPLOYEE TRAINING INCENTIVES

Elevate Corporate Training With Employee Training Incentives

Are your workers properly engaged with your training programs?

The chances are the answer is no because most employees aren't engaged with their work at all. Today, the number is at an all-time low, with just 30% of all workers engaged in the workplace.

It's time to upgrade how you deal with your team to get the most out of them. Provide the training rewards they really want with iRewardify. With an array of training rewards like gift cards, merchandise, and curated travel experiences, it's time to offer fast, fun, and flexible incentives to turn training into results, not just another box-checking exercise.

Request a Demo of how our corporate training rewards programs work to learn more now.

Elevate Corporate Training

The Business Case for Training Incentives

In today's competitive business landscape, effective training programs are crucial for success. However, with only 30% of employees engaged in their work, traditional training methods often fall short. This lack of engagement costs organizations significantly, with disengaged employees contributing to a staggering $1.9 trillion in lost productivity annually.

When training is properly incentivized, the story changes dramatically. Training incentives help foster a deeper emotional investment in learning, leading to higher levels of engagement, knowledge retention, and overall performance. Employees who are motivated by meaningful rewards are not just completing training—they are actively applying their new skills to drive your company's success.

Unlocking the Potential: Why Employee Engagement in Training Matters

Businesses know that training delivers value beyond pure upskilling. It's a mechanism for retaining your top talent, with 76% of employees saying they're likelier to stay with a company offering continuous training.

But are you thinking about whether that value is providing your employees with what they want?

Boring, dull, and tedious training programs destroy employee engagement. This is why, despite U.S. companies investing $200 billion in corporate training programs annually, studies show that only 10% of training leads to tangible results. Training that properly engages is one of the best employee motivation strategies available and delivers immeasurable value for your firm.

Deliver a strong training package to boost engagement and reap the rewards of:

More Effective Employees

Upskilling expands employee capabilities, making them more valuable to your firm. It also reduces the need to look elsewhere for highly skilled roles because you already have the manpower in your office.

Increased Morale

Move away from the bare minimum and trends like "quiet quitting" with a team that actually wants to be there. When employees see rewards and recognition, morale improves. And 81% of executives agreed that better engagement led to happier customers.

Higher Retention

Stop your leading lights from moving on. Make your firm the place they want to be. Develop your internal learning culture and enjoy a 30-50% increase in retention rates.

Fail to do so, and you risk poor knowledge retention, lower productivity, and higher turnover rates as employees choose to move on. Not engaged or actively disengaged employees have real costs, with a loss of $1.9 trillion in productivity annually.

Employee motivation strategies begin and end with breeding training programs that engage everyone from the first minute until the last.

Crafting Your Winning Strategy: Designing a Powerful Training Incentive Program

Effective training isn't a chore – or it shouldn't be – but an opportunity to become a better version of yourself.

Low engagement doesn't indicate that employees are uninterested in learning because 74% of workers want to learn at work. The issue is that most training programs are dull and irrelevant. That's why just 12% of employees actually use the skills they acquire.

So, is it a surprise that corporate training programs have become an exercise in trying to drag a horse to water and make it drink?

Transform perceptions of your corporate training through the power of high-impact incentive programs that make learning a joy. But it all starts with thoughtful design.

1. Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

Every training incentive program begins by drawing a line in the sand, denoting success and failure. You can't start driving the car if you don't know where you're going.

Adopt the SMART framework to plant the seeds of your training incentive program:

  • Specific: Define what you want to achieve. For example, do you want to improve completion rates? Do you want to encourage more employees to volunteer for training? Are you looking for employees to use more of the skills they learn in their day-to-day lives? Be specific.
  • Measurable: Determine the numbers you'll be following to decide whether your corporate education program works. Think participation rates, skill-ups, and time spent on training.
  • Achievable: Be realistic about what you can achieve. Great goals are designed to challenge without being impossible.
  • Relevant: Ensure your goals align with your business objectives. Remember, incentive programs must fit into the broader ecosystem of employee development.
  • Time-Bound: Establish a clear timeline for reaching your chosen milestones. Again, the timeline should create a sense of urgency without being impossible.

2. Understanding Your Audience

Improvement is a two-way process. Don't assume, and don't patronize. Involve your employees in developing your incentive program via formal training program feedback. Getting them onboard achieves buy-in and ensures you give employees what they want.

Some ideas for soliciting feedback and understanding your employees as well as your customers include surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Different formats will give you a broader range of feedback you can use later.

3. Choosing the Right Rewards: The Power of Incentives

Realize the power of incentivization through rewards that your employees actually value. No employee training reward will stick if it's yet another corporate-branded pen or a t-shirt nobody will ever wear in public.

So, what are your options?

  • Financial incentives: Gift cards, bonuses, or straight-up cash.
  • Non-financial incentives: Extra time off, personalized awards, and public recognition.

Not everyone will value the same things. Be flexible in your offerings and allow your employees to personalize them. Give them the power of choice and control so you can be sure the reward will motivate them.

More diversity means broader appeal. Broader appeal means broader engagement.

Budgeting and ROI

No business can escape budgetary constraints. Everything has a cost, and your training rewards program must align with the financial realities your business faces.

Start by creating a budget for your overall training program and the costs your chosen rewards will incur. Don't forget the technology needed to manage the program and other administrative expenses.

Decide how you'll measure the ROI of your investment. Go back to your goals for more guidance on what you want to achieve and the economic cost-benefit of reaching those goals. Examples might include:

  • Better employee performance.
  • Productivity increases
  • Less turnover.

Conduct a complete analysis of the costs vs. benefits along the way. Set a firm date for conducting this analysis to measure whether your training rewards program is really paying off.

Building Your Reward Structure

How you design the rewards structure will define the value of it and your entire rewards program. Training incentives for employees can be earned in any number of ways, and no single model will work for every company.

iRewardify supports all major rewards structures, adapting effortlessly to your firm's needs.

1. Points

A points-based system allows employees to earn points every time they complete a training program. These points can then be converted for rewards from a central platform.

2. Tiers

Tiers reward loyalty and mastery. By offering multiple levels, you encourage long-term engagement by providing greater and greater rewards for those who dedicate themselves the most.

3. Team Incentives

Diversify your rewards program further by offering both individual and team incentives. Offering team training incentives for employees can bring people closer together, boosting collaboration and mutual long-term growth.

Of course, you're not bound by any of these models. Consider hybrid or custom models and adjust according to what works for your company's culture and what your employees have told you.

Effective Communication and Program Implementation

With everything designed and ready to go, it's time to plan out the launch. Seamless rollouts mean communicating with your team through every available channel, including meetings, newsletters, and collaboration platforms.

1. Answer All the Questions Upfront

Ensure your employees have clarity from the start. Address their most pressing questions to foster trust and engagement:

  • What's going on?
  • Why are we doing this?
  • How does the reward structure work?
  • How do training incentives benefit you?
  • How do you participate?

2. Plan for Larger Teams

Larger companies may want to consider special training sessions and workshops. However you do it, map it out clearly and provide ongoing support with special communication channels, apps, or even a dedicated HR representative.

3. Continuous Feedback Loop

Above all, the launch isn't the end of the process but the beginning. Continuously gather feedback to build a loop that tells you whether the program works and how to keep improving it.

Success Stories

Plug into iRewardify’s API for global gift card content. They have a unique global offering with best-in-class reporting that helps our internal teams see trends in gift card brands and purchase behaviors. “We have been in partnership with Rick and iRewardify since the inception of Bitrefill in 2017. His industry expertise and iRewardify’s evolving solutions have been instrumental in curating a diverse range of brands and offerings that deeply resonate with our user base.

Alan LantzBitrefill
SVP of Business Development

We utilized iRewardify to design an online order system for our on-site,
online and hybrid Experiential Gifting events for our Incentive and Recognition
customers. It has been a game changer.

J. BrennerSeiko-rynox
Seiko Watch of America LLC.

Don’t waste your time and money on unresponsive reward providers

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