What Makes An Employee Recognition Program Successful?
Employee recognition is a catalyst to drive company performance. By doing it right, employee recognition can lead to a strong emotional and psychological commitment from employees, leading to increased productivity and collaboration. A successful Employee recognition strategy can take employee engagement to a whole new level.
Therefore, organizations should be able to design a successful employee recognition programs by keeping these factors in mind:
- Harnessing employee recognition to drive company growth
- Designing a social recognition program with measurable targets
- Aligning employee recognition with business goals
- Developing a comprehensive and sound employee recognition strategy
- Encouraging high levels of employee adoption
It is equally important to understand the four types of employee recognition to define parameters better:
- Recognition of people
- Recognition of work
- Recognition of commitment
- Recognition of results
Organizations can create a high-performance culture to ensure that the employees are aligned with the company’s goals. Valuing one’s work is a great motivator and will result in high performance consistently. There are specific characteristics of effective employee recognition.
Top Characteristics of an Effective Recognition Program
Before organizations implement an employee recognition program, it’s necessary to understand the characteristics and get everyone on board with the program.
Recognition must be:
- Timely
- Frequent
- Specific
- Visible
- Inclusive
- Values-based
Recognition must be done promptly
The correlation between contribution and recognition can become weak over time. It will mean less to the employee if it is given as an afterthought. Therefore, employers must recognize the contribution immediately. It will act as a positive reinforcement for continued good performance. Employees may even lose opportunities to display positive behavior if they wait for recognition until the annual performance review.
Recognition must be frequent
Employees make contributions every week or even every day. Regular feedback increases the likelihood of employees feeling valued at work. Frequent recognition can translate into engaged employees, strong business results, and high employee retention. Recognition of smaller contributions is as important as recognizing the more significant milestones. Studies show that at least 71% of engaged employees work where they are recognized at least once a month.
Recognition must be specific
It is essential to call out and recognize specific contributions. This helps them realize their specific contribution towards the team’s or organization’s goal. Mentioning the details and context of the project and their work will make the feedback clear and more sincere.
Recognition must be visible
While private recognition can be meaningful, public recognition can have greater value as it magnifies the impact of the feedback. Acknowledging the good work and sharing it with a broader audience can be a great morale booster, and the workforce can see the effect of recognition. It facilitates collaboration and also brings to light solutions that have come from the employee. With other employees joining in the recognition, the positive reinforcement is further enhanced. Visible recognition provides examples of commendable actions and contributions that others can repeat.
Recognition must be inclusive
Inclusive recognition helps foster a sense of belonging, where employees feel that they are in a safe and respectful space. This sense of belonging also is indicative of the core values of the organization. Therefore, organizations would do well to prioritize inclusivity. One of the ways to achieve this is to diversify the teams in charge of running the recognition program. Moreover, recognition from all levels of the organization can bring in more recognizable contributions. This is where peer recognition plays a vital part, such as the 360-degree peer review.
Recognition must be value-based
Values-based recognition is a way to encourage teams to work toward the organization’s vision. A shared set of values will reinforce the idea that it percolates through the organization. Recognizing an employee’s contribution will add value to the culture you’re trying to foster until it becomes ingrained in all employees. Values-based recognition also ties tangible actions to the values and goals of the organization.
With such a significant impact on the business, organizations must endeavor to design a robust employee recognition program and make it integral to employee engagement efforts. With the rise in automation and disruption, leadership in organizations has begun to see the scope of a results-driven workforce and one that must be retained.
Best practices for creating an Effective Employee Recognition program
A full-featured platform that ensures the employees are being engaged through positive recognition makes it easy for organizations to give employees their due. A strong organization will follow best practices for an efficient and effective recognition program by defining clear objectives and criteria.
- Develop a well-mapped recognition strategy that includes aligning employee recognition with business objectives and employee expectations.
- Define a clear recognition program with objectives and criteria
- Develop a measurement process with performance metrics.
- Link recognition with opportunities
- Implement easy onboarding across the board
- Devise day-to-day, formal and informal recognition processes to call out exceptional performance.
- Administer rewards, both intrinsic and extrinsic, that are meaningful and motivational.
- Analyze and measure the recognition program’s effectiveness with data analytics and continuous feedback with employee engagement surveys.
- Create a culture of growth with microlearning initiatives accessible from anywhere and on any device.
Examples of Measurable Criteria for Employee Recognition
Following are some of the examples of measurable criteria for employee recognition:
- Sales Performance Metrics: Meeting or exceeding sales targets, closing significant deals.
- Customer Satisfaction Ratings: High customer satisfaction scores, positive feedback.
- Productivity and Efficiency: On-time project completion, increased output.
- Quality of Work: Error-free work, high accuracy.
- Innovation and Creativity: New improvements or products, innovative contributions.
- Leadership and Teamwork: Successful project leadership, strong teamwork.
- Customer Retention: High retention rates, reduced churn.
- Cost Savings: Implementing cost-saving measures, expense reduction.
- Safety and Compliance: Accident-free days, regulatory compliance.
- Attendance and Punctuality: Perfect attendance, punctuality.
- Professional Development: Completing training, skill improvement.
- Customer Acquisition: Bringing in new customers, high conversion rates.
- Project Milestones: On-time milestone achievement, project success.
- Feedback from Peers and Managers: Positive feedback, consistent improvement.
- Community or Charity Involvement: Volunteering hours, community impact.
- Process Improvement: Efficient process changes, resource savings.
Conclusion
Understanding the criticality of employee recognition programs is one thing; implementing it is a whole other challenge. The right software would be easy to use and customizable to suit your business needs and work culture. The performance management system can also help initiate a rewards program that motivates and engages the talent pool within the organization.
Thanks to available technology, the employee recognition program can be embedded into the performance management tool to ensure a seamless and consistent delivery of the recognition program. Even better, the system can be configured on a mobile app.
After all, employee recognition programs are vital to creating an inclusive, empathetic, values-based, and purpose-driven organization. When done right, these programs can make every employee look forward to coming into work every day and raise the bar on achieving due recognition as the ‘best place to work’ with a direct impact on the bottom line.
