There is nothing more demotivating as a child than showing your parents a drawing you spent hours on, only for them to shrug it off. This child still exists within the adults who are working for you today. 

It is a natural human emotion to feel deflated when the person we look up to isn’t proud of or even receptive to great work. So now is the time to pay attention to those who deserve recognition for their work ethic and positive attitude before they leave and find a company that will do so consistently 

This doesn’t have to be your fate.  Let’s look into why this subject is so important and learn about some examples of employee recognition you can implement as soon as possible. 

The Importance of Employee Recognition

Unfortunately, it‘s not too uncommon for an employee to feel undervalued. Even if they have:

1. Worked at the same job for a while now 
2. Put in a lot of effort every day 
3. Stay late and arrive early 
4. Go above and beyond the norm 

Without good recognition,  it feels like the company hasn’t noticed at all. 

Now, imagine being recognized for your efforts with a personal thank you or an extra-paid day off; motivation skyrockets, and all of a sudden, you feel much more loyal to your company.

This is essential for creating a positive and productive workplace, and once you develop a consistent incentive strategy, you will see a huge difference in overall performance. Workplace morale is so important that 95% of workers state they are 2-4 times more likely to produce for  their company if they love working there.

Source

It’s all well and good pulling an employee aside and telling them how great they are, but when you create tangible benefits and rewards for their good work, reaching goals never gets old. Companies with strong recognition programs have better customer satisfaction as well as lower turnover rates, and higher productivity. 

Here are some of the benefits derived from effective employee recognition programs: 

Boost in Morale

Having high morale in your company is essential for happy, engaged employees. They need to feel like they are being rewarded fairly for the work that they put in. It’s all about give and take, so if you just take and take, you cannot expect your employees to accept it and stick around for long. 

You will know when your staff has high morale. There will be a sense of comradery, work will be completed on time and to a high standard, and they will be confident in their abilities to take on new challenges in their role. 

Recognize and reward employee achievements, and you will see more members of the company push themselves (within reason) to reach them. 

Positive Company Culture

Employee rewards build trust and loyalty within the company and therefore harbor a healthy, positive company culture of recognition. When everyone is getting along and respecting one another, the atmosphere in the office is perfect for sharing ideas and collaborating on projects. If your company culture is negative, communication will suffer, and employees will constantly look elsewhere for work. 

Having a shared sense of purpose allows the company to move forward as a whole, cohesive unit. This is essential for taking on ambitious new tasks and knocking them out of the park. 

Improves Employee Retention

As you may have guessed, employees are more likely to stay with a company that makes them feel valued. But a lot of managers seem to forget this and only do something about it when it’s too late. 

Having a high staff turnover is a killer for companies big and small. It comes with a host of issues, including reduced productivity, higher costs, and decreased morale. Also, word gets around, and if your company is losing employees left and right, people will catch on. This makes it harder to hire new candidates and score work with stakeholders. 

Employee appreciation boosts job satisfaction and encourages both professional and personal growth. Therefore, people will stay with a company because they know that this road will lead them to success, whatever that may personally mean to them. 

Enhances Company Performance

If you want your organization to live a long and happy life, you must value your employees with a reward system. If you treat them the way they deserve, you will have a stable workforce that works together and holds the same company values. 

They will feel empowered to take risks, share ideas, and come up with innovative ways to do things. This will make your company stand out among competitors and have a real impact in the industry. 

Attracts Top Talent

Finally, the most talented, sought-after individuals have their pick of who to work for, so standing out and proving that you will truly value them is a huge selling factor. 

New employees will be much more interested if they see your current, long-term employees are fulfilled and have been given the opportunities to grow exponentially since first entering the company. 

Moreover, you can attract top performers from other companies through employee referrals. When there are happy workers at your company, there’s a big possibility they will mention the perks of their job to others. This is a great way to get new, organic applications in. 

Employee Recognition Ideas to Boost Morale and Performance

Now that you know just how important it is to keep team members happy, here are some of the best types of employee recognition rewards that will ensure they feel valued and appreciated. 

Listen to Ideas

When we say listen, we don’t just mean smile and nod. After all, don’t you want your company to continuously improve and grow without having to hire a specialist? Your own employees know the company better than any external advisor. 

When employees share their ideas, they trust that you will really pay attention and take into consideration what they say. This builds both morale and performance. When employees believe they can make a positive impact within the company, they will feel much more involved and more motivated. 

It will also establish trust between employees, managers, and leaders because they now know from experience that their ideas will be implemented. 

If some employees are hesitant to speak up, there are other methods you can use to give a voice to their ideas, such as:  

1. An anonymous suggestion box 
2. A communal whiteboard
3. A shared Google Doc 

• Encourage Breaks

An effective way to recognize the hard work of your employees is to encourage them to take breaks and turn off at times, even when still at work. A break room with comfortable couches and chairs will have your employees let a deep breath out as they sink into them. 

When you fail to allocate breaks, it sends a message that it hasn’t been earned. Valuing their well-being increases their energy in the long term as it creates a healthy balance of work and rest. 

Without any downtime, employees are prone to burnout and will not only suffer as individuals, but also as members of the company. Sadly, burnout is all too common and leads to a lot of issues down the line, like poor performance, low morale, and high staff turnover. 

Send Individual Thank Yous

Sending personal thankyous to your workers can go a long way. It shows that you are paying attention to them as individuals instead of one big mass. To make it effective, go into detail about their achievements and overall performance that have sparked your gratitude. 

As a manager, you should always acknowledge when an employee goes the extra mile. It builds confidence, increases job satisfaction, and encourages them to take on more challenges in their role. 

Opening this appreciative dialogue will establish a trusting relationship between managers and other departments as well as inspire loyalty. They know you care about what they do, and having that extra effort recognized demonstrates that. 

Give Personal Gifts

This is another great way to establish positive working relationships. In order to find the right gift, you must get to know the other person. Because, as great as an Amazon gift card is, it doesn’t really make much of an impact, as employees can get those from any company. 

For your company to stand out and be valued, provide gifts that will be treasured or are unique to the person. However, you should err on the side of caution with gift-giving. Handing out too many can be hard to sustain, and you should never favor a particular employee. Be fair with your gift-giving and never use them as a replacement for holidays, sick leave, or other company benefits.

The gifts don’t have to be expensive; they just have to be personal. It could be anything from a personalized office accessory or a ticket to an event you know they’d love. 

Offer Employee Incentives

Incentives are rewards for reaching certain milestones but are also used to encourage employee engagement and motivation. When there is a tangible goal to work towards, such as a cash bonus or travel opportunities, it is more likely for employees to put in more effort. 

When they reach these goals, having a reward in return makes them feel valued and appreciated. These incentives must be achievable and realistic for anyone to reach if they strive for excellence. 

If rewards feel too out of reach, then you run the risk of employees forgetting about it altogether because the amount of extra work needed to reach it is just not worth it. This can harbor negative feelings towards managers. 

Invest in Their Passions

Everyone has passions; even the quietest person in the background is brimming with a passion that is waiting for the opportunity to flourish. As a manager, investing and uncovering these passions will give the company many more strengths to utilize. 

One way to invest in passions is to provide opportunities for staff to learn and develop. This can be: 

1. Tickets to events 
2. Workshops 
3. Paid time off for volunteering opportunities 

Whatever it is, ensure that it is in line with what they are interested in or would like to try. 

When employees are able to learn new skills or build on their existing ones, they are more likely to feel engaged and motivated in their role within the business. 

Show Public Recognition

We all remember how good it felt when teachers used our work as an example for other students to follow. Well, this feeling doesn’t just stop when you become an adult. 

When employees receive public kudos for their achievements, they will feel a sense of pride in their work which boosts morale and improves overall job satisfaction. Also, seeing team members receive shoutouts tends to make others more inclined to work harder because they want to be an employee of the month one day too.

Publicly showing your appreciation also creates a healthy, supportive work culture that builds others up instead of breaking them down. This leads to: 

1. Improved communication 
2. Collaboration 
3. Connected workflow

Celebrate Work Anniversaries

Recognizing and celebrating the time spent with an organization can be a fun way to build a positive work culture and improve job satisfaction. It sends a clear message that employees are valued and leads to a sense of belonging and community. 

Bringing this human element into the company promotes collaboration which makes project workflow much more efficient. Working alongside people who feel like friends rather than coworkers creates an environment full of trust and convivial conversation. 

From a professional standpoint, celebrating work anniversaries is the perfect opportunity for developing skills. Companies can offer additional learning, training, and professional development opportunities as anniversary celebrations. Having the chance to learn something new builds not only skills but also confidence. 

Implement Website Profiles

It may sound quite menial, but featuring your employees on your official website or social media has a big impact on morale and performance. Having an ‘About Us’ page with employee bios makes them feel motivated because their role within the company is being showcased. 

It also encourages them to excel in their role and gives them a deeper identity as a member of the company, which transcends further than just a job title. It gives an insight into the company’s core values and its culture of recognition. 

As well as improving the satisfaction of your existing employees, having in-depth employee bios on your website is fantastic for recruitment. When people visit the page, they can see who else they could be working with and what each role entails from a personal perspective.

10. Know What They Want

There is no point throwing around all of these recognition techniques if they aren’t what your employees are looking for. When you truly know what motivates your workers, you can tailor rewards and incentives that meet their preferences. Because understandably, staff are more inclined to work towards something they actually want. 

It also shows that you listen to what they want instead of assuming or doing whatever is easiest. Take some time and talk to them, understand what makes them feel valued, and how you can turn it into incentives. 

For example, one person could absolutely love the reward of going to a workshop, whereas the other would prefer paid time off to spend doing their own hobbies. Whatever the recognition method is, having it in tune with what each employee wants is a surefire way to make them feel valued as individuals and increase performance. 

Alternative Ways to Boost Employee Morale and Performance

Encourage Communication

Create a space where everyone in the company feels comfortable communicating with one another. This could be about ideas or feedback that would do wonders if only someone listened and put them into practice. 

It helps problem-solving and keeps everyone on the same page. Not only will your business thrive with new input, but staff will feel like they have a real purpose that involves more than just hitting targets. 

Offer a Flexible Work Schedule

With the impact of COVID-19’s lockdown, remote work is more popular than ever before, and conversations by the cooler have been replaced with Slack. As unsettling as the pandemic was, a positive that came from it for many people were moving away from offices. 

Workspaces are fantastic for communication, collaborating, and developing professional relationships with co-workers, but it isn’t ideal for everyone. If you are someone who would rather spend your morning walking the dog instead of on a crowded train, then you should be honored with that and given the choice to stay at home instead. 

A flexible work schedule could also mean that you adopt a hybrid working plan where only some days are spent in the office. As an employer, you can get as flexible as you like and even provide unlimited holidays or half-days. 

With a strict 9-5 work schedule in the office, you can inadvertently hinder the performance of a lot of your employees because they either get distracted, overwhelmed, or exhausted from the commute. Providing flexible arrangements shows you care about their well-being and trust that they will get their work done even without you breathing over their shoulder. 

Provide Support and Resources

Everyone needs a bit of help now and again, and no one should be ashamed to ask for it. That is why extra support and resources are so important for boosting morale and performance. 

Feeling comfortable asking for help builds a very positive work environment and opens up more opportunities for employees to talk to those in higher positions. Being hesitant to ask questions only makes people fall behind or carry out tasks incorrectly, which makes the whole company’s performance suffer. 

Having HR professionals, counselors, and learning resources there for the entire team proves you care and want the best for everyone. It may require a little bit of budget reshuffling for these services, but having a healthy, knowledgeable workforce brings in more revenue in the long run – just wait and see. 

Final Thoughts

No matter your budget, there are lots of ways that you can show how appreciative you are of your best employees who have provided years of service. 

From monetary rewards like bonuses or holidays to recognition messages and celebrating birthdays, take the time to know what they want, and the company’s success will speak for itself.