Difficulty of Application

The difficulty of creating a blockchain-based employee loyalty program on a scale from 1 to 5, the difficulty is ~2–3.

For a blockchain-based employee loyalty program, only a basic blockchain is required because the manager of the employee loyalty program only needs to examine the state of the blockchain at a specific time. There is little to no need for a blockchain with features beyond recording transactional data unless the manager wants to have rewards redeemable on-chain.

The main issues that are likely to arise are: (1) hiring blockchain developers; (2) having the requisite funding; (3) understanding the business and/or regulatory environment; and (4) end-user knowledge.

First, a business that does not have an in-house blockchain development team will have to seek out blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) or software development companies to develop their blockchain. This process can be time-consuming and wrought with uncertainty because the business has to conduct due diligence on all potential companies (and somehow evaluate their blockchain expertise) [5].

Second, before embarking on a blockchain-based employee loyalty program, a business needs to ensure it has allocated enough funding to develop its blockchain without hampering its primary business model [5].

Third, in creating a blockchain for a specific application, the business needs to make its in-house or outside blockchain development team aware of the business and/or regulatory environment it operates in and design the blockchain with this environment in mind. For example, if the business is under the jurisdiction of the European Union (EU) and the State of California in the United States, the business’s blockchain development team will have to design the blockchain in compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and both California and US Federal law [14].

Fourth, to create a successful blockchain-based loyalty program, the end user, in this case, the employees, must understand what benefits blockchain provides, and why it will lead to employees gaining greater recognition for their contributions [1][2][3][11][12].

A blockchain-based employment loyalty program’s difficultly on a scale from 1 to 5 is ~2–3

Conclusion

In applying blockchain to a specific area, we need to make three considerations: (1) benefits of blockchain; (2) benefits applicable to the specific area; and (3) difficulty of applying blockchain to the specific area.

After making these three considerations, a business can better evaluate what value blockchain will add before embarking on a long and unrewarding development path.

Regarding employee loyalty programs, the applicable blockchain benefits are: (1) incentivizing behavior; (2) transparency; (3) immutability; (4) asset creation; and (5) disintermediation [5][9][10][15].

Lastly, applying a blockchain to an employee loyalty program is a low difficulty project because the business managing the employee loyalty program only needs to track the state of the blockchain at a specific time, which only requires a basic blockchain that tracks transactions [5].

Hereafter, we hope to see more blockchain applications in employee loyalty programs or customer loyalty programs given the low difficulty of applying blockchain in this area.

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