Employee recognition programs help employers recruit, retain and develop exceptional employees. For this reason, I think employee recognition should be part of all organizations because it contributes to employee satisfaction and retention.
By rewarding top performers, some companies can avoid costly turnover, especially if the rewards are immediate, appropriate and personal.
Employees want (and need) to be recognized for a job well done. Rewards and recognition respond to this need by validating performance and motivating employees to continue to improve.
Companies will note that rewarding and recognizing individuals for performance not only affects the person being recognized, but other employees in the organization as well.
Recognition programs and positive reinforcement are needed in every organization.
Types of Employee Recognition Programs
Creating a balance of formal and informal recognition programs is a recommended practice and is an effective way to keep employees motivated and happy.
Formal recognition programs could include:
- Service awards based on tenure—This type of reward is pretty common in lots of companies.
- Employee of the Month/Quarter/Year awards.
- Performance-linked bonuses.
- Monetary awards for money-saving suggestions that improve the company’s products, services or processes—oftentimes these suggestions can save a company millions of dollars; therefore, you want to make sure that the award is reflective of the cost savings for the company.
- Annual trips or conference invitations based on outstanding performance.
Informal recognition programs are very inexpensive in hard dollars and focus on saying, “Thank you” to employees in creative ways, often involving praise in public. I’ve seen a lot of companies moving toward a more informal employee recognition program, especially in these tough economic times.
Informal recognition programs could include:
- A hand-written, personal note from an employee’s manager.
- On-the-spot awards—These awards would recognize an employee for doing something correctly as it is happening—for example, giving a customer excellent service on a phone call that just came in. Awards can include things such as a gift card to a restaurant, a voucher for movie tickets, a gift card for a retail establishment, etc.
- Celebrating employee occasions, such as birthdays.
- Communicate “kudos” received from clients or customers and sharing this recognition with the entire company—You can do this simply by including the kudos in your company’s monthly newsletter. You could also “publish” kudos by talking about them during an employee meeting.
Employee recognition programs—both formal and informal—can be very motivating to everyone, but especially to those who are being rewarded.