Employee Recognition

It’s good business practice to acknowledge the efforts of your workforce. Doing so can offer significant long-term advantages.

So don’t underestimate the importance of recognising your employee’s achievements. Staff enjoy the likes of reward schemes, which can help boost morale and provide an incentive for greater levels of productivity.

Now we’ll take you through a few possibilities in this guide, as well as discussing the various other benefits your business may experience.

Starting an employee recognition and reward system

Before you go about introducing a scheme, you should do some research to find out what your staff would like.

You shouldn’t presume you know the answer. Although financial bonuses are always popular, there are other considerations.

Your research can start with some questions to ask employees about reward and recognition. These can include:

• How would you like us to reward you?
• Would you like to be able to recommend colleagues through the process?
• Are traditional rewards right for our company culture, or should we think of new ideas?
• Is an employee recognition program app something you’d like us to adopt?

Alternatively, you could use a staff engagement survey to ask them directly what sort of rewards they’d like. Gathering the results, you could see the most popular choices.  

The benefits of employee recognition in the workplace

You should keep in mind recognition of employee performance doesn’t have to be expensive.

In fact, some ideas are cost-effective—and they have the added bonus of lifting your team’s spirits in the process. Which can then assist with employee positivity and productivity rates.

The purpose is to offer your employees a genuine reward for their efforts. But in return your business can expect:

• Improvements with your employee engagement: Rewards promote positivity and help to improve your relationship with your workforce.
• Reductions to turnover rates: Happier staff members means you’re more like to have a high staff retention rate.
• Keep your top performers: Rewarding your best talent provides them with a reason to stay, rather than heading off to your competitors.

Employee recognition ideas

What are the types of initiatives you should look into? Well, there’s no set rule. But there are popular techniques already in use across the business world.

You can refer to these as inspiration for your employee awards and recognition ideas:

• Annual bonus.
• Mentoring initiatives.
• Profit-sharing.
• Recognise birthdays with a card with messages from colleagues.
• Track departmental wins to champion them at key moments.
• Have a monthly newsletter with shout outs for top-performing employees and departments.
• Have employee recognition wall displays—these can become a half of fame, essentially, but can establish a sense of pride in your work.
• Offer individual rewards—find out personal hobbies and offer something based on respective interests.
• Provide thank you notes—even a post-it note goes a long way.
• Feature a staff section say they can demonstrate their skills to your customers.
• Offer career-based rewards that’ll help staff progress towards personal goals.
• Have a staff lunch and pay for their orders.
• Help out with your employees’ various commutes, such as reimbursing some expenses or organising a car-sharing scheme.
• Have a suggestion box so your employees can offer ideas for further rewards.

Programs for creative employee recognition

If you’re looking to provide a more engaging and innovative approach to your rewards package, then modern technology offers many possibilities.

You can look to employee recognition programs for small companies—these are tools designed to innovate in this area.

Managers can use it to value and appreciate staff through instant recognition features. This can include eCards, delivery of awards, and social recognition.

The software, which is usually an app, continues the trend of collaboration and morale boosts across your workforce. It’s also accessible—easy to use, which will ensure your reward scheme doesn’t occupy too much of your time.

As for how frequently you should run your reward scheme, most businesses go for a monthly or quarterly employee recognition program.

This balances out the costs if, for example, you’re offering a financial bonus. But it also provides something for your employees to aim for, which can maintain higher levels of productivity as they work towards a welcome goal.

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