Recognizing the employees of a company or an organization for their hard work and efforts has become really important for bringing in the desired results. Providing employee recognition is paramount these days for achieving success and growth for any company. As a manager or a part of the management team of a company, you must acknowledge the significance of employee recognition, as many different factors that are highly crucial for the success, development, and smooth functioning of your business are enhanced by employee recognition.
Employees are the main foundation and driving force of a company. A company can’t succeed if its employees are neglected. They are not feeling happy or satisfied with their job and the workplace. When the employees of a company are recognized for their achievements, good performance, and efforts, it makes them feel happy, appreciated, and valued. They feel highly engaged with the company and their work. This is why employee recognition and productivity are closely connected.
An engaged workforce can do wonders in terms of bringing in the desired results. Also, employee recognition increases the motivation and productivity levels of the employees, as they feel driven to go above and beyond for the company.
Apart from these, employee recognition also helps with employee retention, as companies with an effective employee recognition program experience a 31% lower voluntary turnover rate. So, you can see how important employee recognition is. But most managers fail to implement a proper employee recognition system and implement one in a careless manner that doesn’t create much impact on the employees. They can take some effective measures to improve their employee recognition system and create a real impact among employees.
If you feel like your recognition process isn’t working properly and not creating your expected impact, you can try going for these measures to improve your employee recognition program and form a long-lasting impression-
Even though employees love to get appreciated by their higher-ups for their good work, they also feel highly uplifted and motivated if their nearest colleagues or teammates provide them with recognition.
Managers or higher-ups get to see a part of the work the employees keep doing for the company and put emphasis on the end results. But the team members and colleagues get a better overview of the work and efforts an employee keeps putting in on a regular basis. Fellow employees get a unique insight into the hard work and contributions of other employees.
You can facilitate a peer-to-peer recognition program at your workplace, and bring these unique and valuable insights into work. If employees get recognized by their peers, it makes them feel highly appreciated, and they get motivated to keep doing a better job. They also get highly engaged with the workplace. Facilitating peer-to-peer recognition will highly improve the employee recognition process at your workplace.
Some companies don’t give much spotlight to their employees, instead, they shine it only on the higher-ups and give them all the exposure. You can do exactly the opposite at your company, and make your employees a part of the identity of your brand online. You can create a brand voice that will showcase the best employees you have at your company. You can do so through company social media, company blog, podcasts, etc. It will enhance the self-worth of your employees, and their morale will highly increase. They will feel really appreciated and valued. It will increase the overall impact of your employee recognition program a lot.
There are employees at your company who might be doing more work than they are asked to do regularly, might be helping their colleagues out constantly, staying a bit longer at the office more often, giving their everything while working on important projects, or more. You must reward these employees and recognize their efforts and contributions to the company. As they are one of your best employees, you must cherish them and make them feel appreciated, valued, and cared for by providing them with their deserved recognition through various recognition measures and rewards.
If you don’t do so, it will make your employees feel that you don’t care. They might feel valueless and might want to leave the workplace altogether to escape the negative energy. So, make sure to notice the employees that go above and beyond. FOr doing so, you can set a benchmark, and recognize the employees that go the extra mile.
You must not reserve your rewards and recognitions for individual employees only. You need to recognize teams and all their team members too based on their hard work, efforts, and good performance.
You need to remember that when a team does well, it isn’t only because of the individual brilliance of specific employees, it’s also because of the collective efforts of all the members of the team. They all worked together and depended on each other to put on a good performance and bring in the results. You can recognize the specific team members that stand out among the others, but you can do so in a different segment. You must recognize team efforts and recognize the whole team so that other members don’t feel left out, and don’t feel that their contributions went unnoticed. Make sure that all the members of the team feel appreciated, noticed, and valued. It will highly enhance your employee recognition process.
You might want to recognize your employees based on results and performance alone, but it won’t make your employee recognition process much effective. Recognition should also be provided based on the behaviors of employees. Results are not always in the hand of the employees, so instead, you can choose to reward and recognize them for their specific behaviors, and approach towards their work, colleagues, and the overall workplace.
You can recognize their dedication to their work. This will make them feel highly appreciated and valued, and they will feel more inclined to carry on with their good behaviors in the workplace. Also, this way you will be able to promote certain behaviors in the workplace. It will also enhance the entire employee recognition process at your workplace.
While setting up an employee recognition program, make sure that you are making it as unique, impressive, and engaging as possible based on your company culture. Make sure to add a more personal touch to the recognition you provide to your employees so that it makes them feel cared for. It will get them highly engaged. If you manage to go through all the above-mentioned measures while providing recognition, it will boost the morale, satisfaction level, motivation level, and engagement level a lot. In return, your company will enjoy massive growth and success.
