Recognition Reboot: 7 Steps To Get Started

Small acts of recognition to make you an HR rock star

It’s time to reboot your recognition strategy… but not sure where to start? Use these 7 simple steps to guide your team through the process.

First of all, identify your company’s current formal and informal recognition programs. Ask your managers what recognition initiatives they like and are using, what’s not working and what they’ve budgeted to cover recognition this year.
 
How to Get Started: Talk to some managers and then create a simple multiple-choice survey to uncover the behaviors, practices, and activities that are being recognized. Remember to ask about both formal and informal recognition initiatives. 
 
SurveyMonkey (free) and Typeform ($) are easy survey tools that work well and collate results for easy analysis and reporting. Depending on your culture, you may want to offer an incentive (Amazon or Starbucks gift cards work well) for managers to complete the survey.

 Look at the data and ask these questions:

 
You may uncover it’s more equitable, cost-effective and efficient to:
 

 

You don’t need to go it alone. A strong recognition partner can guide you through the process and help you launch a successful new program. Consider these 6 criteria when evaluating recognition and reward partners.

Buy-in from your leadership team is critical. Once you’ve completed steps 1-3, present your findings along with a plan of action to leadership. Focus on the financial and cultural ways your programs will encourage more recognition and reduce administration.
 
The best way to obtain ongoing support for your program is to keep leaders excited about the program and to show results.
 
There are all kinds of things you can report on but my advice is to Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS); identify one program goal to benchmark the success of your program; 2 recognition events/employee/month or 80% manager participation or higher retention. Choose one and work toward achieving that goal.
 
Once your program launches provide regular reports on participation to your leadership team AND real-life recognition stories. For example, if you launch a new recognition platform, send your leadership team a few of the kudos employees and managers sent during the week. Stories resonate and show how your efforts are advancing a culture of everyday recognition. You might also suggest leaders book time in their calendar every week to show support for the program by “liking” and “commenting” on recognition events.

A steering committee is needed to make things happen. Include HR and influential employees from a variety of departments; a senior Communications person, IT champion and supportive Executive.
 
You’ll want 8-10 ambassadors who will evaluate vendors, ID criteria, help with communications and decide on awards/rewards.
 
This group can also be instrumental in identifying the recognition scrooges in the organization. Make it their mission to create more buzz and get managers participating in the program. Set a regular committee meeting date to keep team members engaged and plans on track.

What are you going to call your new program? Give it a name and create professional, eye-catching graphics to generate awareness. Floor decals pull up banners, posters and website graphics cut through the clutter and generate excitement. Some clients even create fun videos of leaders challenging employees to sign-up and recognize.
 
Education is paramount to success. Keep the message simple and show WIIFM. Incentives can be a great way to get employees to use the system. Points for signing up or fun non-monetary rewards like having boss clean your desk, leave work early card or lunch with the President are out of the box ways to engage employees in your program.

The more creative and fun, the more buzz and buy-in from the start.
 
Once the program is up and running, get your marketing hat on to perpetuate the momentum. Feature recent kudos in a newsletter, run a holiday raffle campaign, start a friendly competition, offer donation matches, the ideas are unlimited!

There will always be room for improvement and who better to ask than the people you designed the program for! Once your program has been running for six months, run a short pulse check to solicit feedback and incorporate some of the suggestions. Take a look at the data, benchmark against your goal and share with your leadership team.
 
These 7 steps will result in small acts of recognition being multiplied by many, enhancing your culture (and making you look like an HR rock star).
 
Interactive Blog: Random Acts of Recognition