8 tips to effective recognition

When your company embraces a modern recognition program and people start appreciating each other’s’ work,  amazing things happen! Trust and engagement go up, morale improves, productivity increases, turnover goes down, and customer satisfaction levels are significantly improved.

To help you get the most out of your recognition program, we have highlighted 8 employee recognition best practices.

1. Make recognition timely: People crave positive feedback, if someone goes above and beyond and does great work, there is no time like the present to recognize that effort. The longer you wait, the less impact your recognition will have. Timely recognition boosts morale, inspires more action, and creates a lot of positive energy.

2. Make recognition specific: Recognition is most effective when it reinforces the specific attitudes, behaviors, and results you want to promote. Random recognitions are much less meaningful than those tied to clearly defined business objectives. By praising specific behaviors, employees have a roadmap for repeated success.

3. Make recognition meaningful: Effective recognition must come with a human touch. It has to be real, sincere, and authentic. You have to really mean it when you give employees recognition. If you remove the human touch, the recognition loses its meaning.

4. Appropriate in measure: Recognition should match effort and results, or it loses its effectiveness. To make recognition count , it’s important that sufficient effort was exerted in the achievement of a goal. Coming to work on time (in most cases) probably won’t make the cut when it comes to recognition.

5. Implement peer to peer recognition: Recognition from management is critical, however research shows employees feel much better when they are recognized by their peers. Your peers know how hard you work, and what you do on a daily basis – so when they say “Thank You” for your efforts the impact is much greater.

6. Tie recognition to core values: To intentionally shape the actions of your employees, you must integrate your companies core values into the daily workflow. Connecting employee recognition to your companies core values ensures they become an integral part of your organization’s environment.

7. Customization: Every organization is unique, therefore recognition should not be one size fits all. Customize your recognition to the unique needs of your employees, give them some choice and flexibility in how they want to be recognized and rewarded.

8. Create a culture of recognition: Recognition is a powerful tool, and when used properly can be highly effective in creating a work environment that promotes teamwork and collaboration, critical components of high-performance cultures. Be careful not to use  recognition to create a hyper-competitive toxic environment where one employee is pitted against another.

With these ideas in mind, you are well on your way to creating a recognition-rich culture! Remember, recognition drives engagement, and engagement drives business outcomes. As a current Gallup study has proven, with organizations focused on recognition experiencing 44% higher profits, 50% increased productivity, and 31% lower voluntary turnover rates!

If you want your employees to go above and beyond….you have to go above and beyond….with effective Recognition!

2018-12-31T17:02:56+00:00 January 17th, 2018|Culture, HR, Latest Articles|