Travel Incentive Programs - The only Employee reward program you should be investing in

If you have not heard about travel incentive programs with in the workplace you need to get on board!

Almost everyone likes to travel. Explore learn and discover their own city or remote opposites of their world. With millennials being the largest generation with in the workforce (Pew Research Center), composing 35% of the workforce today. Now with this same generation traveling up to a 35% more than others.

Here are some benefits of your company hosting workplace retreats:

1. Employees form new bonds with one another.

By bringing people together in a new setting that allows them to step out of their comfort zone, meet new people, and make new connections that may not have existed within the company before. Being around new people exposes you to new hobbies, a new perspective, and allows people to establish new friendships. This is not always something that’s easy to do in the workplace, especially during busy season.

    2) New skills are developed

Having your employees attend company retreats can also help them develop new skills that are beneficial to your workplace. For example leadership in team-building exercises are highly noticeable skills as well as public speaking, communication, and relationship building. These are all traits that in management you need to pay close attention to and takes note of.

As a result of this, your employees may come back to you after the retreat and say they want to further develop upon these found skills. They might then ask for the company to hold a workshop or maybe pay for them to take a few courses on these new areas of professional development. This will further show that you are committed to and fully invested in your employees. Now you can say there were two benefits to holding a company retreat: personal & professional growth.

 3) Co-workers learn to work together

Being in a new setting , around nature and involved in recreational activities can actually make it easier for people to work together in a fun and active setting. This builds strong team chemistry that can be a moment of growth for the company because employees have learned to work together towards achieving a common goal. This also helps people learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses which is something that can be built upon and further developed when collaborating on future projects. As a result, this will help the company long-term because employees will not just learn to work together, but also enjoy each other’s company and want to be around one another for a long time.

   4) Hidden talents are exposed

It’s during all the activities and team-building exercises that you discover your co-workers and employees hidden talents. The IT person might end-up being a great guitar player or the human resources director could be an amazing athlete, or maybe one of your program managers is a slam poet. The possibilities of discovering theses hidden talents are truly endless. In discovering this you can actually make the workplace more fun and have more to look forward to at happy hours and various other company outings.   

     5) Employees feel appreciated

Having your employees participate in company retreats also shows that you value them and cherish their hard work. It also shows employees that you care about their happiness and are invested in their personal and professional growth. Company retreats will also bring out the best in people as a result of this and as a result this can lead to increased employee engagement which is always a plus for any business.

   6) Employees deepen their brand loyalty for the company

People who work at places that host company retreats every year tend to enjoy the workplace a lot more than people working at companies that don’t. It brings a level of excitement to the workplace, builds good rapport, and most importantly builds long-lasting relationships. In turn, this will gives employees loyalty to your company and makes them want to stay with you long-term as opposed to only being on for a couple years then heading elsewhere.

7) This ultimately helps your bottom line

This can not just serve as a moment of growth or development for your company, but it can also save you the hassle of recruiting, hiring and on-boarding new employees and put them through rigorous training every time a spot opens up. This would be largely due to the fact that employees feel loyal to your company and feel like you have invested in their growth and development within the company. So the more your employees feel this way, the less likely they are to flee for a new company. This would also save your company tons of time and money by keeping on the same people and investing them for long-term success. Reducing drastically the turn over rate not to mention the additional paper work for HR.