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There are many aspects to consider when planning out an employee service award program. To make your planning a bit more streamlined we’re tackling the “5 Ws and 1 H” of an employee service award program.
Last time we considered “Where and When” your program would present awards to employees and this time we will take a look at the various considerations in “How” you can present awards.
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Part 4: How
If you’ve been able to narrow down what type of awards you are going to be using for your program and when / where you would like to be presenting these, deciding the how will probably become a lot easier. Depending on whether you have decided to present service awards on each employee’s actual anniversary date or all together at some sort of annual or quarterly ceremony, some of the options below may make more sense for your situation than others.
Send congratulatory emails
For companies that have tech savvy employees with easy access to company emails, the most efficient way to present service awards is generally by scheduling congratulatory emails to be sent out the morning of each employee’s anniversary. The email may contain a special message thanking them for their years of service, a link to the gift website and instructions for accessing their gift selections. This option is especially beneficial for larger companies that may have a lot of anniversaries coming up each month and/or employees working remotely or at a number of different locations.
Printed presentation materials
For employees who aren’t necessarily in front of computers each day or if you’d like something a little more formal than an email to recognize their service milestones, most service award companies will also offer some sort of printed presentation materials, whether they include a booklet or packet that includes the gift selections and ordering instructions or simply a certificate of appreciation. This option is also beneficial if you have a less tech savvy workforce that would like the option of browsing a catalog and making their gift selection via mail or fax rather than visiting a website.
Presentation of the award
If your company decides to go with a more traditional type of service award such as a lapel pin or logo’d item, it’s pretty typical to just present the actual gift to each employee at a company meeting or annual recognition ceremony. Even if you decide to award with brand name merchandise gift selections, some companies like to have employees order their gifts ahead of time so they can be delivered to the office and officially presented to each employee during the meeting or ceremony. Generally this option works better for smaller organizations so that it doesn’t add an undue amount of extra work for tracking down all the gifts and storing them until the ceremony date.
How does your organization present service milestone awards? Are the awards preordered and then handed out to the actual recipients or do you allow them to make selections on their own? What considerations went into the decision to utilize one method over the other? I would love to hear about how your company presents milestone awards to make them most meaningful and memorable to your employees!
Next Up: Part 5: Why
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