Tips to improve Employee Recognition

Employee recognition is all about recognizing the hard work and achievements of the individuals and teams within your organization. You can eventually create an emotional bond with your employees, all the while staying true to your company’s values.

Don’t wait to show employee appreciation

Managers who really care about recognition, one thing to do is to be timely and specific. When you see something great happening, show your appreciation immediately, and say why you think it was a great job. It serves as a reminder and it helps to reinforce the types of behaviors you want to keep seeing.

Provide recognition as much as possible

A study conducted by D. Jacobson (2010) states that every employee has a need to be commended and recognized, and the more often they get it, the better. Being recognized for doing a good job makes individuals feel better about themselves and the organization they work for ensuring more loyalty.

The best leaders would not want their employees to wait until the end of the month (or year) to acknowledge their work. Instead, they recognize good performance by giving informal and frequent positive feedback about specific behaviors – in conversation, in email, or even in a short, hand-written note.

Recognize skills (and talents) that employees have

You can provide awards or recognition to areas aligned with the talents or skills you hope to develop. Projects or events can be done to accentuate different persons or department per month. By doing this, everyone can get recognition, even if they didn’t participate in one of the company’s recent standout projects.

Example awards can be for:

● Socializing/Networking

● Public Speaking

● Creative Ideas

● Style and Innovation

Implement an employee recognition software

Employee recognition tools come in when organizations have difficulty managing their employee recognition programs. These software platforms use behavior-driven motivations to improve company culture. It is ideal to include an interactive project management and HR service that rewards employees for completing tasks and hitting KPIs. With this, managers can highlight those who exceed performance in their roles and provide recognition and rewards to those who exemplify company culture.