I think it is very important to be more strategic about recognition where you work. You must clearly know the purpose of each of your recognition programs.
Only then will you know when your recognition programs are effective or not.
Take the following approach seriously for a fresh look at your recognition program effectiveness
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How are your career milestone or service award programs doing these days?
It seems the majority of organizations have tenure or long service award programs. According to WorldatWork’s 2017 Trends in Employee Recognition, length of service recognition remains the top ranked recognition program with 85 percent of organizations.
Historically, and especially within the public sector, career milestone years were only acknowledged when an employee reached 25 years or longer. Today, most progressive organizations commence with at least 5 years and then celebrate every 5-year increment thereafter.
But when you look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics the average tenure for salaried employees is 4.2 years. That average drops to 2.8 years for the mobile 25 to 34 year old employees.
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In reading Khim Kelly’s, Associate Professor of Accounting, from the University of Florida, and her team’s research on The Effects of Tangible Rewards versus Cash Rewards in Consecutive Sales Tournaments: A Field Experiment, I learned some fascinating insights.
It piqued my interest because it was a field study and not one of those in the university lab experiments. The setting was selling rugs in retail stores and incentivizing sales people with either cash or tangible rewards (gift cards from a choice of vendors) for achieving high-performance results over two consecutive sales campaigns, each of three months in length. The study was conducted in a Canadian retail store chain. The Incentive Research Federation has shown that companies are relying more heavily on tangible rewards these days over cash, as a reward vehicle with their various incentive and reward campaigns.
Does one work better than another? That is the question I was curious about. (more…)
I love this quote from Marcus Buckingham,
“Great managers don’t need to be reminded of the power of praise.”
I think he’s right.
In those organizations where recognition flourishes as a way of doing things, you will always find leaders who get it. They know the importance of recognition. They personally strive to practice giving effective and meaningful recognition. And they encourage everyone to be exemplary recognition givers. (more…)
Over 90 percent of organizations have at least one and often two or three recognition and reward programs in place. Like buying a new appliance for the home and reading all the instructions to start it up, the most important thing is making sure your recognition programs are effective and not just turned on. Check out these Top 10 Ways to Develop an Effective Recognition Program and see how you stack up. (more…)
Everyone wants to improve recognition program usage.
Recognition program owners often want their recognition programs to increase from a quantitative perspective. Why? Because to them these numbers validate their programs’ and their job’s existence.
Areas they want improved are number of people using the program, number of recognition recipients, e-cards sent, social comments made, number of nominations or points given.
Rarely do recognition managers look at the effectiveness of their programs
And that’s what I want to address and where I am going to give you some ideas to think about. (more…)
When talking about recognition and rewards programs the word “budget” is sure to come up. There are few owners of corporate recognition programs who have not dealt with one cut or another over their lifetime. This month I asked 10 seasoned practitioners responsible for recognition programs for their budgeting advice. Their wisdom gives you the Top 10 Powerful Ways to Save Your Recognition Budget.
Previously published in Incentive Magazine, January 2016
Roy is no longer writing new content for this site (he has retired!), but you can subscribe to Engage2Excel’s blog as Engage2Excel will be taking Roy’s place writing about similar topics on employee recognition and retention, leadership and strategy.
Too often all the hype, communications and marketing goes into the launching of a new recognition program.
Then there is nothing. All is quiet. You can hear the hum of the photocopier machine.
If you want to keep recognition alive and well and top of mind you need to communicate and market recognition all year long.
That’s why you need to create a corporate recognition communications calendar. (more…)
Whenever you see something great happening on the job, besides thanking them directly face-to-face, you can also use a social recognition program to instantly acknowledge your staff online.
Social recognition programs are another tool in your toolbox to better practice giving recognition to your peers and employees. And they help spread the good news of all worthwhile actions happening to others in the workplace because everyone can use it.
Our social recognition program is a great way to acknowledge your staff whenever you see something great happening or when someone reports outstanding performance of a colleague or direct report.
Over 40 percent of companies now have social recognition programs in place. If you don’t currently have a social recognition program you need to get excited about them and become a leading company.
Here are some key points to effectively using our social recognition program: (more…)
Having exceptional meetings starts with valuing your people and determining what you want them to come away with.
There is a classic cliché definition that meetings are where minutes are kept and hours are lost. However, someone I know recently challenged that perspective by suggesting the idea that every meeting should be a revelatory experience.
If anything, the majority of meetings tend to reveal the harsh reality that little thought went into trying to make them even a meaningful experience. They are often just obligatory time fillers – the cyclical meetings scheduled in our calendars for the standard 1-hour block, with someone dictating the agenda, of little value and even less accomplished.
But what if we could make our meetings more engaging? Imagine showing your employees you value them and their time through changing the way you conduct your meetings. Try these six ways on how to enliven your meetings and show your people they matter. (more…)