Employee recognition is critical to creating an environment of appreciation, but there are many aspects of employee recognition and it can be hard for managers and executives to incorporate employee appreciation into company culture.
Thanks makes incorporating recognition into company culture easier. Check out some of the features that makes it easy to recognize employees for a fantastic job!
Budget Helps Employers Make Recognition More Effective
Setting aside a designated budget for employee recognition can help to make recognition more effective and curtail spending. When employers don’t set aside a budget for recognition, managers often use company funds to motivate and recognize their teams, but those funds aren’t always used in the most effective ways. And recognition can feel patched and uneven across the corporation.
Thanks Budget allows administrators to set aside funds by team managers, and to even set aside a budget for peer-to-peer recognition. Peer recognition is the most effective recognition and can also be one of the hardest forms of recognition to build into the culture.
Thanks features make it easy to build employee appreciation into company culture and help engage employees through recognition.
Use Memories To Recognize and Celebrate Success
Reinforce the positive vibes for your employees through videos and photos of past successes and celebrations. Memories allows you to create videos and share them with employees easily and simply. The possibilities are endless.
Create a memory when employees reach employment anniversaries. Memories allows you to invite a group of team members to write testimonials, share memories or upload photos to the memory. Colleagues can assign recognition badges to acknowledge the employee’s successes.
Administrators approve the submissions and send the final video to the employee on their anniversary date.
Use Memories to celebrate corporate anniversaries also! Share the successes and accomplishments of your team as you celebrate a big anniversary. Recognize how your entire team has played a pivotal role in the community by collecting client feedback, community leaders’ comments, and more. Then, share the final video to the whole company!
Studies show that storytelling and vision are critical for organizational success. When employees know what the purpose is of the company, how they benefit humanity, and what part of the story they belong to, engagement and loyalty increase. Use Memories as a catalyst for storytelling to your employees and as a way to emphasize the corporate vision.
Use Announce to Broadcast Success and Recognize Employees
The Announce feature of Thanks allows managers to announce big wins to the entire company or to specific teams or groups. Announce celebrations, company parties, or other events.
Announce provides another outlet for recognition because you can announce a major challenge that has been overcome. Recognize the team that faced and conquered the challenge or had the success. Announce the company party or any other event. Set reminders and post about important dates.
Announce can be used to welcome new team members as part of your onboarding process. Studies show that the first 90 days are critical for new hires and their success. Announcing new employees provides a way for the team to get to know them and welcome them to the team.
Announce creates a way to communicate to the entire company, reinforcing success, and adding another layer to recognition.
Activate Gift and Inspire Greater Peer Recognition
The Gift feature of Thanks provides a way for employees to recognize each other and to share rewards with them. A colleague can send a note of appreciation to another employee and share some of their reward points as a “thank you!” Points can then be redeemed for awards.
Receiving employees are notified of the gift and note of appreciation. Peer-to-peer recognition has been shown to be the most effective and critical type of recognition for employee engagement and company loyalty.
But, not all employees prefer to recognize each other in the same ways. Gift provides another way for employees to express their appreciation for each other and participate in saying “thank you!”
Gift is now part of the Celebrate Feature for upgraded users.
Core Rewards
Managers and designated others can nominate employees for an award. The administrator can approve the nomination within seconds and the employee is displayed, with their award and manager’s comments, on the Wall of Fame.
Some of the awards include Service Awards, Team Award, Values Prize Winner, Individual Contributor, Above and Beyond. Employers can create their own awards.
The employee is notified of the award and other employees can vote and add appreciation to the employee related to this award.
Core rewards provides another way for both managers and peers to recognize a great job.
Use Quiz for Games, Training, and Events
Create a Quiz to use for education and training of specific departments, onboarding, or events. You can also use Thanks Quiz to educate employees about core values, little-known facts about the origin of the company, or corporate who’s-who’s facts about officers. Quizzes can be used as a fun way to introduce information.
They can also be used to gauge what employees know about the organization, a specific process within a department, or about best practices. Use them in ethics training events.
Or, use quizzes for recognition events. Quizzes allow for single choice, multiple choice, or True/False choices. Give away points that can be used for redemption prizes to quiz participants, or to those with the highest score!
Include Your Team In Event Planning Through Polls
Demonstrating that you value your team’s input is an important part of the recognition process. Employees whose opinions are valued and who get to claim ownership of their success through decision making within their realms of responsibility are more engaged and bring greater success to their organizations.
One of the ways you can show employees you value their input is through the Poll Feature on Thanks. Poll allows you to gauge the temperature in your organization toward specific topics, which you design.
Use polls to find out what type of recognition your team values the most. For example, poll the team to find out what type of group activity they prefer. Or, use polls as an educational opportunity to create fun games and polls to use during meetings, remote parties (link), or to learn more about the possible issues with onboarding.
The options are endless. Find out how employees feel about possible decisions. This can give you a quick reading on important topics and decisions.
Our Favorite Use of Polls: Use polls to bring the team together for fun questions. “Which superhero does June in HR remind you of the most: A)Thor: She has great power, but shows incredible humility B) Iron Man: She’s incredible at taking honest feedback C) Captain America: She leads by example every time! D) Wonder Woman: For always choosing the greater good”
Another example of a fun poll is to base it around company culture. Ask about unknown facts and let your employees choose the answer they think is correct. Then use those results as part of your fun at the next company get together.
Polls will allow the administrator to view the results. Participants can be recognized through the Say Thanks feature.
Empower Employees Through Recognition Choices: Survey
Use the Survey Feature to find out what forms of recognition means the most to your team. Meaningful recognition has a greater impact. From polling types of recognition to choosing a place, theme, or adventure, Polls makes it easier to really plan according to your team’s needs.
Check out these popular Poll examples.
In celebration of our fantastic team members, we want to provide you with the recognition you not only deserve, but want. Please choose which way you prefer to be recognized.
- Individual Prizes: I’d prefer something I can use such as a gift certificate, airline voucher, or Company merchandise.
- Team Event: I’d love to take the day off (pay included) to adventure with the rest of the team.
- Please give me an extra PTO day and a certificate
- Public shout-out. Give me glory and honor!
- Let’s volunteer! I get my best reward by serving the community
Or, use Polls to decide on a party theme, a community service, or to narrow down another company event.
A Team Adventure won our company polls for the next team event. Please help us decide which event is the most meaningful to you!
- Something that gets my heart beating: Skydiving, a Helicopter Ride, or Zip Lining.
- Keep me on the ground! GoCart Racing, Rock Climbing, or Ropes Course
- I’m an animal lover: Horseback Riding, Local Farm excursion, or visit the Wildlife Habitat.
- Rest and Relaxation: Spa Day or Massage.
Regardless of what you choose for your next team event or how you recognize your team, allowing them choice in the experience through Polls will make it even more meaningful to them.
Insights Make Recognition Trackable and Effective
Tracking recognition helps managers and administrators to see the impact of recognition. Through Insights, managers can track what types of recognition the organization participates in the most. Insights can guide managers to how the recognition program influences corporate culture. Insights will reveal which employees are the greatest advocates of the company on social media and provide a great many other insights about the emotional environment of your employees.
Through Insights, recognition can be aligned to make the greatest impact on attrition, awards, and team growth. Peer recognizers are easily identified so admins can see who receives and gives the greatest amount of recognition. Insights also make a
Encourage Creativity and Brainstorming Through Idea
Idea provides a sort of digital blackboard for employees to collaborate on ideas and brainstorm processes. Colleagues can add input, upload documents, and vote on ideas. Administrators can approve ideas. Individuals contribute changes, brainstorm, and discuss various aspects of the idea.
Idea provides a way for employees to collaborate even when their schedules conflict or they are working in different locations or remotely.
Incorporating Idea into your company culture allows employees to take initiative on special projects, use their creativity to improve the workspace, and have a greater say in the work they do. For many employees, the ability to create and own projects is a greater form of recognition than a certificate or cash prize
Peers Can Reward Peers Through Spot
The Spot feature of Thanks provides a social, monetary, and instant peer-to-peer recognition. There are three key reasons peer-to-peer recognition is so effective. Those reasons include these elements:
- Timely: Peer recognition happens in the instant and provides immediate, positive feedback. Timely positive feedback effects greater change in good behavior. Peers recognition doesn’t wait until a “big event” or corporate meeting to provide appreciation of successes.
- Social: Peer recognition is often more important to employees than manager recognition. One of the reasons for this is that peers aren’t motivated by outside influences to recognize employees. The “thanks” or appreciation, or recognition given is sincere and comes out of a friendship or coworker relationship. That makes it meaningful. Many employees that do not express organizational loyalty still express loyalty to their team members in studies.
- Monetary: Money as an award is an effective way to motivate positive actions, but money as a reward can create motivational issues. Spot creates monetary awards that have been shown to be effective in emphasizing best practices and teamwork.
In addition, Spot awards also enhance team relationships, collaboration, and corporation. Spot allows employees to recognize each other and designates an effective use of recognition funds into peer recognition. Recognition is organically given, meaning it’s not motivated for corporate appearance. Through Spot, other employees can see the recognition and add comments of their own words of appreciation. It gamifies peer recognition.
Spot is now a part of the Celebrate Feature for upgraded users.
Give Meaningful Awards Through A Company Store And Rewards
Recognizing employees with a gift they will use, instead of toss or give away, became easier through the company store. Thanks allows employers a simplified way to award employees’ great habits and behavior through their own personalized company store. Employees who have been gifted or awarded points for great behavior can redeem their reward points for gifts they want and will use.
The Company store can be filled with gift cards and vouchers from hundreds of companies. In addition, employer merchandise, individual prizes, and other gifts can be added by employer administrators for employees to redeem. The Company Store provides a way for employers to add their own personal touch and customize awards for their employees.
- Thanks Store has hundreds of pre-populated options for employees to choose from
- The Company Store has customized experiences and merchandise specific for each employer. For example, “lunch with the CEO” can be added as a recognition reward.
Stop FOMO Through Nudges
Team comodare builds cohesiveness of the team and increases employee satisfaction and success. But, it can also lead to FOMO, or fear of missing out, when a team member is away from the office, or working remotely.
Nudges is a feature that allows employees to stay connected and eliminates FOMO. It lets employees participate in conversations about team celebrations. They won’t miss the fun jostling just because they aren’t in the same area as their team.
Send Emails To Specific Groups or at Regular Interval Through Campaigns
Use Campaigns to send email notifications of recognition events and upcoming celebrations with the team. Campaigns can be sent to specific groups or sent to the whole company. Or, schedule an email highlighting the employee of the month.
Emails can be scheduled to go out so that no matter how busy it gets, recognition emails still go out. This is especially helpful for managers who find themselves busy and have time to write emails in quieter hours of the day, but find themselves swamped during business hours. Emails can go out during the time of the day when more employees will see the email come through and can read it in the moment, before it gets buried.
Through Wish Teams Can Celebrate Individual Employee’s Special Events
Birthdays, Anniversaries, Adoption, the birth of a baby, a new pet, all of these have one thing in common. They are reasons to celebrate. Through Wish, employees can celebrate major events and accomplishments. Ecards are available for Anniversaries, Birthdays, to Say Thank You, Festivals and Holidays.
Colleagues and managers can choose an ecard and send it with a special message that appears on the employee’s social feed. Coworkers and others can comment and like the ecard. This creates a fun social aspect to special events and strengthens engagement between coworkers as they share special events and strengthen bonds. Wish is now part of Celebrate for upgraded users.
Publicly Recognize Star Employee Through A Wall of Fame
It’s pretty common to formally recognize top-notch employees, key executives, and upper-decision makers. But, too often key employees that make a huge difference may remain unknown for the rest of the company.
Incorporate the Thanks Wall of Fame to create a public wall of star employees that can be viewed virtually from anywhere your employees work. A wall of fame is effective in recognizing employees and timeless because employees and their contributions continue to be recognized long after the success through the Wall of Fame.
The Wall of Fame displays all employees who receive recognition. Recognition is categorized by Nomination, Appreciation, and SPOTs. A Wall of Fame creates public recognition and encourages great performance from employees. It often becomes a place where employees visit to see who top performers are and recent accomplishments. The Wall of Fame allows viewers to filter recipients by departments.
New Updates to Thanks
New users of Thanks will find some of the effective recognition features of thanks renamed in their software. The Gifts and Wish functions can not be found under a new Celebrate heading. More updates are near to being announced and upgraded users will get emails and the ability to test these features early.
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition.