What actually improves employee engagement?

Here at Yellow Fish, we use insights and the science of experience to create stand out reward strategies for our clients. Here’s what you need to know about implementing a reward & recognition campaign in your business and improve employee engagement.

Why employee engagement matters?

For a long time, engagement was treated as a soft metric, something nice to have, but hard to tie back to results. The thinking is shifting. When employees feel recognised and genuinely connected to their work, the effects are measurable, not just in morale, but in how the business performs.

Organisations with recognition programmes see 14% higher performance and measurable gains in productivity.

It's a simple idea, but an easy one to overlook. Recognition builds connection, connection builds motivation and motivated employees perform better. The businesses getting this right aren't just running better cultures, they're seeing it reflected in their numbers too.

So what does building that connection actually look like in practice?

What impact does experience have on employee engagement?

Experience is a word we hear constantly when it comes to engagement and for good reason. It's become the currency of how we measure a good life, at work and outside of it. The everyday moments of escapism and enjoyment that make a real difference to how we feel.

That demand for experience extends beyond our personal lives. It's become a driving force in how we find meaning in our careers and achievements. It's therefore essential for employers to proactively adapt and improve reward and recognition strategies, to retain talent and engage employees.

Living in the experience economy is nothing new. A shift towards rewarding loyalty and hard work with experiences, rather than money and possessions, has been increasing for years. Futurist William Higham puts it well:

"People increasingly look for more 'meaning' in what they do, therefore possessions are proving less valuable than experiences, and the memories and learnings that we gain from them."

With more of a work force eager to receive experiences, building a R&R scheme is fundamental to building a culture of productivity and fundamentally happiness.

How to improve employee engagement

Check out key insights from our team of experts:

1.  Real world experience

From incentive sales campaigns to travel rewards and team kick-offs, one thing ties the best reward strategies together: connection.

Creative and experience guru Chef Heston Blumenthal places connection at the heart of his philosophy. He believes that as human beings, we have an innate need to connect with something. In dishes like his bacon and egg ice cream, he creates connection that triggers emotion and nostalgia.

The same principle applies to reward and recognition. Real-world, in-person experiences build that same emotional connection, reinforcing culture and creating a genuine bond between colleagues and the organisation.

So how do different in-person experiences build that connection?

• Sales kick-offs and conferences

These bring teams together and align everyone on one goal, backed by solid information on strategy, targets and priorities for the year ahead. The shared moment of hearing the plan together, in person, builds buy-in in a way an email never will.

• Incentive travel

Create bucket-list activities, invite partners, plan surprise-and-delight moments and build in time for people to mix with the management team. It's reward & recognition made unforgettable, all based on human connections.

• Awards evenings and recognition ceremonies

There’s nothing more impactful than receiving recognition. Award evenings provide that platform, publicly celebrating the hard work individuals and teams have put in. Alongside the social aspect, the chance to connect during these events provides a second layer of incentive.

2.  Personalisation

While employees crave a sense of community, there has also been more of a shift in focus towards self, coming to expect a more individual, well-rounded experience when shopping, socialising and working. Employees now expect employers to provide experiences that have a positive impact on their lives as rewards and recognition for reaching targets/goals.

Personalising reward and recognition programs don’t have to be complicated, sometimes it's the smaller touchpoints that create impact, here are a few ideas:

• Personalised comms and video talking directly to individuals
• Bespoke rewards which benefit not only top performers but their loved ones
• Little touches such as personal thank you letters and videos from senior management
• Room gifts during incentive travel which capture personal memorable moments from a trip
• Gather the data and insight directly from employees to understand what drives and motivate them as individuals.

Financial gain alone does not emotionally connect an individual to an organisation anymore, therefore giving your people a united voice to share which reward mechanics motivate them, from incentive trips alongside peers to products which benefit entire families will instil loyalty, togetherness and drive business goals.

3. Digital platforms

Sometimes motivating an entire workforce needs more than quarterly meetings. That's where digital rewards and recognition platforms come in, keeping employees engaged day to day. While real-world experiences create powerful, memorable moments, digital platforms sustain that momentum between them, giving people a reason to log on, take part and stay connected to company goals all year round.

Whether your goal is to improve sales, product knowledge or communication, a digital platform can be built around it, gathering useful data along the way to show what's driving engagement and where to focus next.

Here are our three top tips to create digital engagement:

1. Add gamification to up the level of competition and boost collective team productivity
2. Incorporate positive, emotive employee led content to motivate others and wider teams

At Yellow Fish, we worked with Currys to build their rewards and recognition platform, Be Amazing, bringing sales campaigns, training and supplier incentives into one hub. We engaged employees through gamification, competitions and quizzes, building knowledge and driving commercial performance.

To bring experience into the digital platform, we built an immersive 3D Christmas market world, Currysville, where prizes and knowledge went hand in hand throughout Currys' Peak trading period.

The results: 90% of retail colleagues signed up, almost 1 million logins, and 84% felt more confident selling, driven by human connection and the science of experience to deliver real business impact.

4.Purpose led campaigns

Employees are placing more pressure and expectation on organisations to do the right thing. Recent research from Wellhub found that 89% of employees will only consider companies that prioritise employee wellbeing. Authenticity and genuine care for employees, their wellbeing and the environment, needs to shine through in any reward and recognition strategy. It's something we hold ourselves to at Yellow Fish as a certified B Corp and it's why purpose sits at the heart of every project we build.

Here's how to build purpose into your own reward and recognition strategy:

• Give people a voice. Let employees share their stories, successes and the impact rewards have made to their lives.
• Focus on wellbeing and growth, not just performance.
• Make it visible. Ensure your values and ethos show up in every touchpoint, from comms to the reward itself.
• Think beyond the individual. Build in ways for employees to give back to their community as part of the programme.

Ready to improve employee engagement?

Contact us to find out more about how we can elevate your reward and recognition programme.