Employee recognition comes in many shapes and sizes. Recognition can be public or privately given. It can be manager-led, company-given, or peer-based. Recognition has many benefits, including its ability to decrease employee burnout.
Sometimes it can be easy to confuse the benefits of recognition with the reason for employee recognition. Recognition helps to build employee trust, but building employee trust isn’t the reason employers recognize employees. It’s a side benefit.
When managers fail to remember the reasons and purpose for employee recognition, it can become automatic, stale, and lose its power to enhance employee lives.
Benefits of (but not the Reasons Behind) Recognition Programs
Good recognition (consistent, personal, and specific) has the power to bring about amazing results in the workplace. Recognition can increase retention, help with new employee recruiting, and decrease burnout. It can improve performance, increase engagement, and improve the overall well-being of employees. It increases trust and builds team cohesiveness.
But, those are not generally the goals of a recognition program. These perks are advantages but not the objective of the program.
Imagine if a company started a company-wide recognition program for the intent of increasing recruitment opportunities. In that case, they would likely focus on employees who are visible to outsiders, possibly ignoring other employees. They would blast recognition to the outside world instead of considering the personal recognition style of the recognized employee.
The employer could very effectively blunder through recognition, trampling on employee satisfaction and destroying employee trust. Employees would feel that recognition was fake and recognize that the purpose was for an outside show.
Frequent Benefits of a Good Recognition Culture:
- Increase retention
- Increased engagement
- Improves performance
- Helps with recruitment
- Helps avoid burnout
- Improves well-being and mental illness
- Increases trust
- Improves team cohesiveness
- Builds loyalty to the employer
- Increases connection to the job role
Goals of a Recognition Program
Some of the benefits of recognition are suitable goals. For example, employee recognition can greatly improve the well-being of employees and increase communication between employees and employers.
Its critical for employers to identify the goals of the employee recognition program. The wrong goals may cause the program to focus on the wrong priorities and to fail. When identifying the goals and reasons your company is starting an employee recognition program, consider the following questions:
- Why do we recognize employees? Is it to “encourage” better performance or to show appreciation?
- What value to we hope to gain from an employee recognition program? Are we striving to increase engagement and increase employee loyalty (decreasing turnover)? Is this a primary or a secondary goal we hope to achieve with results?
- What budget do we have for employee recognition? Don’t forget to account for the local expenditures of managers accurately. It’s probably more than you realize.
- What has created the desire to create an employee recognition program? Is it motivated by a desire to be competitive, desperation to cut attrition costs, or a need to increase employee morale and culture?
Regardless of the reasons for starting or changing an employee recognition program, it’s important to understand those driving motives and goals. This helps managers and executives to better assess how they wish to implement the new recognition culture.
Common Reasons Employers Start Recognition Programs:
- To stay competitive
- To express appreciation or gratitude to employees
- Get refocus employees on work
- Improve performance
- Create “feel good” experiences
- Engage employees
- Improve retention
- Build or improve company culture
- Increase motivation
- Build connection
- Build teams cohesiveness
- Highlights corporate priorities/values
Some Recognitions Are Better Than Others
Among employees, not all recognition is created equal. Certain forms of recognition are more powerful motivators than others. Recognition from peers build greater teams, but recognition from managers tends to motivate the employee toward team goals better. Company recognition gives bragging rights than other recognition doesn’t provide.
And the way recognition is given makes a difference too. Private recognition often feels more personal, while public recognition helps to motivate others on the team.
But, one type of recognition tends to outshine all other variations: Peer recognition. Peer recognition has the ability to inspire the greatest number of results. It is usually personal, and specific, and builds engagement among both parties.
Employers should not leave out peer recognition in their recognition programs. It should be utilized and encouraged.
But, it should not be the only form of employee recognition. Manager-led recognition is critical to solidifying a company culture and creating a bonded team. And corporate recognition fills a role for long-term employees when service awards are done correctly.
How to Get Started
When creating a recognition program, meet with all the key players. Discuss the purposes and goals of the recognition program. Decide on the forms of recognition that will be used.
Many managers tend to lean toward physical gifts and certificates. But, non-physical recognition is often more important to employees than physical tokens of appreciation.
Employees place recognition such as autonomy, increased responsibility (and trust), mentoring, flexible schedules, remote work, experiences, and management support as more important than physical gifts.
As you plan your employee recognition program, look at gifting employees with intangible gifts instead of physical gifts. Although physical gifts and awards have a place in recognition programs, they are often less effective than intangible benefits.
Next, discuss who will be incharge on implementing the program and training managers and employees on how to use it. Discuss if the program be an official recognition program or an unofficial casual program.
Discuss recognition goals, parameters, and authority of the program. Employees often need to be granted a level of autonomy for peer recognition to work effectively.
Lastly, don’t forget to discuss the Thanks platform with one of our recognition specialists . They can provide valuable information around companies in your specific niche and size.
Conclusion
Clearly identifying the purpose of your recognition program will help you remain focused on the best ways to implement it. Approaching a recognition program with the purpose of showing appreciation to employees and improving company culture has a different path than a recognition program that seeks to measure and tract employee engagement, although good recognition can accomplish both purposes.
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.