It’s in the news: no recognition hinders employee’s productivity! According to a recent article in The Economic Times, “employees consider lack of recognition of work as the biggest hindrance to their productivity.” When a company decides to implement an employee recognition program, it’s easy to fall back on old-school recognition forms. Some old-school examples you should stay clear of are: employee luncheons, recognition in the office newsletter, names posted on bulletin boards etc. I don’t know about you, but to me these sound like horrible ways to recognize an employee. My brain immediately turns to grade-school flashbacks of standing up in front of the class and going red in the face. And what could be worse than seeing your name misspelled in the company newsletter because someone in marketing who has never heard of you couldn’t be bothered to look up the correct spelling of your name? Lastly, as a person with food allergies, an employee luncheon could be detrimental and deadly.
You may not have heard, but there are much better ways to go about recognition. May I suggest a peer to peer employee recognition program? Because really, who knows your employees better than their fellow co-workers? A couple of stand-out programs come to mind when I think of great employee recognition programs. Employees in these successful programs consistently write lengthy descriptions about their fellow employees going above and beyond. And as the saying goes, “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” after being recognized, employees are more likely to become a nominator themselves.
Many of the program administrators and managers are cc’d on all the nomination e-mails so they can monitor what is being submitted. This also gives them a chance to see a bird’s eye view of the day-to-day workings of their office. A great client phone call may go unnoticed if the person in the next cubical didn’t overhear and nominate that employee for a job well done. I have also seen very personal and detailed nominations submitted that only employees working right alongside someone would have noticed.
I’m not faulting upper management for not opening their office doors, but a peer-to-peer program is a great way to reward employees who are doing fantastic things in the workplace. Sometimes it’s impossible to see what’s happening in every department all the time. Employees often have apprehension about talking to a manager even in positive situations. An online portal for employee recognition gives employees an easy and quick way to recognize their fellow co-workers and then get back to work!