Recognizing the Company’s Best Employee

We talk a lot about employee recognition as a foolproof retention strategy. But let’s dive deeper into the process of singling out one particular person in front of his/her colleagues. Which employee recognition programs work the best for your staff? What are the criteria you should consider when nominating someone for “the company’s best employee?” And what if someone simply doesn’t want the attention of the whole company crashing down on him/her?

What is employee recognition?

Recognition means, “Thank you!” and “Well done!” In workplaces full of millennials and advanced technology, great achievements happen on a daily basis. Saying you are appreciated for your work is crucial. According to the study, millennials require immediate gratification for their accomplishments and prioritize personal progress over the company’s mission. Thus, without an effective recognition system in place, you risk losing the most promising professionals in the first year of their work.

Why is it important?

It’s not only about employee retention. Providing rewards for the achievements of your staff is important for numerous reasons:

• The sense of belonging. By telling people they do a good job, you give them the sense of belonging in their workplace.
• Supportive environment. Only with a strong team can a company’s business goals be achieved. Motivate people to perform better through awards to build a supportive environment within the workspace.
• Satisfaction. Job satisfaction is the principal factor impacting the decisions of employees to stay at a company. By making them satisfied with their own progress, you minimize the risk of a flood of two week notices being turned in.

The key metrics for a recognition program

Recognizing great employees should be based on clever metrics. To check the ROI of your reward incentives and understand whether they produce a positive impact on your organization, ask yourself whether you can answer “yes” to each of the following questions:

• Do they understand how recognition tools work? Your staff members should know how exactly how they are being evaluated. Introduce personal KPIs, clarify which tools people have to use in their work, and what are the goals they should achieve to be nominated.
• Does it strengthen your corporate culture? Recognition is the road to better performance and collaboration inside your organization. A successful rewards program is the one promoting more active engagement, effective teamwork, and positive relationships between managers and subordinates.

• Does it benefit your business goals? Recognized and satisfied employees drive your organization forward. If recognition awards benefit productivity, company performance, and customer satisfaction, you do a great job.
• Does the system of recognition thrive on every level of organizational and administrative work? Employee recognition should grow into an independent system of performance improvement within your organization. Build incentives that adapt to your corporate culture and life through the most serious organizational or leadership changes.

The top 7 great examples of employee recognition

Check out the top 7 unique employee recognition ideas that can disrupt your organizational culture:

The hero of a day

Your staff members definitely take baby steps for small wins every day. Make it into a tradition to set up short evening meetings with the whole team, where you announce who the hero of the day is. As an alternative, you can make announcements in your internal chat and encourage the team to give a generous round of applause to an every day winner.

Sticky notes of appreciation

Imagine coming to work and finding a small sticky note on your computer screen which says: “Thanks for attending yesterday’s training session. Your participation was important for us.” This is a small, but a super powerful reward. Show people you see them and you are grateful for what they do for your organization on a daily basis.

Blood and sweat collage

Have someone taking photos of employees while they discuss important projects or work hard to meet a deadline at their desks. Make a collage with “blood and sweat” photos and surprise your team at the end of the day.

Off-site work

This is a great reward activity that fits into the period after a project implementation. Take your team out, treat them to some delicious lunch, and announce a week of off-site work. In this way, your employees get the chance to work in a relaxed mode for a while enjoying digital nomadism in cozy local cafes or new cities.

Pass your score

Red Velvet Events has implemented a funny program of peer-to-peer recognition: There’s a small plastic troll doll an employee has to pass to his/her colleague at the end of every week as a sign of great performance recognition. Let people pass their scores to each other encouraging active involvement in the work of the whole team.

Dare trophy

Not every project turns out to be successful. However, if you don’t keep trying, your organization is never the one standing out from the crowd. Implement “dare” awards rewarding people who make the boldest attempts and take risks to move the company forward.

Days of creativity

If you’ve ever worked for the same company for longer than a year, you know the feeling when you get spring fever and want to do something totally different. Reward your employees with an opportunity to work on the projects of their choice for some time. As an example, you can set up internal hackathons to get the creativity juices flowing.

How to avoid the pitfalls of employee recognition programs

If recognition is such a powerful tool, how come hundreds of employee recognition programs fail to boost both company and individual performance? There are three major pitfalls you should protect your recognition program from: leaving someone behind, prioritizing costly gifts over symbolic appreciation, and using unreliable technology & logistics. When you craft a recipe for your awards ceremony, ensure everyone will be honored mentioning their accomplishments in public and using a strong awards management system to make vote collection and score analytics accurate.

Conclusion

The best company employee recognition programs are those that demonstrate care about every member of an organization. Develop a well-thought-out system of appreciation to comply with your ROIs and perfectly adapt to the existing corporate culture using technology and unique awards ideas.