Employee recognition programs and their advantages

Employee recognition programs

Employee recognition is one of the most critical ingredients for establishing a positive employee experience in your organization. Your employees and teams will get far more happy and engaged when you make them feel that their work is appreciated and valued by your organization. However, coming up with an employee recognition program can be a tad too tough at times. Whether you are about to initiate an employee recognition program in your organization or are looking to revamp your existing programs, the following collection of programs will help you to hit the nail on its head right from the start!

Employee recognition programs

It is no secret that more and more organizations are realizing the importance of employee recognition programs. It helps them to keep the workforce engaged, the employee attrition rate low and establish a robust organizational culture. Employees who are consistently recognized and appreciated at their organizations tend to stay in their organizations for a longer period of time. If you want to double your employee satisfaction and retention rate, prioritize having recognition programs as a core part of your organization. Sounds like a no-brainer, isn’t it?

Employee recognition is all about acknowledging the work and contribution of the employees and teams of your organization. It helps you in establishing an emotional connection between your organization and employees, all while supporting the work done by them and staying authentic to your organizational values. The creative and effective employee recognition ideas explained below with help you in making your employees feel valued, respected, and cherished.

What are the best employee recognition programs?

1. Shout out on social media

In the majority of the situations, public recognition implies giving recognition in front rest of the employees and teams of the organization. However, social media gives you a tremendous opportunity for recognizing your employees in front of a wider audience. This serves as public recognition on steroids. This is extremely valuable in organizations where the performance of the employees has a direct influence on the customers or clients. Showing the abilities of your managers, sales representatives and other such customer-facing employees will lead to having a direct and positive influence on how much your company is trusted by its audience. Moreover, it motivates your team to put their best foot forward. 

2. Give recommendations on LinkedIn

Often organizations get a little hesitant in doing this as they think they are helping their employees in landing a new job. Little do they know that it is extremely unlikely that the employee will just leave as their current organization helped them in enhancing their resume. In fact, recognizing the employees publicly will inspire them to stay and work more efficiently. Plus, giving LinkedIn recommendations is simple and quick. This is an incredible and creative way to publicly recognize your employees and serves as a signal that your organization is happily investing in the professional development of its workforce. 

3. Promote peer-to-peer recognition

Encouraging your teams to give each other recognition is of the easiest ways to ensure that everyone is receiving the praise that they deserve. Your employees interact with each other more often than they do with their managers and leaders. Therefore, it is no surprise that the employees are in a more suited position to provide relevant recognition for all types of achievements. There are multiple ways through which your employees can give their peers the deserved recognition. If you want peer-to-peer recognition to become the norm at your organization, you might have to incentivize it with recognition, rewards, or maybe both. 

4. Use employee care packages

Recognize your employees by rewarding them with a care package loaded with an assortment of commodities that implies that your organization cares for them. These can include hand-written notes, wholesome snacks, gift certificates, and items that will bring value to them. Collecting such different types of items and packaging them together will deliver a bigger impact than a single gift. Make sure these packages are indeed personal and you customize them as per the linking of the specific employee. This will really work wonders and make your employee feel valued and appreciated. 

5. Day off after attaining the big goal

This is one of the most famous ideas that is widely practiced at some of the top-performing organizations. Time off is crucial for all employees, and yours are no exception. Whenever your team successfully finishes a big project, give them a day off. After all, they deserve it as they went beyond their limits and put in the work required to complete a huge project. The most important bit here is to take the time to recognize the reason your employees are getting this extra day off. Even though it may appear to be redundant, send the team an email announcing the reason for the day off and thank everyone for their highly valuable contribution. If possible, try to add a short video to make this announcement as it will make the employees feel a lot more special than just a mere line of email text. 

Establishing a great employee recognition program will only require you to have a handful of effective employee recognition ideas. In short, the above-explained points are exactly what you need to lay an employee recognition program in your organization. Even if you need more assistance, you know the drill – contact us right away! 

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Gaurav Sabharwal

CEO of JOP

Gaurav is the CEO of JOP (Joy of Performing), an OKR and high-performance enabling platform. With almost two decades of experience in building businesses, he knows what it takes to enable high performance within a team and engage them in the business. He supports organizations globally by becoming their growth partner and helping them build high-performing teams by tackling issues like lack of focus, unclear goals, unaligned teams, lack of funding, no continuous improvement framework, etc. He is a Certified OKR Coach and loves to share helpful resources and address common organizational challenges to help drive team performance. Read More

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