How to use Recognition to Reflect and Amplify Company Culture

As a company grows into new markets, or shifts to more remote working, it can be easy to lose sight of the amazing work that people are doing. For this week’s Performance Matters, we spoke to Rachel Townend, Chief of Staff at Illuminate Financial, about Illuminate’s recognition programme and how it ensures they celebrate people and the things they do that make a difference.

You can watch the whole conversation with Rachel here: ?https://www.appraisd.com/podcast/navigating-performance-management-season-2-rewardand-recogition-episode-2??

Reinforcing a culture of success through awards??

Since teams are growing and working in different geographies, it can be easy to lose sight of what others are doing. The Illuminate quarterly recognition awards help to reinforce the company’s culture of success, creating a buzz around the great things – and the mistakes! – that happen across the business. Over time the categories have evolved, but the simplicity and fun has remained.

Recognising unsung heroes

The awards are also an opportunity to recognise unsung heroes. Using Appraisd, employees can self-nominate and nominate others for most of the awards, but the unsung hero award is your chance to recognise someone who won’t blow their own trumpet. For this award, it’s important to make it inclusive, says Rachel, so that people don’t have to feel like the centre of attention if they don’t enjoy it.

Using Appraisd to facilitate the process

The Illuminate awards started out on email with reminders sent quarterly to prompt people to nominate. Now, Rachel manages the process through Appraisd, using the feedback function. Working with our Customer Success Team, Rachel made changes to Appraisd to facilitate nominations at the click of a button. Employees can select a category, select a colleague to nominate, and add notes for each nomination. Rachel runs the awards as a report and exports it to Excel ready for putting into a slide-deck each quarter.

Raising the visibility of great work

We ask people to own what they’re doing and run with it, says Rachel. So, using Appraisd for recognition, feedback, check-ins and objectives allows people to give a shout out to a colleague, show gratitude, or highlight something positive that’s happened. Recognition raises the visibility of the great work being done and it reinforces, from day one, how much importance the company puts on culture.

Watch the full episode with Rachel Townend

Enjoyed the highlights? Watch the full episode here: https://www.appraisd.com/podcast/navigating-performance-management-season-2-rewardand-recogition-episode-2 ? And, to learn more about Appraisd, talk to us ??