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Employee recognition programs have become more popular by the day, as companies realize it’s an effective way to motivate and make hard-working employees feel appreciated. Thus, it’s an excellent way to retain employees who do well in their jobs.
With the rise of remote work settings like work from home, many companies wonder if these programs apply to them. The simple answer to that is a resounding “Yes!”.
What’s great about this list is that you can easily integrate them into your operations and immediately start making your employees feel appreciated.
Below are the top ideas for employee recognition programs specifically tailor-made for remote teams. So get your notes ready, and let’s start with the article.
Before we go into different ideas for employee recognition programs, let’s first define what it is. An employee recognition program is a way for employers to reward employees who have reached a particular milestone or achievement in the workplace.
The types of employee appreciation programs vary per company. Some have informal events and others have formal occasions for this. A few celebrate in both styles. It can be held at dinners after work or simply by dropping by their cubicle to let them know they’ve done well.
These types of events are a fun time for employees. It’s where people see their coworkers and team members recognized by the whole company.
What’s great about these programs is the perks attached to them. More of this topic is discussed thoroughly below.
The employee recognition programs here differ slightly from what you’ve usually heard and read. The ideas below are for remote teams on how they can recognize and reward their staff even without being physically together.
This one is a very underrated idea that many companies overlook. Some higher-ups don’t see how important day offs are for their employees, so they never thought about trying this idea.
Day offs are when employees get to mentally and physically reset for the week. It’s a time for them to rest and do activities outside of work completely. This is the time when they can spend a lot of time for themselves and their family and friends.
So if you’re thinking about how to award top performers, this form of recognition is something that they will greatly appreciate. It’s like saying, “Since you’ve done an excellent job, take some time off to rest and replenish your energy levels.”
What’s great about this reward is it makes companies realize how easy it is to make their employees feel happy and appreciated. Giving them a few days off will allow them to appreciate the company even more and realize how the executives care for them and their well-being.
A faster way to give recognition to your employee would be by simply writing an appreciation message on the team application you’re using. This doesn’t take much effort and can be easily seen by people in your company.
Appreciation messages can be along these lines:
“I would like to take time today and appreciate what *insert name* has done for the sales department! Closing 20 clients in a week is not an easy feat. This only shows how big your potential is. Keep going!”
“I sincerely thank the ABC Team for the success of the XYZ Project! I would like to highlight the leadership of *insert name* throughout this whole journey. It was a pleasure to see you lead the team through hardships and come out successful! You are a valued member of the company.”
There’s a saying that goes, “Praise in public. Criticize in private.” This quote stays true no matter the setting of your company. Just abiding by this line helps you retain more employees and increase their enjoyment of your business.
So if there’s an employee that you want to recognize, do a public recognition like a virtual shoutout. A virtual shoutout isn’t just any regular shoutout; create recognition content and post it on your social media accounts. It’s one way to let thousands of people see your employee’s hard work.
Private recognition isn’t bad, but sometimes the best employees want their work to be seen by others. They want to receive some type of social recognition and peer-to-peer recognition. It makes them feel great for what they’ve accomplished.
It also brings positive feedback to your business. Any company that takes time off their busy schedule to create an appreciation post for their employee is a great business. It’s a must-do for you since not every company takes time to do this.
This has been suggested a hundred times, but only a few companies integrate this into their employee recognition programs. This one’s a valuable recognition effort to delight your hardworking employee.
When the pandemic peaked, companies sent care packages to their employees. The package would include alcohol, sanitizers, face masks, and even masks for their children.
But when people started adapting to the new normal, the initiative of giving out care packages were gone. However, you can bring back this fun trend in your organization to show your care to your people.
Care packages usually come in a box filled with a set of items. These items can be set in standard or can be customized. Getting it customized to meet your employee’s preferences makes it more valuable for them.
The insides of the box can range from snacks, drinks, clothes, new gadgets, and others. You can ask another employee to ask the awarded staff what they like. You can then tailor the items in the box to fit their liking.
Even if you’re working remotely, there are a lot of services that cater to this need. A little research can yield good results.
Everybody likes food. What more if it’s a free delicious meal paid for by the company? Gestures like this are an excellent and hassle-free way to show recognition of your employees’ great work.
Again, if you can’t ask your employee what their favorite food is because you want to make the whole thing a surprise, ask for help from other employees. Tell them to be as natural as possible when asking to avoid any assumptions.
Receiving a delicious free meal can brighten up anyone’s day. This would be a pleasant surprise, especially if they had zero ideas about this. To make it more meaningful, ask the food provider to write a note of appreciation. This will make a better employee experience.
This recognition initiative only works if it has a significant reward attached to being an employee of the month. Otherwise, no one will try their best to receive that title. So to make it appealing, attach something useful to have that title.
Make sure to have a fair and objective way of picking who would receive this title at the end of the month. The last thing you want would be your hardworking employees feeling like you’ve overlooked their work. So have an objective point system for this.
Staff and leader’s meetings are great events to recognize your employees. It’s one way of praising them publicly and letting everyone know how great of a job they’ve been doing. This is one way to create a positive work environment.
Other than just recognizing them, allow them to say a few words about their recent accomplishments or success story. However, others might be hesitant to do this but try to drive them up since it can motivate their coworkers to work hard as well.
This might seem simple, but every hardworking employee wants to feel valued. They want to be appreciated by the company they’re working for. And lastly, they want their good work to be seen by important people.
These items might be small in the grand scheme of things, but they can go a long way to make your employee happy and delighted. Make sure to give gift cards and vouchers they can easily redeem since you are in a remote setting.
A great thing about this initiative is you can give out a voucher for almost anything. Be practical and think hard about what they find useful. You can give a free shopping budget, offer free gas, free car engine or brake repair, a gym membership, etc.
If you want digital gift cards, the most common rewards would be streaming and gaming gift cards, Amazon gift cards, and multi-store gift cards. These gifts are both fun and practical things to give in this digital age.
You can have a one-on-one call with the employee and express your gratitude and appreciation. After the conversation is made, you can send those rewards as your token of appreciation. They’d be happy to receive something after their hard work.
In a remote setting, working from home is common for employees. So, excellent employee recognition and reward would be gifting work-from-home essentials. Not only will these things come in handy for your employee, but they can also boost their productivity.
Here are some work-from-home essentials that you can send out as gifts:
Subscription services have been the entertainment of most adults lately. When they’re off work, they go to their yoga classes, local gym, or spinning classes.
Obviously, it’s not limited to physical exercise alone. It can be for entertainment or information purposes as well. Some have subscriptions for movies and others have exclusive club memberships.
You could also give a subscription to an online learning platform. This can help in making them more efficient in their jobs and responsibilities. Examples can be SEO strategy training, sales course refresher, or new trends in marketing.
No matter what it is, you can pay for that subscription as a reward for your employee. Let them pick the subscription service to have something to look forward to.
Everyone loves a monetary reward on top of being recognized by the leaders in the organization. It’s one of the greatest motivators for employees to do well in whatever they’re doing in the company.
Handing out stock options is an excellent idea too. You can also give them shares of the best dividend stocks in the market to make your reward a compounding monetary gift.
Giving money as a reward can do many things for a person. Some might have problems and challenges that they only know about. Others might need it for medical problems, or simply they need it for advance rent payments.
Money can go a long way. If you have the budget for it, don’t hesitate to reward your hardworking employees with this.
Other than making your employees happy and satisfied, there are a lot more benefits that businesses can have when recognizing employees. To further push you to integrate this into your company, continue reading about its top benefits.
According to Gallup, a lack of employee recognition software can be a reason why employees leave an organization.
Imagine doing the best you can day in and day out, trying to be seen by delivering excellent output, yet no one sees your effort. For some, that is enough reason to leave the company and take their talent elsewhere.
Gallup added that the more talented employees are, the faster they leave. These are the employees that you want to retain because they are high performers and are very productive.
So to avoid this from happening, recognize your employee’s hard work. Give credit where it’s due. Award them if you can. Celebrate accomplishments and progress in the workplace.
When employees are motivated to work, their output becomes better. This doesn’t only make their performance better, but the receiving end of that output will be much more satisfied.
This is another excellent reason to integrate an employee recognition program into your workplace. You are creating a company culture and company values that create quality output in their work. Plus, having more satisfied customers typically leads to improved sales, better metrics, and more acquisitions – increasing the value of your online store or SaaS business.
Higher retention and recognition will lead to an increase in employee loyalty and lower employee turnover. This is very important today since it’s a common practice to pirate employees from other businesses.
Losing a top employee because of a lack of appreciation is a massive headache. It will cost you money and time since you’ll need to onboard replacements that aren’t guaranteed to provide the same performance. You could’ve retained that employee if you only had recognized and appreciated their effort.
According to the Senior Vice President of human resources at GoodHire, there are a lot of benefits when employees feel valued in the workplace. But nothing comes close to having company loyalty. This alone can increase the average years of service in your company.
This only shows that when employees feel appreciated, they tend to have a great time at work and will develop an affinity with the company.
Attracting top talent is easy when people know that you have great recognition platforms or reward programs in your organization. Remember that top talent will provide your company with remarkable value. They are proactive and always give more than what’s needed. Most of them thrive off rewards, incentives, and recognition.
They’ll be more motivated to do great once they know the rewards they can receive. They will be more excited to work with you. Employee recognition doesn’t just motivate people, but it also indicates that the organization is serious about keeping its employees happy and satisfied.
Anyone would fight for a place in a company that shows that in their culture.
In a remote setting, it’s easy to feel burnt out when you’re giving it your all and have little to no social interaction in your work. This can cause demotivation and can affect output in one’s work.
But with employee recognition ideas in place, it gives employees, even if they’re remote, something to strive for. It will help with employee engagement and productivity.
This kind of initiative is a big help, especially for remote teams, because it makes employees feel like they matter. They’ll see that their work does not go unnoticed, and it’s a great way to keep them going and motivated.
The best practices you can follow to help you successfully implement these programs in your organization are mentioned below.
Once you’ve started these types of programs, be consistent in doing it. You don’t want this to be a one-time event. Your programs should be continuous for your employees to be motivated all year round.
When you don’t follow the right schedule, your credibility will die down. They’ll identify you as inconsistent and not true to your words. This can potentially lessen employee satisfaction and lead them to find other companies.
When reaching out to your employee to show appreciation, go beyond saying thank you or good job. Be detailed about what you liked from their performance and praise their recent employee achievements. Explain what positive impact they brought to the company and how they inspired others to be better.
Also, be personal when addressing them. Don’t send out an appreciation letter template. Be genuine with your message – it makes the experience much better for them.
The culture of recognition in your organization should be available to everyone in your company. Since you’ve started this as a way to recognize and boost motivation, any employee should have the opportunity to be part of it.
If you make the program this way, you’re motivating not just one department but many employees in your workplace. This can boost productivity and quality output for your company.
There are different types of employee recognition programs in the corporate world. But the most successful employee recognition programs are excellent in making ways to keep your employees engaged.
The types of recognition discussed above are a vital part of running a business, which is why some managers and leaders go out of their way to make their employees feel recognized.
Among the examples of employee recognition programs discussed in this article, the easiest and fastest way to implement one in your culture would be instant recognition. It’s the most basic way to recognize an employee, but it’s very effective because you publicly praise the person.
