3 Ways to Improve Employee Recognition & Reward Good Work
Recognizing your employees might seem like second nature, but there is a lot of value in taking the time to reward a hardworking employee, especially during stressful times of the year. Why is employee recognition important? Employee engagement and recognition encourages employees to not only work harder, but to feel rewarded, appreciated, and happier in the office.
Rewarding top performers for their great work can help to not only reward those particular employees, it can also inspire team members to improve their work performance too. Other benefits of implementing a recognition system is a reduction in employee turnover because effective recognition can improve employee motivation and ensure that employee’s do not feel under-appreciated, which can be a key reason why some people change jobs.
Coming up with easy, affordable, and creative ideas for employee recognition can be tough, so here are three creative employee recognition ideas you can do to improve employee recognition that will help make it public, personal, and fun for the whole office. These employee recognition ideas can be implemented by your human resources team in your own company, to help provide positive feedback and show your true company values.
#1 Make It Public
What better way to both incentivize and recognize hard work than publicizing it. Public recognition can be anything from a shout out in an office-wide email, meeting, or phone call. A lot of offices have started adding an employee spotlight of the week or employee of the month to company pages and emails whenever an employee does something particularly impressive. Utilizing social media to recognize your best employees is another great way to make recognition public. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are all great platforms to use for this. Employees will then have the option to share their success on their own pages, all of which incentivize them to do impressive things in the workplace and beyond.
#2 Make It Personal
While publicizing employee recognition can motivate employees to work hard, some people prefer more personal modes of recognition. Personalized recognition is a great way to treat your employees with both physical rewards, as well as an activity or experience. Host an awards ceremony at the end of the year complete with certificates and awards for each person. Some fun awards could be; Most Creative Employee, Best Customer Service, Friendliest Employee. Creating an award or certificate that recognizes everyone in the office is a fun way to have both an inclusive and productive office.
Another personalized reward is finding out an employee’s personal interests and activities so that when they do something worth being recognized, the office can treat them to tickets to their favorite sports team, or a brand new cookbook if the employee enjoys cooking. Or perhaps some swag that aligns with these interests.
Making employee appreciation personal allows the employee to feel uniquely special and crucial to the office, further promoting that happy and productive work environment every office strives to have.
#3 Make It Fun
Overall, employee recognition should be fun. Whether the recognition is an object or an experience, ensuring that the reward leaves a smile on the receiver’s face should be the ultimate goal of employee recognition. Gift cards are nice, but there is not a lot of thought behind them. Instead order custom mugs, branded water bottles, or unique desk organizer that have funny, encouraging, and personalized messages on them. This way, employees can keep and the objects as long as they want, and they will be a reminder of all of their hard work and dedication.
Or treat a successful employee, or team of employees to a free lunch or breakfast of their choice. Providing food for individuals or an entire team is a great way to incentivize both hard work and teamwork. This type of employee reward is also great for peer recognition and helping with the overall company culture.
The last and perhaps the most fun idea is to throw an employee recognition party at the office. The party is a great place to hand out personalized certificates and other fun swag. A party is the perfect way to let employees feel appreciated as a whole, which further incentivizes employee collaboration, as well as providing a feeling of office community.
When you reward employees together, everyone gets a boost in morale, which is great for team building and employee satisfaction.
