Incentives should be an integral part of every organization’s HR policy. Now is the time to ensure you have a plan in place to carry out your organizations incentive tactics for 2025.
Big or small, incentives are a reminder that individuals are valued by the organization and that achievements are applauded.
Incentives are vital to help drive employee engagement, loyalty and job performance. Showing gratitude to employees on a regular basis can provide a big return.
Early indications are that retaining employees may be slightly easier coming into 2025. The number of people who quit their jobs dropped to less than 3.1 million in November 2024, a level that has not been seen since the height of the pandemic. This “Great Stay” increased as the number of workers who quit their jobs declined in August to levels not seen since 2015.
Of course, compensation, benefits and career opportunities are the most significant elements of employee retention. But a well-thought-out incentives policy, backed by repeatable incentive tactics can help every organization meet its objectives.
Many employees report feeling disconnected from their organization’s mission and that their organization doesn’t care about them.
Gallup – 7 Workplace Challenges for 2025.
According to Gallup’s latest measure of employee engagement, “Feedback and Recognition” are two of the biggest blind spots that mangers have.
There were substantial differences in how managers and employees reported the frequency of management interaction. “For example, 50% of managers strongly agree they are giving feedback to their direct reports every week, while only 20% of individual contributors strongly agree their manager does so.”
Setting up an internal incentives program with an assortment of incentive tactics can help remind managers of the importance of employee feedback and make incentives rewarding and memorable.
Employee recognition is crucial to the success of every organization.
Motivating employees has evolved. A simple “good job” in an online meeting or limiting your recognition to annual performance reviews is no longer enough to keep employees engaged and inspired.
It’s time to take action and make a bold statement.
Pairing recognition with rewards and incentives is a proven way to drive motivation. Now is the perfect time to put in place incentive tactics and implement an employee engagement incentive strategy that will energize and inspire your team throughout the year.
Setting specific goals to provide rewards to employees, coupled to concrete plans and incentive tactics for each month of the year ensures that you keep motivating and rewarding employees.
Remote working and long holiday breaks magnify a feeling of isolation and lack of engagement among employees.
Add in the ease of quitting and that means you’ve got to work extra hard to inspire and motivate employees.
Organizations must actively inspire and retain their talent. A structured plan for rewards and recognition can foster a stronger connection to the organization.
Empower managers to nominate and include their people in incentive programs. Direct, positive feedback from a manager, when coupled with an incentive is more memorable than just praise alone.
Developing a structured incentive plan with specific incentive tactics is a practical way to maintain consistent recognition.
Divide the year into manageable periods – monthly, quarterly, etc. – and set aside some “surprise” periods.
Then it’s a simple matter of choosing a goal and an incentive reward. It’s always a good idea to plan a mix of goals that are measured by clear objective metrics (by-the-numbers) as well as those that are decided on by the subjective evaluation of management or employees (i.e. best team player or most improved).
Add in the celebration of fun events – like pizza breaks or donut days – that on-site and remote employees can participate in. These incentive tactics remind managers and HR to focus on employees.
There are dozens of reasons to recognize employees and show gratitude to them.
Some employees won’t win goal-based or performance incentives but it’s important to also reward them occasionally.
A good mix of incentives to offer employees may include:
Diversify the types of rewards you offer and think about including a mix of incentive tactics to appeal to different preferences and needs:
Include Everyone
Ensure that all employees have opportunities to participate in the program, regardless of their role or performance level:
The TruCentive incentive fulfillment and reward delivery platform delivers rewards and incentives in ways that delight your recipients.
“Recipients Choice” allows a high degree of flexibility in incentive selection by the recipient when flexible incentives are offered.
Recipients Choice lets you curate a group of cards and let your recipient choose which one works best for them.
12 ways organizations use incentives.
Advanced editing capabilities allow you to create stunning experiences, with the flexibility to send more than gift cards. You have full control over your incentive, message, and delivery.
Select from over 3,000+ gift card options, plus financial instruments and 85,000+ Local Card Options.
You can create programs with specific, fun themes: Coffee, Tech, Pizza, or delivery: Doordash, GrubHub & Uber Eats.
Mix merchant gift cards, funds delivery, and pre-paid cards to give recipients a unparalleled choice in incentives.
TruCentive cuts incentive waste by returning all unclaimed deliveries to your account.
A huge 20.5% of digital awards, gifts, and incentives went unclaimed in 2022.
Because TruCentive generates your participants’ selection “on-demand,” funds are automatically returned if they don’t act within your set timeframe.
Not all gift cards get claimed, and you are needlessly paying for unclaimed deliveries if you purchase gift cards directly or use a “Free” gift card or Visa card delivery service.
TruCentive charges a small delivery fee and returns 100% of unclaimed deliveries to your account.
Incentive automation provides a more professional and personalized gift experience for both recipients and administrators.
Incentive automation leverages technology to simplify the creation, management, and execution of incentive programs. By automating what has typically been a motley collection of manual and fragmented process, organizations can now offer a more professional, and cost-effective incentive experience.
Streamlining the incentive process addresses the inefficiencies and fragmentation common in traditional manual incentive processes, making incentive programs not only more successful but also significantly more cost-effective.
Showing gratitude to employees using incentive automation is the most straightforward and effective method to enhance team and individual performance.
Incentive automation makes recognition simple. Incentive automation makes setting up and managing your ongoing incentive tactics and ongoing recognition and appreciation process repeatable.
Consistency and memorability are important to building programs that are essential for fostering a positive work environment.
Our design sessions are the perfect way to show you how TruCentive can help you realize your rewards, gifts, or payout goals in a real-world scenario, building a complete project with everything from your logo, design options, and messaging to incentive selection, deliveries, and reminders.
When we’re done, you’ll:
If you’re ready to start designing on your own, sign up and start sending samples. There’s no credit card required to start exploring your creative side!
Use powerful features to quickly create professional-looking incentive deliveries
With a TruCentive subscription, you get technical support for all your team members so you can get back to your project fast
Eliminate the time and frustration managing the procurement, delivery, and management of your rewards and incentives deliveries
The merchants represented are not sponsors of the rewards or are otherwise affiliated with TruCentive. The logos and other identifying marks attached are trademarks of and owned by each represented company and/or its affiliates. Please visit each company’s website for additional terms and conditions. TruCentive© 2025
