2022 Outlook: Solid Growth, More Awards Innovation, Focus on ROI

Assuming the Covid-19 pandemic shifts into an endemic stage, 2022 promises to be a banner year for the rewards and recognition field with plenty of innovation, change, and new players.

 

Here’s a rundown of the top trends to anticipate for 2022 in the field of Total Rewards.

 

Overall growth driven by the Great Resignation and market share battles. Whatever strategies or tactics organizations choose to engage employees, many will face the impact of unparalleled levels of resignations and greater difficulty finding employees. On the sales and marketing side, many companies will battle for market share in reshuffled playing fields. This will lead to continued expenditures in incentives, recognition, and promotions, etc.

 

The continued explosion in new reward and gifting solutions. Given the tendency for businesses to look for quick fixes and bright shiny objects, the proliferation in award options, employee experiences, e-gifting, etc. will continue, following the pattern of the dot-com phenomenon in the 1990s, when billions flowed into award companies that no longer exist.

 

More venture capital and private equity involvement. It appears the above factors have begun to attract the attention of venture capital and private equity investors, who have already pushed up valuations for companies like Awardco and Reward Gateway. There’s every reason to believe such activity will continue. 

 

More interest in data and program design. Given that until recently only a small percentage of organizations seriously analyzed return-on-investment, the shift to a more serious focus on program design and measurement will gradually increase as more organizations take human capital management, analytics, and reporting seriously. The first signs: many more companies are asking for data on the incentive and recognition programs: the next step is to apply serious program design principles to their programs. 

 

Enormous growth in travel. While the merchandise and gift card suppliers saw increased business because of the pandemic and shifts due to cancelled travels, the opposite could begin to occur later in 2022, assuming that the pandemic recedes, and the travel situation normalizes. There appears to be enormous pent-up demand for travel, as employees who are happy to work from home have an even greater desire to travel and get to know their colleagues. 

 

Continued changes in travel program design. After almost two years without extensive travel and trade shows, many businesses have determined that they can easily conduct business and routine meetings and training effectively online. Organizations that have proceeded with face-to-face events have discovered that strategic use of video can extend the reach of their events, rather than conflict with them, as was often the assumption in the past. Expect clients to demand more emphasis on immersive experiences that build relationships rather than the traditional stage-based keynotes and panel discussions, as people no longer need to travel to hear a great presentation or discussion. 

 

Gifting technology. The enormous growth of gifting due to the pandemic has encouraged the development of technologies that make it easy for organizations to effectively manage business gifting on a single platform. These technologies provide a range of reward options based on the company’s gifting strategy and a standardized experience for all participating employees, along with consolidated accounting and reporting. 

 

Digital innovation. The concept of the Metaverse, using Virtual Reality to simulate one’s participation at events or other experiences, may become an important part of business meetings in the future, but it likely will take a many more years for this to shake out based on what has happened with crypto currency. Despite a lot of talk and applications for the blockchain in the incentive and loyalty business, there does not appear to be much mainstream application yet. 

 

That said, one can easily imagine a future in which people attend 3D events through highly realistic avatars and a completely realistic setting that could be anything from a ballroom to a jungle.