Employee recognition occurs when a manager or a peer recognizes a person’s efforts and/or achievements inside an organization. According to Bersin by Deloitte, 83 percent of organizations suffer from a lack of [employee] “recognition,” while just 17 percent of employees think their managers know how to recognize them properly.
While employee expectations of appreciation and recognition are nothing new, the manner in which recognition is offered must adapt to match the demands of the incoming workforce. By 2020, Millennials made up half of the global workforce, as they are more accustomed to receiving fast, frequent, and personalized feedback.
Communication between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. is blurring as digital media allows for real-time communication to occur anywhere, at any time, and Millenials demand an always-on’ communication loop. This generation’s usage of technology and connection with the digital environment clearly distinguishes them from earlier generations of employees. Managers have increased pressure to communicate and recognize success as a result of their drive to continued learning, ambition, and desire to rise quickly ahead within an organization.
Millennials have transformed the face of the workforce and will continue to do so, bringing new expectations to organizations. As a result, managers will need to broaden the range of recognition options accessible to them in order to come up with new methods to show their appreciation for their staff. While managers will be responsible for setting the bar for employee appreciation, it is HR’s responsibility to offer the systems that enable and support this process.
The Value of Rewards to Humans
Rewarding someone for a job well done is not a novel notion. Whether it’s mythical stories about God’s blessings or historical ones about the role of olive branches in the Olympics, if you think about it, they were all begun in order to appreciate something that exceeded expectations. The industrial revolution, however, legitimized the approach to employee incentives and recognition programs. When and where did workplace recognition begin? What was early workplace recognition like back then? Giving gifts and tokens of appreciation were the basis of recognition. Managers are guilty of piling on unwanted presents such as showpieces to employees as rewards.
Top Obstacles to Your Reward and Recognition Efforts
- By manually awarding and recognizing employees, there is a lack of
- A generic incentives scheme that does not meet the demands of your firm.
- Rewards and recognition are not given out on a regular and timely basis.
- Appreciation is restricted to a subset of the workforce.
- Ignoring the importance of a suitable reward and recognition platform
Why are traditional practices making the process boring and pushing it towards a slow death?
- A command-and-control strategy compelled all employees, whether they wanted to or not, to engage in programs.
- Because they were organizationally motivated, supervisors who were typically in charge of rewarding people had no idea what the employee was up to most of the time.
- Individuals who were not part of a bigger group were not inspired or motivated by impersonal communications.
- Generic incentives were not appealing to everyone. At the end of the day, one size does not fit all.
- Programs frequently felt inauthentic and dull due to the system’s repetitious nature.
Rewards and Recognition 2.0 What Should it Comprise Of?
- Know Your Employee Needs: A rewards and recognition program’s primary goal is to make employees happy. So, the first thing you should think about is determining what makes your staff happy.
Every developing R&R program will need to do a preliminary study. It will aid in the development of a personalized program to meet the interests and needs of employees, increasing the program’s chances of success.
- Determine The Eligibility Criteria, And Award Frequency
Once your workers understand what might lead to awards and recognition, it’s time to inform them about who is qualified for it.
At the same time, you must ensure that the frequency of the incentives is defined, for example, weekly, monthly, or annual, etc. According to research, 71% of highly engaged employees work in firms that acknowledge the staff at least once a month.
Here are some things to think about while deciding on the frequency of awards for a department.
- Do you have adequate departmental finances to meet the awards’ costs?
- Are the number of employees engaging in the program insufficient to make the program viable?
- Is it possible for your staff to share an award title at the same time? Or will it devalue the honor?
- Is the department running any other ongoing recognition programs?
- Fix The Criteria Of Winning
You can deal with it in two steps. First, select how the candidates will be brought into the spotlight. Who will make the decision? Will you implement a nomination system? If yes, decide who can and when they can nominate. Consider filling out a nomination form here.
Second, you must decide how you will choose a winner from the pool of nominated individuals. Combining manager and peer-to-peer recognition can be the most successful.
- Building a culture of Peer-to-Peer Recognition program:
A peer-to-peer appreciation program provides an ideal chance to foster a culture of enhanced communication in the workplace. Overall, it assists a corporation in valuing everyones input.
A good peer recognition program may be advantageous in a variety of ways:
Improved working connections.
Enhances overall team morale.
Increases self-esteem and confidence.
- Personalized Rewards:
The one-size-fits-all approach to personalized rewards is no longer effective for your staff these days. A custom-made award has a long-lasting effect on the receiver’s psyche. When you go out of your way to personalize your award, it establishes a bond between the receiver and the giver.
- Make it user engaging:
The user interface of the R&R software should be straightforward, fluid, and easy to use. Because the application will be used by everyone in the firm, there should be no complex processes.
The application should be enjoyable and simple to use. Gamification in the R&R module can increase involvement by allowing workers to trade incentives or appreciation, establish an internal scoreboard, allocate points, and so on.
Here are a few ideas for employee appreciation that will make them feel all warm and joyful on the inside. Check these ideas out:
Gift of Gratitude: Everyone wants to be appreciated, and the effect of a spoken or digital “thank you” is unrivaled by any other form.
Anniversaries and Birthdays: On their day, you must make them feel special. And a cake and a digital Happy Birthday wish never fail to make your staff feel appreciated.
Personalized Note: Digital badges with a note are a very personal kind of acknowledgment that any employee would appreciate.
Hall Of Fame: Having a wall of fame in the office, or digitally showcased on a portal, where successes or achievements are exhibited for the entire workforce to view is the perfect way to top off the employee appreciation cake.
Celebrate Work Anniversaries: Employee milestones, like work anniversaries, are a terrific opportunity to show your appreciation.
Performance-based Recognition: Performance-based awards have their allure, and they have long proven to be a fascinating source of recognition.
Acknowledge Non-Work Achievements: You must constantly make an effort to recognize employees’ outside-work-related accomplishments.
The Rewards & Recognition programs should constantly be updated to keep up with the time and employee expectations. Rewards are perceived differently by different people and so it is important to explore and execute what works.
Go up and beyond the conventional reward systems and experiment with new technologies and tools to drive appreciation at the workplace.
