A client contacted me a couple of weeks ago and asked me for some feedback on their employee recognition program. The vice president of human resources had gathered some information on their recognition program from employees and was now interested to find out how they could change up the award program and make it less of an entitlement and more of a special event. I provided some recognition advice from Human Resources Expert, Susan M. Heathfield, on About.com and would like to share this with readers this week.
Employee recognition should be unexpected
Healthfield recommends that employee recognition programs should be delivered on different dates and times. Instead of holding a recognition ceremony at the same time every year, change up formal events or hold more than one event per year if possible. For a service award program, many of my clients prefer to give recognition close to or on the employee’s actual anniversary date. If your recognition program allows managers to give awards to employees on the spot, then encourage your team to change up the time of day that recognition is given or recognize employees immediately after good behavior is observed.
Employee recognition should be given for multiple reasons
If your company has a length of service award program in place, find out what other organizations in your industry are using rewards and branded products for. My client was in the financial industry and I recommended that in addition to their service award program, they look into giving referral rewards, customer loyalty rewards and on the spot customer service awards. These other programs are common for banking institutions and can deliver a high ROI if the correct mix of rewards is provided.
Employee recognition can be given in various formats
Although Heathfield uses this point to illustrate the fact that there is no one size fits all recognition award, I would also add that recognition can be given multiple ways. Depending on the recipient and the formality of the reward, managers can recognize people by written letters, email, in private or in public and with or without an accompanying recognition gift.
Make employee recognition 360°
Employee recognition should not be limited to just upper management. Modern employee award programs permit peers, co-workers, middle and upper management and even customers to recognize staff members. Companies can add paper recognition forms in the office or online to allow everyone to submit nominations for employees who go out of their way to assist fellow workers/customers or demonstrate core values of the organization. Nominations may or may not be tied to merchandise rewards and are often posted in common areas of online for everyone to see what good work people are doing.
Heathfield notes, “The key words in keeping employee recognition from becoming employee entitlement are varied, unexpected, and surprising.” Apply these concepts to your employee recognition program and you can prevent people from feeling entitled to rewards.