Discover a step-by-step process to launching an employee discounts program, from strategy to communications tactics and the decision-making process.
CultureNL was established in 2013 as a charitable organization of North Lanarkshire Council to better support the local community. It has a diverse workforce that work marginally more offline and have 820 employees covering 117 locations.
Industry:
Charity
Number of employees:
820
Average age:
37 yrs
Male to female ratio:
30:70
Number of locations:
117
Platform features:
Employee discounts, Employee recognition
Creating its own identity was important to CultureNL, as it emphasized the role they play in delivering a wide range of initiatives to the local community. The organization also manages almost all functions within these initiatives from catering to cleaning, right through to care taking – forming an extremely diverse workforce as a result.
As a charity, the HR Team was looking for cost-effective ways to increase employee engagement and satisfaction while, at the same time, reinforcing its organizational identity. The team was also aware of organizational changes and efficiency savings on the horizon which would impact staff morale and motivation. To achieve the first and avoid the latter, CultureNL sought a discounts initiative that would particularly help the employees on lower salaries and those working part-time hours – as well as those who would typically spend a larger proportion of their income on daily essentials.
With over 110 locations and over half of its workforce offline during working hours, CultureNL found difficulty in communicating to everyone and making the employees feel as though they all work under the same umbrella. The team also only had team meetings and notice boards as their main communication channels, which meant it needed a new approach to highlight and distribute relevant information to its staff.
CultureNL’s team saw the opportunity to use Reward Gateway’s employee engagement platform to bring all of its perks into one central place, and allow offline employees access on their own time through a device of their choosing. The team called their new platform Culture Vultures and chose a cartoon vulture as the logo to match. They also partnered with Reward Gateway’s in-house Design Team to create a hub that was fun, quirky, emphasized a positive message, and matched the colors of CultureNL’s logo.
With the Culture Vultures platform being launched two days before February 14th, the team took the opportunity to match the launch and communication pieces to a Valentine’s Day theme, while at the same time promoting it as something new and exclusive to CultureNL staff. The team captured this by giving out a postcard to each employee and pinning more than 150 posters in key staff areas. To further encourage employee participation, CultureNL ran a competition for staff to find a name for its new cartoon vulture, resulting in him now being known as Calvin the Culture Vulture.
Shortly after launch, the team moved away from the Valentine's Day theme and distributed further promotion materials – ensuring the picture of Calvin and various bird references were used. They also utilized the instant nature of their employee engagement hub to update information, highlight specific discounts, and ensure that the content displayed is easy to read, relevant, and easily accessible.
Prior to the launch of Culture Vultures, CultureNL didn't have an employee discounts program in place and this marked the launch of a brand new initiative. Within the first 30 days, Culture Vultures became recognized throughout all parts of the organization and 141 employees had registered.
The team members are using this momentum and continuing to work closely with Reward Gateway to maintain Culture Vultures as its core communication tool, with regular updates and new features to keep it fresh. They are also recruiting internal champions to act as advocates for their platform by looking at the readily available data to identify and focus on areas of the organization where uptake can be improved.
And as far as results go, nothing says it better than those using the offering: “I‘ve used Culture Vultures for everything from my weekly shop to booking my vacation abroad.”
“Culture Vultures is brilliant – I’ve saved money on my weekly shops, furnishing my home and garden and trips to the movies. Delighted that our employer provides this rewards scheme!”
employees registered within first 30 days
employee communications and branding
