Creating magical moments for Cruise.co.uk employees with a recognition strategy that decreased staff turnover by more than 60%

Working closely with Reward Gateway | Edenred, Cruise.co.uk drastically increased employee satisfaction through employee discounts, annual leave trading and a revamp of its recognition and reward strategy.

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£7k

spent in Rewards in one year

£1k

spent through Cycle to Work

£12k

of Holiday Trading, saving employees £4,000 and Cruise.co.uk £1,000 in NI contributions 

60%

decrease in staff turnover in two years

What they needed

As one of the UK’s largest cruise specialist online travel agencies, Cruise.co.uk prides itself on delivering a first-class customer experience. But an inconsistent approach to staff onboarding, a lack of communication and little or no employee recognition and support had resulted in high staff turnover, mediocre employee satisfaction scores and a silo mentality across departments. It’s no secret that what happens internally is reflected externally, so Cruise.co.uk knew it had to make changes to avoid any negative impacts on its industry-leading customer service.

A new CEO and full business restructure in 2019 led to the introduction of Cruise.co.uk’s first HR department, tasked with building an inclusive company-wide culture and improving engagement. The small but mighty team quickly got to work, defining objectives that included introducing new core values, improving retention, providing discounts for financial support, creating a reward and recognition strategy, and prioritising communication. Another key task was to launch the company’s inaugural employee satisfaction survey, which quickly highlighted that recognition and reward needed to be the team’s immediate focus.

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Industry:

Travel & Tourism

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Number of employees:

185

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Platform features:

Discounts, Cycle to Work, Holiday Trading, Communications

How we helped

cruise-1Acting on the employee satisfaction survey feedback, Cruise. co.uk’s new HR team introduced four key initiatives to improve recognition and reward across the business. They began sharing company-wide ‘Work Anniversary’ announcements for all and awarding milestone gifts via the intranet. They researched and launched a set of new core values, and designed a recognition strategy that featured awards at the ‘Summer Showcase’ event delivered remotely during the pandemic, followed by further awards when then the annual conference resumed, fully aligned with the values.

On top of this, they introduced the Reward Gateway | Edenred platform – named Cruise Treasure – to provide employees with access to enhanced discounts, benefits and salary sacrifice schemes.

A year after the initial launch, the team spotted an opportunity to take their recognition strategy to the next level by recognising outstanding performance on a much more regular basis rather than just at the annual December conference. Working closely with Reward Gateway | Edenred, Cruise.co.uk’s HR and Sales teams collaborated to design a new approach to recognise and reward its people - Magical Moments - and set about using Cruise Treasure to promote it.

Magical Moments enabled any employee to nominate a colleague across the business, who would be in with a chance of being selected as one of five winners in each quarter. Each winner was rewarded with a £50 voucher and shortlisted for a Magical Moment of the Year award. Combined with the Cruise Treasure platform, the launch of Magical Moments provided a much more holistic approach to recognition, reward and benefits.

 

What they achieved

Magical Moments has truly levelled up Cruise.co.uk’s approach to recognition and reward, moving from recognising a handful of employees once a year to celebrating success on a continual basis. Buy-in, engagement and nomination volume have been fantastic. In the first month alone, employees submitted 25 nominations for 22 different people across 7 departments. Managers have wholeheartedly embraced the new core values, and encouraged team members to recognise and celebrate their peers.

Employees have continued to gain consistent value from the Cruise Treasure platform, saving £7,000 through Discounts in just 12 months and spending £1,000 through Cycle to Work. Cruise.co.uk’s people have also bought £12,000 of annual leave through Holiday Trading, which equates to a saving of £4,000 for employees and £1,800 for the company (through NI contributions).

Most importantly, the introduction of the enhanced recognition and reward strategy has had a positive impact on Cruise.co.uk’s company culture, demonstrated through improved engagement and loyalty. Employee turnover has decreased by more than 60% from 31% to 12% in two years, and the latest employee satisfaction survey has shown significant improvements in overall engagement scores.

Cruise.co.uk won the Most impactful reward and recognition strategy category at The Appreciation Awards 2024 in recognition of the success of Magical Moments. Congratulations!