Driving employee engagement: Perks and recognition strategies to support your employees

Support in the workplace comes in all different shapes, sizes and benefit packages. For many team and HR leaders, supporting employees often looks like providing and explaining health and wellness benefits or offering career development opportunities. Financial wellness is a critical part of that support. Many employees still live paycheck-to-paycheck. In our annual state of employee financial wellness report, 5000 employees told us they are consistently stressed about their finances.

Often, financial wellness support just orbits investment and retirement opportunities. Instead, HR teams should offer financial wellness benefits that address both short-term relief—such as earned wage access (EWA)—and long-term growth like 401ks. But financial support goes beyond EWA or long-term growth and retirement opportunities: perks and rewards and recognition are important for any workplace. 

Consider how different your employees actually are, and try providing financial wellness benefits tailored to their personality traits by way of the Money Mindset quiz. 

Money Mindsets are tailored saving and spending personality traits. For example, if your employee takes the quiz and discovers their spending personality is the Octopus, they are likely to be boisterous, fun and spend their money freely when they get it. An Octopus Money Mindset would enjoy different rewards and recognition and perks and desire public recognition than, say, an Ostrich Money Mindset who would prefer to be privately acknowledged.

Financial wellness support for your employees doesn’t have to be a one-size-fits-all approach.

Ahead, you’ll understand: 

• Each Money Mindset to help you understand your employees better
• Why perks at work matter
• The perks and rewards best suited for each Mindset  
  
  

What are the Money Mindsets?

Your employees are diverse, with varying needs, wants and goals. Money Mindsets was developed with this in mind as a shame-free, accessible tool for employees and employers to better understand spending and buying personas. 

By taking the Money Mindset quiz, your employees will be given a new perspective of their financial selves, with individualized and tailored resources to help them. 

Your workers are looking to take more control and have agency over their financial lives but they’re also turning to their employers for help. 

You can provide many financial benefits beyond EWA to your employees, and tailor them specifically to their Money Mindset. By understanding and providing the right financial wellness tools to your employees’ mindsets, you are helping them build on their current strengths and needs and getting them closer to their goals. 

Why do perks at work matter?  

Data tells us that perks, rewards, benefits and overall recognition at work matter greatly to workers. They boost productivity, according to Gallup, and individual employee engagement on the job. This can lead to more loyalty at work, reduced turnover and increased retention.

According to CNBC, 56% of employees are less likely to look for a new job if they are recognized regularly. These programs and offerings can substantially impact your business, too. For example, if retention is an issue, a recognition program may help your employees stay and that can help you reduce hiring costs. 

Perks and rewards for each Money Mindset

Get better insight into each mindset below and the corresponding ZayZoon perks and rewards and recognition best suited for each. 

Octopus 

The Octopus is the embodiment of enjoyment. They like to make purchases and live life to its fullest. Octopus mindsets are generally less driven by financial planning and goals. To close the gap in that area, it might be beneficial to select those types of perks and rewards. Still, an Octopus won’t say no to shopping.

Perks and rewards best suited for an Octopus include:

• Gift card: With dozens of name brands and major retailers, an Octopus would love to be recognized or rewarded for their hard work by spending a little bit of free money on themselves. Bonus? Employees can give themselves a gift card with 20% extra.
  
• Savvy: An Octopus is likely on the go. Give them peace mind with Savvy’s auto insurance savings.  
• Gas card: Give your Octopus mindset the gift of more with a gas card that has 5% back. 
  
  

Ostrich

An Ostrich likes routine. It’s the Get Ready With Me TikTok equivalent of a nourishing bedtime routine. Ostrich mindsets are slightly more anxious around their finances. For example, where an Octopus would splurge on a last-minute trip, an Ostrich wouldn’t because they couldn’t risk being put in a potentially bad financial spot.

Perks and rewards best suited for an Ostrich include:

• Column Tax: An Ostrich mindset gets their taxes done well before Taurus season rears its head. Column Tax would be so helpful to an Ostrich who wants a seamless tax filing experience. 
• Gas card: Money back on a gas card? Sign an Ostrich up! 
• Gift card: Rather than be recognized publicly, send your Ostrich employee a gift card from a retailer you know they’d like. (Hint: A grocery retailer would be amazing.)

 Beaver

The Beaver is meticulous when it comes to all things finance. From budgeting to long-term financial planning to risk assessment, the Beaver has everything covered. The Beaver wants to know they have the resources available if an emergency happens—but it plans to avoid one altogether.

Perks and rewards best suited for a Beaver include:

• Clever RX: If your Beaver employee has any prescriptions they need to pay for, they’d really appreciate Clever. With Clever, a Beaver employee can get discounts on their prescriptions at no additional cost.
• Boom: Credit scores have traditionally not included consistent rent payments. Many people are missing out on a sharp increase in their scores if they’ve never missed a rent payment. Boom can help employees get their rent payments recognized by credit unions. Beavers are obsessed with keeping their financial goals in check. Boosting their credit scores? Sign a Beaver up.  
• Recognition: Conscientious Beavers like being recognized for their efforts. Give your Beaver employees a shoutout every now and again. 
  
  

 Squirrel

Forty-seven percent of employees are a Squirrel mindset. Financially conscious, Squirrels know the power of saving for a rainy day. That means they track their budget and rarely stray from it.

Perks and rewards best suited for a Squirrel include:

• Clever RX: Squirrel workers will take discounts wherever they can. Clever’s prescription discount is in a Squirrel’s wheelhouse of tracking their budget and sticking to it. 
• Gas card: Getting more back on a gas card is huge for someone who values making the most out of their money.
• Recognition: Squirrels may work so hard and so fast that they barely even know where the day went, realizing there’s still more to do. It’s imperative to give this type of employee public recognition for their efforts. Give them shoutouts as often as you can. 
  
  

 Raccoon

The Raccoon embodies thriftiness. Think Extreme Couponing. That’s a Raccoon’s idea of a good time. A Raccoon shopper wants to stretch their dollar as far as possible, finding incredibly clever ways to do so. Points for flights? A Raccoon loves ‘em. Cash back? A Raccoon needs it!

Perks and rewards best suited for a Raccoon include:

• Gas card: With up to 5% extra available, the gas card is ideal for the little Raccoon mindset looking to make the most of their dollars spent.
• Savvy: Raccoons like to get their savings where they can. With Savvy’s auto insurance discount, an annual savings of up to $1500 is in the Raccoon’s wheelhouse.
• Gift card: Reward your Raccoon employee’s hard work with a gift card and watch them get to work—the sheer amount they’ll be able to get out of it will astound you. 
  
  

 Bull

The Bull mindset is the riskiest of the bunch. Bulls like to look at the stock market in the morning, noon and night to get a better understanding of how their investments are doing. Bulls are more experimental and interested in the next big opportunity, with real confidence in themselves and they have the resources to take such a chance.

Perks and rewards best suited for a Bull include:

• Insurify: A Bull ensures every T is crossed and every I is dotted. Insurance is a great perk to provide to a Bull. Whether it’s for their car or their pet, Insurify can help a Bull save up to near $1000 every year. They can put that toward another Patagonia vest. 
• Boom: Having a great credit score is important to a Bull. Boom helps Bulls who rent get their credit score up by making sure it’s taken into account. 
• Recognition: Send your Bull employee a public shoutout. They love being acknowledged for their contributions at work. 
  
  

Tips to making the most out of recognizing your employees

Recognizing hard work in a meaningful way doesn't come easy to a lot of people. For example, there’s a prevailing notion that the work is worth it. But that’s not the case for everyone. Data tells us a different story: according to SHRM, 94% of employees who are recognized daily are satisfied.

Below are a few tips to make the most out of rewarding, recognizing and providing perks to your employees.

• Be specific: When giving a reward or recognition to your employee, it’s important that you’re specific about exactly why. For example, you have an employee who stayed back after their shift because another employee was running late due to an emergency. Let that employee know how much their dedication and commitment to the team are important for a great work culture. Specificity goes a long way in ensuring your employees know exactly what drives impact.
  
  
• Timely delivery: Don’t wait to recognize or offer your employees perks. If you have the opportunity to do so immediately, do it. It’s not that they’ll forget or not be appreciative of the effort later on.
  
  
• Encourage peer-to-peer recognition: Don’t let recognition or rewarding your employees be exclusive to managers or team leaders. Peer-to-peer recognition is massively important in both fostering an enjoyable work culture and in building that muscle of appreciating good work. This can—hopefully!—work because, according to a survey from Workleap, 89% of workers are encouraged to give their colleagues recognition.
  
  
• Offer a variety of perks: Your workers have different needs and wants. A perks program or offering ought to reflect that. Gift cards are great but what if you could give your workers a gift card to the precise store they actually go to? What if they enjoyed a break on gas instead with a gas card?

Engage and support your employees by offering financial wellness benefits and recognition incentives. Learn more about your employees’ Money Mindset by getting them to take the quiz.