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Your name is called. Someone is talking about you but you’re not paying attention because all eyes are on you as you disentangle yourself from your chair and scrunch past the people in your row. Hurrying up the aisle, you’re careful on the stairs to the stage, worried you’ll stumble and fall in front of all your co-workers. The lights up here are blinding. Someone hands you something that almost slips through your sweaty palms and the audience erupts into applause. Clearly, this is an important part of your life and a memory to be cherished for years to come.

Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about how different methods of employee recognition are more effective (and appreciated) based on each employee’s personality and personal preferences. The scenario above is one I’ve been part of numerous times throughout my life and while I personally have mostly worked through my petrifying fear of being in front of audiences (mostly thanks to mandatory speeches throughout grade school), public recognition is still the least effective and gratifying way I could be recognized and many of your employees probably feel the same way.

A more personalized approach to employee recognition awards such as a comment at a small team meeting, a personal note or even an email or eCard can have a much more profound impact when coming from someone whose opinion matters to the employee. Depending on the employee and his/her work environment, peer recognition may be even more effective than being noticed by a supervisor.

This is not to say that the pomp and flair of a formal presentation doesn’t work for anyone. There are certainly still people who would prefer to see their names in lights and receive their employee recognition award in public but it’s important to keep in mind that not all your employees are the same and they will respond better to some forms of recognition than others. Make sure your employee recognition program provides avenues to recognize your employees in a variety of different ways and ensure your employee recognition awards are as effective as possible.

What are your thoughts?
What sort of employee recognition award methods have you found most effective? Do you personally have a preferred way you like to be recognized? Do your employees? How have you gone about finding out?

Looking to put together an effective employee recognition program? Contact Our Experts to discuss your program needs.

While watching the CBS Morning Show a couple of weeks ago, I was listening to the Republican candidates discuss their New Year’s resolutions. When the interviewer asked Mitt Romney what his resolution was, he had a very simple response. "This coming year,” Romney stated, “I will endeavor to say thank you more often. Appreciation is an underappreciated quality and too often I think I get a lot of help from folks and I nod my head or move on without stopping and staying thank you, so I want to be more appreciative."

I think that most employees would have to agree with the former Massachusetts governor when he claims that appreciation and thankfulness are not given enough, especially in the workplace. Too often managers find themselves asking a lot from employees, who often go above and beyond job descriptions, without any recognition or appreciation being given in return.

Going Back to Basics

I feel the best way to start accomplishing this resolution is to mind your p’s and q’s. Being polite can go a long way and doesn’t cost a dime out of your employee recognition program budget.

Giving Small Thanks

Sometimes your employees may do something that really does call for formal appreciation. Giving employee appreciation can be accomplished in an email or a written recognition letter. Depending on what your employee did and the impact it may have, you might want to consider awarding the employee with a recognition gift.

I have a couple of recognition programs in which administrators can log into the recognition website and fill out a short form of what thank you card to send and how many points or dollars to assign the person. Once the form is filled out, the email is immediately sent to the employee with any personalized comments the administrator wanted to include in the recognition email. The employee is not only recognized in the email but also receives a small recognition award to select.

Giving a Big Thank you

Although an eCard or letter and an employee recognition award may be appropriate for certain occasions, every once in a while you may need to give employees something that measures up to the impact an employee has had. I have helped organizations to recognize employees who came up with innovative ideas resulting in cost savings of tens of thousands of dollars. I have worked with clients who have drivers on their workforce with over 30 years of safe driving records and millions of miles driven without any recordable safety incidents. Under these circumstances, a small recognition award does not work and you will need to dip into your employee recognition budget.

When giving thanks and appreciation to employees who reach major milestones, one creative recognition award idea is to present the employee with a printed recognition package. The recognition package contains a letter, certificate suitable for framing, award catalog pages and an order form that can be faxed, mailed or redeemed online. When giving a big thank you, be sure to award employees with a recognition gift valued at an appropriate price.

Whether you are beginning with adding please and thank you to your sentences or working on giving more formal employee recognition, one thing can be certain: your employees will surely appreciate it.

Image Credit:

Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

On Tuesday, I presented the first five ideas for your employee incentive program and today I have the final five. With the start of the New Year just around the corner, it’s time to start thinking about what you can do to improve your incentive program in the coming year!

6. Begin sending eCards

I have blogged before about the top ten different ways to say “Thank You” with a recognition award or eCard and if you have not checked this out yet, please do! eCards are very easy to select and send while making a great impact on participants. eCards can be a part of a social recognition program or only available for managers in the incentive program to utilize. You can have a library of eCards for any situation and make sure that people receive recognition and points in a timely manner.

7. Start a social recognition program

Building out a social recognition component to your employee incentive program is an excellent way to improve your program in the coming New Year. Social recognition programs allow anyone to give rewards and recognition to anyone within the organization. Once approved, points are automatically posted and the nominator, nominee and even supervisors can be instantly notified. Your website can also have an automatically updated nomination feed!

8. Recognize employees on their actual birthday and anniversary

With an employee incentive program, you are able to send over birth dates and dates of hire for all of your employees and we’ll set up automatic email notices. Even if your employee’s special day falls on a weekend or holiday, the notice will still go out. Anniversary and birthday notices can contain plain text or include images to help celebrate the occasion.

9. Let employees register for their own accounts

People no longer have to wait to have an account created! Instead of sending over your new employee information monthly, you can now let employees sign up for their personal incentive program account. After someone registers for an account, you can allow them to log in immediately or request for approval first.

10. Update your artwork: website, emails, posters, flyers

When was your website created? If it has been a few years, then it is probably time for you to update your employee incentive program website and supplements. Especially if your logo has changed or company website has had a makeover, you may want to consider what an update could do for your program.

Now that you have the top ten ideas for your employee incentive program, it is time to get started on updating your program!

It’s almost 2012 and in honor of the New Year, it is time to freshen up your incentive program! I have ten ideas to improve and update your employee incentive program and will present the first five today and the last five on Thursday.

1. Start tracking points earned online

Employee incentives can easily be managed online and will eliminate the need for keeping point receipts and detailed spreadsheets. If you have been managing points manually, let an online incentive program do it for you and find out how much easier employee incentives can be. Not only will adding points be simple, you won’t have to keep track of how many points people have when incentives are ordered or returned. Online incentive program reporting will also help to ensure you have all the numbers and statistics available in Excel when you need this information.

2. Incorporate a leader board system

I was on the phone with a prospective client yesterday who was very interested in setting up an automated leader board system. His company is in the insurance industry and he was thinking about starting a sales incentive program for his thirty or so sales people. He let me know that his sales people were very motivated by competition and if each person could see how he or she was doing compared to everyone else, this would help to boost sales and the results of the employee incentive program.

3. Add a feedback form

One of the best ways to spice up your incentive program is to ask employees for their feedback. You will be able to collect feedback during 2012 and bring ideas that can help to increase results and participation. Employee incentive program feedback forms often ask people open ended questions such as what could be done to improve the program and how easy/difficult the incentive program website is to use.

4. Run a short term promotion-for a department like sales or for everyone like a wellness event

Have you been rewarding employees for reaching the same goals for more than a couple of years? If your answer is yes to this question, you could benefit from exploring other ways to engage employees in your incentive program. You may want to consider what a short term promotion like a sales contest or a onetime wellness event could do to help the incentive program gain attention and relevancy. These short term goals are often easy to track and points are given out for participating and for reaching a desired result (top ten sales producer or top ten finishers for a company-sponsored walk/run).

5. Hand out instant employee incentive points

Instant points are a great addition to any employee incentive program. Point codes can be generated for the point value and award category you would like. The codes are then printed on cards, certificates or tokens and then handed out by managers to employees who demonstrate desired behavior, most often core values or safety related behaviors. I have had a lot of fun this year designing instant point cards and for my clients who use them, they love having a way to immediately recognize employees.

All of these tips are sure to save you time and help to boost participation. Be sure to check back Thusday for the last five tips of the top ten ideas for your employee incentive program!

My boyfriend hates it when I try to finish his sentences for him. With as long as we’ve been together, if I still can’t read his mind (or at least not as effectively as I think), chances are you and your employees aren’t always on the same page either. The trouble is, while I can just exercise some patience (as hard as that might be) and listen, it’s often a little harder to get feedback out of your employees.

The best way to make sure you’re hearing what your employees have to say is by ensuring you give them an outlet…and I’m not just talking about the standard review processes which can be intimidating to a lot of people. Employee Incentive Programs are a great way to get information out to employees about what management is looking for from them and it can also be a great way to give your employees a way to share their thoughts with you. With recent research showing the importance and impact of employee engagement it’s clearer than ever that it’s important for employers and employees to work as a team to take the company to the next level. Below are a couple quick suggestions for boosting the impact of your employee incentive program and allowing your employees to get more involved.

Critiques & Comments – Regardless of what you’ve heard previously, great minds do not all think alike. The more feedback and suggestions you can get through your employee incentive program, the better you can ensure that you’re not overlooking any important factors that may contribute to your company’s success. Your employee incentive program provider should be easily able to add a feedback form to the program to allow employees to share their thoughts and feedback and while yes, you may need to filter out some suggestions that aren’t as helpful as others, there can be a lot of useful input that has just been waiting for a way to make itself heard.

Giving Thanks – If your company is anything like the majority of workplaces I’ve experienced, supervisors and managers aren’t always working right beside their employees. If you’re not working closely with someone on regular basis it’s harder to recognize when they are going above and beyond and many supervisors may be overlooking employees that have a significant impact on the company without being overly obvious about it. Adding a peer recognition aspect to your employee incentive program allows each of your employees, no matter what level of the hierarchy they are at, to be able to recognize and reward their coworkers which boosts morale and improves engagement while strengthening your team.

Sharing New Ideas – More and more of our clients have begun to look to their employees for ideas that improve and impact their company’s bottom line. Your employee incentive program provider should be able to add in custom forms to gather ideas on cost savings, procedural changes, safety improvements and a variety of other areas that can make your company more effective, efficient and safe. A lot of ideas coming from the employees that complete the tasks on a daily basis tend to be more effective than those coming from “above” based off of outsiders. That said, a fresh pair of eyes often have some insights as well so it’s a good idea for everyone at the company to be able to share their ideas equally.

With all the planning that goes into setting up an employee incentive program it’s a great idea to make sure nothing is being overlooked. Rather than assuming your program is set up perfectly and that it’s having the best impact possible, now’s a great time to implement some of these quick aspects that can make sure your employees have an easy way to let you know what might be missing. Whether you’re looking to improve your current employee incentive program or to start a new one from scratch, contact Awards Network for a free program consultation and we can work with you to ensure your program is structured to have the most impact possible by giving participants a voice and improving employee engagement.