How to Create Criteria for Employee Recognition Awards

Why is employee recognition such a good idea? Quite simply, awarding is an easy tool for non-material motivation. Public recognition of the employee’s merit, such as the gratitude of the manager, handshakes, applause, and congratulations from colleagues, are the less tangible but still meaningful awards in such situations.

The material value of the award itself does not matter. The award, in this case, is just an attribute of the award ceremony. The award shows the importance of the employee in comparison with the merits of his colleagues.

Nominations reflect the descriptions of merit and achievements that you have developed. That is why event organisers should learn how to create criteria for employee recognition awards in order to design the best possible awards ceremonies.

Why is employee recognition a good idea

Employee recognition awards categories are an essential element of any awards ceremony as is creating criteria for employee recognition awards. Below are some example criteria for employee recognition awards in the fast food chain industry segment and their corresponding descriptions:

“For contribution to the development of the company” Nomination: Managers and employees who have made an important and recognisable contribution to the development of the company and/or the achievement of its strategic goals are awarded.

“For professionalism and the best results in the workplace” Nomination: Employees who have demonstrated the best results in their work, who have made a significant contribution towards the solution of the challenges facing the enterprise, have completed complex projects, have successfully mastered new areas of work, or have manifested themselves in new positions are awarded.

“For the stable quality of work and loyalty to the company” Nomination: Employees who have demonstrated a consistent high quality of work, have actively participated in solving complex problems, have made suggestions to improve the workflow, have shown the ability for further professional development, have shown a willingness to always follow the interests of the company, or have prevented the company from risks in various situations are awarded.

Depending on your company, you may create any suitable criteria for an employee recognition program and include them in the listings of criteria.

Tips to set up criteria for employee recognition: how to reward employees

There is nothing more demotivating than using the same annual criteria for best employee of the month and rewarding the same employees, setting up quotas for the formation of lists of awards, and so on. That is why many event organisers switch to more advanced means, such as the Judgify online platform.

It makes sense to take the development of nominations seriously and carefully consider the criteria for selecting both the applicants and winners of awards.

Coordinating the decisions upon which to award an employee should be written in the local company’s regulatory act where the nomination and selection criteria for applicants for awards should be described in detail, as should the procedure for deciding on the award winners.

How to develop criteria for awarding employees

It is necessary to compile and harmonise descriptions of merit and achievements in relation to different categories of employees, such as for managers, professionals, and performers.

Employee of the Month, Employee of the Year, and other traditional awards may be chosen based on the following award selection criteria:

• Length of service
• Excellence in performance
• Peer-to-peer communication and association
• Leadership qualities
• Personal accomplishments
• Team accomplishments
• Milestones crossed
• Number of points earned according to a point system
• Attendance, punctuality, results achieved, etc

There are also a few awards eligibility criteria:

• Employee status
• Length of service
• Can an employee win the award?, etc.

The recognised success of a top manager will be the implementation of a complex project, whereas an ordinary employee may be rewarded for the fact that he/she has worked above expectations and produced smoothly for a whole year.

Descriptions of merit and achievements should be variable, that is, containing sets of several signs that characterise what employees must do in order to be worthy of reward.

When listing the descriptions of merit and achievements, you can use the logical operators “and/or”.

It is critical that the criteria should be clear to all people so that decision-makers can verify the true success of the applicant with the nominations described.

It is clear that the assessment of “worthy/not worthy” is by subjective, but the more clearly you describe what an employee must do in order to receive the award, the easier it is to choose nominees.

How to choose applicants for awards

It is not a great idea to only ask about worthy employees from managers. There is a risk that the reward will not be a recognition of merit but rather a form of rewarding a specific employee for good work.

To compare the achievements of the applicants with the description of the corresponding nomination, an employee of the year award criteria should be listed. Submissions to the awards are considered by the head of the company, or by the award committee.

The final decision is made by the head of the company. Only he/she has the right to assess the significance of the merits and achievements of employees for their work within the enterprise. If you use an online platform, a judge/judges are in charge.

Conclusion

So, why is it worth rewarding employees? Developing award criteria and approving the list of applicants for awards is far from an easy task, but this work justifies itself. First, the loyalty of the awarded employee increases notably. It is clear that the reward is not an ultimate appreciation, but the one whose work was noticed and recognised as significant cannot help but experience positive emotions.

During the daily work of the company, if the employee had been deprived of attention or praise from a manager, public recognition and the congratulations of colleagues will smooth out many past issues.

The second reason is the demonstration of standards of corporate behavior. The person who behaves “correctly” is worthy of a reward, and that belief can be powerful.

Thirdly, public recognition of the value of employees via employee recognition awards criteria and their achievements will add extra points to the company’s recognition.

In our working world, there is not always enough time for praise and recognition; but this doesn’t mean that managers don’t understand the importance of the work of every employee.

Even if employees receive such recognition only once a year, it’s certainly better than nothing at all.

Use Judgify to develop your own employee recognition criteria. Feel free to leave your comments below!