The recognition of employee success is one of the major ingredients to having a positive employee experience. It can help boost productivty, enhance the morale and collaboration of employees, as well as help you as an employer retain top talent. It sucks to give your all at work and not receive any sort of acknowledgment for your efforts.
According to an employee engagement report, about 69% of employees said they would work harder if they were better appreciated. That said, the consequence of employees feeling unrecognized is that they often become less productive, more liable to burnout, and more likely to get other jobs.
While you may think employees only want promotions or monetary rewards to celebrate success, workers also appreciate public recognition for their wins. Take your time through this article as we discuss creative ways you can reward employee success.
6 Creative Ways To Recognize Employee Success
Social Media Recognition
To recognize your employee’s achievement, you can take it to your company’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter account. Social recognition is a good way to share how much you’re proud of your employees. It also helps to build your brand by placing your values and culture on display for the world to see.
Furthermore, recognized employers are likely to share social recognition posts with their followers, thereby creating brand ambassadors that represent your organization well.
When recognizing the success of your employees on your social media channels, highlight who they are, their job roles, and what they have done to deserve the recognition, including how it impacted the organization.
Nevertheless, as an employer, make sure employees are aware of what you are planning to share and that they are comfortable being recognized publicly, as not everyone wants a space in the public spotlight. Some people would rather be praised behind closed doors.
Recognition With an Off-Site Day
Teams often need a little change of scenery to help boost engagement and productivity. Once in a while, plan an off-site day at a café, library, or any safe relaxation center which meets your team’s needs, especially after the successful completion of a hectic or tasking project.
It is important to note that whenever you recognize your employees, let them know exactly what they are being appreciated for.
Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day
National employee appreciation day is usually celebrated annually on the first Friday in March. It is the perfect chance to make your employees know how much you appreciate their hard work so far.
When organizing a formal employee appreciation day at work, you can recognize your employees by stating their major accomplishments for the year. You can also commend their years of service. Additionally, you can extend the event to be celebrated throughout the week with food, wellness, and team-building activities.
If the event is going to be all through the week, you could consider something for each day of the week which may include chair massages, a giant cake waiting, games day, as well as a dress for the decades day with a prize for the best dressed. You can also choose to hire a food truck for a day. Your employees will absolutely love that!
Part of the activities can include allowing feedback from your employees. Ask them what they enjoy the most in the company and what they would change if given the privilege. You can choose to hear from them through individual presentations or by providing a suggestion box. In general, align the activities with your company culture.
Create an Employee Wall of Fame
Photos help to paint a picture that words sometimes can not. A wall of fame is a fun way to highlight the accomplishments/achievements of both teams and individuals, and it is a unique way to place your culture on display for everyone to see.
Snap pictures of your employee’s achievements or take candid shots of them while being hard at work. Additionally, encourage other employees to post notes of appreciation for featured employees around their photos.
A creative way of doing this is having the employee you are celebrating submit a baby picture of them and include a brief fun bio with all their successes and accomplishments in the organization. You can also use the wall to highlight team wins with pictures of the team members and the major projects they have completed.
Encourage Peer-To-Peer Recognition
Frequently have your employees send each other kudos, whether through a peer-to-peer recognition platform or cards and physical notes.
Similar to the wall of fame, you can make available a shout-out wall that employees can attach sticky notes of appreciation to.
Granting your team the opportunity to frequently recognize one another should be a part of your recognition strategy. It helps increase engagement, reduce turnover, and develop great culture.
Pass Out Tickets and Prize Tokens
Whenever an employee bags an achievement, you can give them a ticket or token they can use to enter a monthly drawing for prizes such as a massage, movie tickets, or gift card for a coffee shop.
You can also create a “company store” where they will be able to turn in a particular number of tokens or tickets for larger prizes.
You can as well get customers involved in this activity by making them aware that whenever they give excellent feedback or write a note of gratitude for any employee, that employee has entered into a drawing.
Recognition of Employee Success
Some of the success recognition ideas mentioned above may be quite inconsequential, but it is such consistent flow and variety that keeps the employees of an organization actively engaged.
In order to make your efforts meaningful and acceptable, try different success recognition methods and pay attention to the preference of your employees.
Employee success recognition is not merely a nice to have, but a firm need to have. Hence, to prevent common pitfalls, take your time to develop an amazing recognition program and discover what best supports your company’s values, mission, and employee needs.
