Reward Your Associates by Recognizing Their Accomplishments

Recognizing and rewarding your employees at the right moment is an art that every business owner should master. The “easy come, easy go” employee approach can doom a company to failure and prevent you from building a highly impactful business strategy. Keeping people passionate about what they do stimulates their professional growth and, therefore, benefits your organization.

What is employee recognition?

Whether it’s just a round of applause or a prestigious award, any acknowledgment of professional achievement can be considered employee recognition. Through an employee reward and recognition program, you basically praise people for their support of your organizational values and achievement of business goals.

Why is employee recognition important?

What do you gain? First, let’s make it clear that an employee recognition program shouldn’t be perceived as a life-saver. The maintenance of a “healthy” atmosphere in a work setting is critical to keep employee turnover low. In some sense, employee recognition is icing on the cake, but you still have to bake cakes every day.

By rewarding associates for their achievements, you help people understand their strengths, stay motivated, and see the results of their work. Here’s why it’s super important for your organization:

• Recognition supports a sense of belonging in a specific role or workplace.
• By praising people for their results, you help them understand the value they add to the organization.
• Employee recognition programs build loyalty which reduces turnover.

How to start an effective employee recognition program

Rule number 1 (and the only one): You focus on the individual/team, not the whole organization. A successful business owner is a lifelong talent manager tapping into the growth and ideas of every employee. Recognizing staff accomplishments has to be personalized to resonate with the groove of every team member. Here’s a short roadmap to building smart employee recognition awards:

• Build a talent map. The platforms for talent mapping, like Globoforce, offer a rich landscape of performance tracking tools. Choose the right template for your organization, create digital profiles for teams or individuals, and record goals. This will help you stay abreast of their activities.

• Set up monthly achievement sessions. Review goal achievement, project implementation results, and general performance of employees every month.
• Organize a program committee. Appoint managers or employees to your recognition program and build an outline together.
• Define the rules. Set up program criteria and connect your achievement review results with these criteria.
• Fun or no fun? Depending on the award type, your budget, and the level of fun your company members appreciate, give your program the right vibe.
• Pick a prize that means something. Is it a customized trophy or a conference ticket? Make the prize underline the mission of your awarding campaign.

The ways to reward your employees by recognizing their accomplishments

Among all the ways to reward your employees, you have to choose the one that will be the right fit. There are two principal formats setting the rules for your employee recognition program: formal and informal.

So what is what? Informal recognition can also be perceived as daily care for your staff. Birthday celebrations, ordering food for employees working late, giving a day off… the list goes on and on. This type of employee care is vital to support the warm atmosphere in a workplace, as well as to shape friendly, corporate relationships.

If you want something thought-out and structured in a separate program, formal recognition should be your preference. The most common examples of such campaigns are annual “best employee” awards and company anniversary events. The organization of formal awarding projects usually requires development of a planning group and establishment of key milestones.

Nice examples of employee recognition

Knowing how to reward your employees can save business leaders the trouble of short-term employment. To protect people from burnouts and empower them for productive work, learn how the most successful corporations do it:

Peer-to-peer recognition from Google

Some professional achievements may remain unknown even to the most proactive managers. Google has a great practice of praising associates through their colleagues. Thus, Googlers are encouraged to provide feedback on the work of peers and, in this way, stimulate recognition programs.

The idea of peer-to-peer recognition is today leveraged by multiple corporations in different juicy ways. SnackNation, for example, has a Friday “Crush it Call” meeting where team members decide who should be a “crush.”  The winner is someone who worked particularly hard during the week, helped a colleague out, or maybe treated the whole team to great coffee. Once the “crush” has been announced, he/she gets personal gratitude with one special weekly achievement from every team member.

Self-care contests from CHG

CHG Healthcare makes employee recognition happen by inviting the team to follow the company mission. In the annual “Rock Your Body” contest, CHG motivates people to have a corporate fitness day together. The winning sportspeople receive cash prizes or healthcare packages. This is a great idea for businesses who make the maintenance of company values into a corporate priority.

Going crazy with Nugget Markets

#10 on the list of the best companies to work for, Nugget Markets, is a master of making employee recognition fun. The managers love setting up morning spirit rallies for the whole team. As a result, someone who is the best in pepping the team up is called coach of the month.

Employee recognition quotes

A good word can save the world. Spreading verbal praise across your office can be a great way to recognize staff and make someone’s day just a little bit better. Here are some great examples of inspirational employee recognition quotes you can borrow some wisdom from:

• Thanks for diving straight into the deep end of the pool! I’ll work on getting more water in there. – Mike McCown.
• A lot of people failed at what you accomplished, simply because they were busy finding problems while you were busy finding solutions. Well done. – unknown.
• What gets recognized gets reinforced, and what gets reinforced gets repeated. – unknown.

Conclusion

When people show up at work only because they have to pay rent, something is wrong with the company they work for. Successful business leaders generate value every moment that an employee spends in the workplace. Start a contest to recognize staff achievements and keep their motivation high.