Everyone likes to be appreciated and rewarded for good work.
A good employee is certainly a happy employee. If your office has become a place of drudgery and deadlines, rather than a place of high morale and effectiveness, then, an employee recognition programme is exactly what you need to spruce up the workplace. A proper employee recognition programme should be one that awards excellent work, rather than punishes those who may feel challenged in their current positions. It should give your employees something to work towards, in addition to providing an opportunity to throw a fun awards ceremony.
To get you headed down the right path, let us look at some of the great perks of an employee recognition programme.
• Something to work towards — Employee recognition awards can provide employees a goal to chase. Contrary to what some tedious managers may believe, the basic urge to be rewarded for good work does not disappear after one crosses adolescence. Even mature, working adults crave to be told that their work is good and worthwhile. Think of an employee recognition award as an “A+” for grown-ups.
• Great office party opportunity—An employee recognition awards ceremony can be a great bonding experience for myriad employees who may not commonly interact with each other. A primary way to ensure high employee morale is to encourage employees to engage in plenty of healthy bonding opportunities. While the ultimate aim of your company or office is certainly to be productive, there should also be a strong sense of camaraderie. This promotes a team mentality, rather than unhealthy competition. A proper employee recognition awards ceremony can certainly create a little bit of competition amongst employees. This, however, is healthy competition, and also very good for productivity.
Organising an employee awards ceremony or ordering hundreds of engraved plaques can certainly seem like a very daunting task.
• A permanent memento—An employee recognition award in the form of an engraved plaque can become a treasured lifelong memento for recipients. Employees who are content in their positions and appreciate their bosses’ approval will certainly treasure an employee recognition plaque. When designing your awards/plaques, it is always a good idea to include the employee’s full name, in addition to the award title. This personalises the plaque, and renders it very valuable to the lucky employee who receives it.
Organising an employee awards ceremony or ordering hundreds of engraved plaques can certainly seem like a very daunting task. However, these efforts will prove themselves very worthwhile, and eventually pay for themselves in the form of increased productivity. Remember: An employee may be hired at your company to complete a task and increase company earnings, but no person can be defined simply by their position. If you go the extra inch to regard your employees for their unique skills and abilities, you will soon see an increase in both output and morale.
Vantage Circle, an all-in-one employee engagement platform, helps organisations to recognise employee achievements and promote positive activity through its various rewards and incentive programmes.
A simple and easy-to-use employee recognition platform with rewards distribution system & social recognition, Vantage Circle offers the best employee practices evaluation, some of which are as follows:
• Define a set of values or behaviours that the organisation seeks to have within; clarify and make widely known and understood the exact expectation from the employees.
• Create a transparent and easy-to-use platform to recognise the employees; to eliminate any traces of favoritism, but also celebrate the recognitions throughout the company, and instill a healthy level of competition among employees.
• Recognise the behaviour in a timely fashion, preferably immediately after its display. After all, what gets recognised gets repeated!
• Reward the outcome! Recognition can serve as positive reinforcement to drive the behaviours wished for. However, it is important to reward the result, whether it is a goal or project, to ensure maximum impact on employee engagement.
(The author is CEO, Vantage Circle. The views expressed in this story is that of the author.)
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