Using Recognition to Lower Attrition in Retail

WOW! used to give out prepaid Visa cards that would periodically get reloaded with cash. But after the survey, they learned that this method felt too impersonal to employees.

So WOW! built a more robust rewards and recognition program that gave employees more choice through Awardco’s partnership with Amazon. Employees are now able to save for things they want, such as game consoles and vacations, and buy things they need, such as toiletries and clothing. 

And it isn’t just rewards that are more personalized—WOW! created a peer recognition program, a recognition social feed, and a program tied to their company core values, ensuring everyone has multiple ways of being seen, feeling valued, and earning rewards!

With a strengthened culture of frequent recognition, along with personalized rewards, WOW! has seen employee engagement and satisfaction improve across the board.

In a retail, sales-driven environment, compensation is vital to employee engagement and retention. To best align with their pay for performance model, WOW! wanted to empower employee productivity and success with rewarding incentives.

To that end, they restructured their compensation model and incorporated performance-based incentives through Awardco. That way, instead of jumping through budgetary hoops to offer a blanket raise, they used their recognition budget to give employees more opportunities to excel and earn more.

The combination of enhanced earning opportunities and near-unlimited reward options has had a huge impact on employee performance:

• Attrition has decreased over 30% to an all-time low
• Productivity increased over 50% year-over-year
• Employee motivation is skyrocketing

Because WOW! mobile boutique™ knew where they could improve, created strategies to target those pain points, and used Awardco to empower their culture, they’ve seen some astounding returns.