After 4 years, this partnership is still as strong as a sabre’s tooth.
As a leader in the travel marketplace, Sabre Holdings offers retailtravel products, distribution, and technology solutions for the travelindustry. The company supports travelers, travel agents, corporations,and travel suppliers around the world through its three companies:Travelocity, Sabre Travel Network, and Sabre Airline Solutions.
Sabre Holdings wanted to increase its managements participation in itsemployee recognition program. Prior to its partnership withGiftCertificates.com, hundreds of Sabre Holdings managers executedemployee rewards programs using a variety of service providers,worldwide. Most of the providers offered no tracking systems for theirprograms and therefore did not have clear and accurate reporting forbusiness-related purposes, including the expenditure amounts formonthly rewards and the number or identity of the reward recipients. Asa result, Sabre Holdings management had no global program overview.Many of the managers were overspending for their rewards programs yetothers did not fully utilize these programs.
Sabre Holdings wanted an outsourcing provider capable of resolving allof these problems through a streamlined employee recognition programfor all of its business units. In November 2001, GiftCertificates.comand Sabre Holdings began working together to consolidate SabreHoldings employee recognition program. The provider set up an OnlineOrdering Site that allowed Sabre Holdings to have multiple corporatepurchasers on a single master account and access to online accountservices including real-time order information. DigitalSuperCertificate rewards, e-cards, and a customized redemption Web pagewere also incorporated into the Sabre Holdings program.
The restructured program enabled Sabre Holdings managers tosuccessfully administer and track their recognition programs andultimately offer a wide variety of original merchant certificaterewards through GiftCertificates.coms SuperCertificate for itsemployees. As a result, managers were able to reward more employees,which helped to raise overall employee morale.
Nearly four years after its creation, the program has enabled SabreHoldings to measure its employee recognition program on a quarterlybasis. Findings have shown an increase in the number of employeerewards, which met Sabre Holdings key objective. There has been a 75percent increase in the number of managers using the program in 2004compared to the previous year. Also, the number of Sabre Holdingsemployees receiving recognition awards more than doubled, andapproximately 29 percent of the company’s employees were acknowledgedwith gift certificate rewards in 2004.
Sabre Holdings’ management is happy as well. “GiftCertificates.com dida wonderful job to help us reach our employee recognition goals,through a universal program that allowed us to track the rewardprogress and results online, customize the program for differentbusiness units, and capture billing information,” says Sharon Fletcher,human resources project manager at Sabre Holdings. “With the help ofGiftCertificates.coms sales team, it was easy to design and implementa global solution for our employee recognition program.”
