Motivated employees are crucial to a company’s success. Without energized employees who believe in the company’s mission and understand how to achieve it, no company, no matter small or big, can be successful in the long run.
This is where having a solid employee appreciation and recognition program is essential if you want your organization to be successful.
Making sure deserved employees and team members get recognized and appreciated can provide some undeniable benefits, including:
- Ensuring employees feel valued and appreciated
- Establishing a supportive and healthy company culture
- Maintaining high employee morale
- Reduced turnover rate
- Improved interpersonal dynamics and teamwork
- Improved employee loyalty and encouraging long tenure
- Increased engagement and employee productivity
And more.
However, implementing a recognition program can be easier said than done. Every employee is unique and will have different preferences on how they’d like to be appreciated. On the other hand, too much reliance on “traditional” tactics, and your appreciation efforts might seem inauthentic and might not be effective as a result.
To help you on your journey, here we’ve assembled some ideas and examples of creative but effective employee recognition programs you can use right away.
Organizing Employee Appreciation Events
An effective way to appreciate employees is to organize and host an employee appreciation event such as:
Surprise appreciation events: everybody loves surprises, and you can organize surprise celebrations for an employee/team who has achieved certain milestones and/or has performed exceptionally well.
Outings/offsite day: doesn’t have to be something big; take them out to lunch, karaoke, clubbing, and so on. However, you can also organize larger outings when necessary.
Annual appreciation parties: you can make the event regular and give your employees something to look forward to.
These types of events are effective because you give your appreciation and recognition in front of their colleagues. This allows them to feel more valued, which can lead to a boost in morale and motivation. On the other hand, when the other employees show how their colleague is being appreciated, they may also be motivated to achieve similar recognition.
Years Of Service Award
Don’t only focus on recognizing short-term achievements and project success, but you should also appreciate loyalty.
Employee recognition based on work/service tenure can be very effective in lowering your turnover rate and improving retention. The tenured employees can get a boost in motivation and stay engaged, and on the other hand, it can encourage newer employees to stay loyal and committed to the company by seeing their company rewarding employees based on their years of service.
Tangible Employee Recognition Awards
Rewarding employees in a tangible (read: monetary) way might seem like a cliché, but it is popular for a reason: it’s effective for the obvious cause.
We can offer monetary awards in various ways:
Gift cards, employee recognition software like Guusto offer a versatile and reliable way to create a gift cards-based employee recognition program
Bonuses, pretty self-explanatory, but you can use this guide on how to effectively create a bonus program.
Extra paid time off. Make it mandatory if necessary
Free meals (you can also use gift cards in this case)
Remember that a monetary-based employee recognition program doesn’t have to cost too much money. Even a $10 free meal gift card to their favorite restaurant can be very effective when executed well.
Employee Recognition Wall
Another classic thing that stays for a reason: people love it, and it’s effective as a recognition program.
However, just because it’s a classic, doesn’t mean you have to solely rely on traditional, rigid methods of having an employee recognition wall. Be creative: design the wall as attractively as possible, and place the area frequented by a lot of employees (and if possible, customers).
An employee recognition wall is effective for both the recognized employees so they can maintain their performance, but also encourage other employees to increase their performance so they can also be featured on this wall.
Social Media Recognition
In this social media age, it will only make sense to create an employee recognition program on social media.
You can, for example, mention a star employee’s social media handle on the company’s social media profile. With their approval, you can also post a photo or even a video of them.
Personalize your posts: list their job title, unique accomplishments, and what makes them such great employees. Make this a regular thing, for example, weekly or monthly.
Customer Service Recognition
Sometimes the customer service/support team is neglected when it comes to employee recognition and appreciation. You shouldn’t!
Reward your customer service team for meeting their goals or when they receive positive customer feedback. Also, establish a system so you can track their customer service performance so you can reward exceptional customer service.
You can reward these excellent customer service employees with tangible bonuses (i.e. gift cards with Guusto), more flexible scheduling, or even an extra paid day off. With your customer service team being at the forefront of ensuring customer satisfaction, make sure to keep them high in morale.
Professional Development Rewards
Employee recognition doesn’t always have to come with monetary rewards or prizes, but for some types of employees, investment in their professional futures can be more attractive.
On the other hand, providing your employees with continued education, for example, can also benefit your company in building a better and faster team in the long run.
You can offer continuing education opportunities to key employees. However, on a smaller scale, you can also offer tickets to relevant webinars, online classes, and courses they’d like to take.
Wrapping Up
Whether you want to go all out or to start small, it’s important to get things started with a solid employee appreciation strategy.
The seven employee recognition ideas and examples we have shared above can be a solid foundation in developing your employee recognition strategy. However, you can still be creative and develop your own tactics and programs.
Celebrating your team’s successes regularly can help create a work environment where everyone feels appreciated and valued, which can help in maintaining your team’s morale high and improve their productivity.
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