Sometimes, the days are so full of to-dos, partner meetings, brainstorming, presentation prep, and planning that it’s easy to forget something like recognizing an employee. But don't underestimate the value of employee recognition when you’re looking to improve your employees' happiness, satisfaction, and engagement. Celebrating your employees is something you’ll want to instill as an ongoing part of your company’s culture so it doesn’t slip through the cracks. The experts at Amazing Workplace are here to help!
What to Focus On
Of course, an impressive accomplishment is something worth recognizing. This could include:
- Closing a large sale
- Hitting a particular metric
- Launching a program on time and under budget
But other items are also worthy of acknowledgment! For example, the value of employee recognition can also be applied to:
- Efforts made
- Communication style
- Learning a new skill
- Successful knowledge transfer
- Process improvement
- Making progress toward a larger goal
Allow employee recognition to emphasize what you value; doing so benefits employees while letting your company express creativity in enforcing values.
Should There Be a Reward?
Once you know what you’d like to recognize employees for, the next step is to decide on the form or the recognition. Here are some excellent examples we often see:
- Private feedback to the employee about their value
- Public praise for the employee, either written or verbal
- A gift, which could be as simple as a $25 coffee card after an early morning partner launch
- A financial bonus on their next paycheck
- An additional paid day off
- Letting them choose a gift like a new plant or coffee machine if they work at home or a comfortable footrest for the office
Rewards do not need to be expensive to be meaningful. It’s important to consider how each employee may react to their recognition. Some people thrive on being recognized publicly, while others feel safer being thanked for their value one-on-one.
One pitfall to avoid is using recognition to make up for shortcomings. For example, if a team loses a member, a company cannot buy them coffee cards in exchange for the remaining members needing to do 20% more work each. Likewise, an underpaid employee will not necessarily stay at their job simply because of one additional paid day off yearly.
The key takeaway is this: rewards should be on top of fair employee compensation and benefits, not in place of.
Employee Recognition: The Value to the Employee and Company
The value of employee recognition applies across many parties, but especially the employees themselves and the company. For an employee, benefits include the following:
- Feeling appreciated
- Feeling happier about doing their work
- Feeling as though they are seen and heard
- Feeling pride in their contributions
- Getting additional recognition from peers and other departments
- Getting to share their recognition with their family and friends
Examples of value to the company can include:
- Increases in employee retention
- Improvement in company reputation
- Ability to instill company values on an ongoing basis
- Employees who are happier and potentially more productive
- Other employees emulate the behavior of the rewarded employee
- Other employees feel as though the company cares about motivating team members
- Less turnover
Let Amazing Workplace Show You the Value of Employee Recognition
The value of employee recognition goes beyond letting that one employee know they did a good job. Although efforts are involved in thanking employees, these efforts can pay off many times over. Sometimes, employee recognition can be done ad hoc, but having an employee recognition plan in place is also essential. This plan does not need to be extensive but should include items like:
- How much of the budget is allocated
- Who makes decisions about what employees to recognize
- Frequency of recognition
- Any communication policies around those recognitions
Celebrating your employees is so important and can benefit every party involved. If you’re looking for ways to improve employee happiness, reach out to Amazing Workplace for a demo. We can show you how to measure your employees’ baseline happiness and find ways to improve your metrics.