An employee recognition program is ideal for driving employee engagement in an organization. Therefore many recruiters are willing to include it in their talent acquisition strategy.
Employees getting no recognition is one of the reasons why employees change their jobs and move to other organizations.
So, this article helps you to implement the employee recognition program in your organization effectively.
What is employee recognition?
Employee recognition for recruiters might mean showering the employees with rewards and a lot of incentives. But that is not the case.
The real meaning of employee recognition is to show acknowledgement and appreciation towards every employee. It is about telling the employees how much you value them and that too frequently.
Employees are looking to get noticed for their work. Small praise from the employers work wonders for the employees.
Why is employee recognition important for your company?
The main purpose of employee recognition is to make employees fulfilled and valued. Companies that engage in employee recognition programs experience a 50% rise in productivity levels. Here are some reasons employee recognition is important for the organization:
- It improves employee engagement
- It helps to retain top talent
- Boosts morale
- It encourages high performance
- Retain the business success
- Create a culture of self-improvement
Types of areas to focus on in an employee recognition program
There are three areas where a company needs to focus employee recognition efforts. Let’s check them out one by one:
1. Peer recognition
Benefits of peer recognition:
- Employees spend a large portion of their time interacting with their peers. Therefore, having opportunities for peer to peer recognition.
- Peers get to notice the work that is unnoticed by the managers.
- Peers who recognise others in their team will have a positive influence on the relationships within the organization.
2. Team-based recognition
Benefits of team-based recognition:
- The whole team enjoys the praise from the recognition and nobody feels they get overlooked.
- It motivates people to work together.
- Employees work towards a common goal as a team.
- Cross-training amongst the team members gets easier.
3. Manager to employee recognition
Benefits of a manager to employee recognition
- Managers are providing the recognition. Therefore the value of recognition increases.
- Recognition gets validated by a person at an authoritative level, removing any bias.
Key elements to implement an employee recognition program
To build a successful employee recognition program, one needs to know the elements before progressing with the program.
Every company tends to implement employee recognition programs in different ways. But certain elements must get featured in every employee recognition program. Here are the key elements of the employee recognition program explained in brief:
#1. Ensure that employee incentives are meaningful
It is one of the vital aspects of rewards and recognition programs. Employee incentives can make or break how effective your employee recognition program is.
Certain employees have various demands.
Some prefer intrinsic rewards and other value extrinsic rewards like increase pay and all.
It is the company that needs to conduct an analysis, what the employees need the most as incentives. An employee recognition program that doesn’t understand what their employees need will underperform eventually and employees would get demotivated.
Therefore, the company must show that employees are at the centre of their incentive program.
#2. Communication must be clear
The staff has to be aware of the reward programs that are available to them. If they do not know the details and the process, they will stay demotivated.
Lack of communication creates confusion b/w employer and employee. And lack of communication does the opposite.
Ensure employees are aware of how the programme works, what the rewards are and how to attain them.
#3. Peer to peer recognition
Peer to peer recognition is necessary for a company and holds the top management recognition value. Getting appreciated from co-workers brings a sense of satisfaction to employees.
It ensures that employees get respected by their colleagues, rather than getting the feeling of bias or unfair treatment. It automatically improves the satisfaction levels and the team engagement on the whole.
#4. Employee recognition program must integrate with business values
The basic rule of a successful employee recognition program is it must integrate with the objectives and culture of the business.
It ensures that employee engagement is going on for the reasons effectively helping the business culture. As every business has its own identity, and the purpose of an employee recognition program is to enhance it.
Therefore, a recruiter needs to understand the company goals and design the employee recognition program accordingly.
#5. Evaluation of the Program's Efficiency
The productivity, business results, and brand value of a business are all influenced by your recognition programme. It is necessary to assess the program's effectiveness.
Make other business decisions based on data from your recognition programme. Investigate whether any team or employee is isolated, examine how teams are linked, and facilitate collaboration where necessary. Make improvements where you can after you have collected actionable data.
These are the key elements that a company/recruiter must keep in mind working with the employee recognition program.
Ideas for employee recognition programs
Here are some ideas for employee recognition programs from which you can take some ideas and implement them.
- The employee of the month
- Yearly or quarterly reviews
- Top performer awards
- Celebrations of life events
- Immediate appreciation with heartfelt words
- Make the recognition on social media
Summing it up
Recognizing employees is necessary for every company. No company can survive for long without giving value to its employees.
A perfectly implemented employee recognition program helps to keep your team well connected, keep the bias away, improves employee engagement, making it easier for everyone to work together for a common goal. Therefore, a modern recruiter includes an employee recognition program in their talent acquisition strategy to help the company grow. Hope, this article helps you to build a strong employee recognition program.
