Reward redemption rates by category: what African employees actually claim vs what HR assumes they want

When HR teams are asked to rank the reward categories their employees value most, they consistently over-rank physical gifts, travel, and branded merchandise — and under-rank airtime, grocery, and utility credits. Real redemption data from the same organisations tells the opposite story. Airtime and grocery credits account for over 60% of all redemptions across markets. Physical gifts, despite being offered in most programmes, account for less than 8% of redemptions. The pattern holds even in higher-income employee segments, though the split shifts slightly toward dining and experiences.

The preference gap is partly an empathy problem and partly a design problem. HR teams — who typically sit in the upper-income quartile of their own organisations — design reward programmes that reflect their own preferences, not their employees'. A mid-level field employee earning N180,000 per month in Lagos has materially different needs than an HR manager earning N700,000. The most effective programmes segment the catalogue by employee level rather than offering a single flat catalogue to all staff.

• Pull your actual redemption data by category for the last 12 months — if you do not have this, it is the first question to ask your platform vendor
• If airtime and grocery are not in your top three redemption categories, your catalogue has a design problem that no communications campaign will fix
• Consider tiered catalogues by employee band: a field-level catalogue heavy on utility credits, a senior-level catalogue with more dining and experience options