Employee recognition: A guide to celebrating your employees.

Today, people are more connected than ever before. And it’s changing how we work and how we feel about our jobs.

The way people feel about their job has a direct impact on their productivity and performance. According to the Gallup report, only one-third of employees worldwide are actively engaged in their work, which is a red flag that something needs to change.

With employee recognition programs, businesses can foster a culture of appreciation and happiness among employees.
 

By identifying ways to show your team that you value them as individuals, you can create an environment where they want to continue working for you.
 

Here are 10 employee recognition ideas to help you celebrate your employees.

Build a culture of recognition.

When employees feel valued at work, they’re more likely to be engaged and perform to their full potential.

To help create this, start building a culture of recognition. Before you can offer congratulations to your employees, you first need to know who to recognise. It’s a good idea to create a list of categories to help you determine who deserves recognition.

Some ideas include: employees who’ve gone above and beyond, employees who’ve learned a new skill, employees who’ve had an exceptional customer service experience, employees who’ve created a new process that’s more efficient, employees who’ve become better leaders, employees who’ve collaborated to reach goals.

 

Call out the small but great moments.

You’ve probably heard the saying ‘little things make a big difference.’ This applies in the workplace, too.

By calling out the little moments when your employees are doing great work, you’re helping to reinforce their performance. While you should still have formal recognition around major accomplishments, you can also recognise the small moments throughout the year.

For example, when an employee asks a colleague for help, or when someone pitches in after hours to get an important project done, praise them for it.

When you’re calling out these little moments, try to do so in person whenever possible. This will help the employee feel more connected to their workplace community and will make them feel more appreciated.

Offer small recognitions regularly throughout the year.

Even if you call out the little moments on a regular basis, you may want to use formal employee recognition programs to give out more in-depth recognitions.

Let’s face it: some of your team members may not be eligible for an employee of the month award, and they’ll feel left out if you’re only handing out formal recognitions once a year.

That’s why it’s a good idea to offer small recognitions on a regular basis. This will help employees feel like they’re getting the recognition they deserve for their great work. And we know they do great things every day.

If you already have an employee recognition program in place, you may want to consider focusing on giving more recognitions. Research tells us that employees who are recognised at least once a week show a noticeable uptick in engagement metrics so use this as a basis and get recognising.

Write meaningful thank you messages.

When employees do great work, you have a few options for how you might recognise them.

You can give them a formal recognition in person or you can write them a thank you message to let them know how much you appreciate their work. Writing a thank you message is a great way to recognise employees without spending lots of money. Plus, it can be done remotely, which makes it easy to give to anyone in your company, regardless of rank or role.

If you have an employee recognition platform, an online portal where all your recognition happens, recognition messages should be quick and easy to share.

If you want to write meaningful thank you messages, there are a few tips to keep in mind.

First, make sure you’re actually thanking the employee. There’s a fine line between offering a sincere thank you and just going through the motions. To help you stay on the right side of that line, try to think back to when someone first appreciated your work or thanked you for your efforts. What did that feel like?

Now, apply those feelings to the way you deliver your recognition messages.

 

Create a recognition wall.

Consider creating a virtual recognition wall to celebrate your employees’ achievements. A virtual recognition wall is an online wall where you can pin or post messages that recognise your employees’ hard work. Good employee recognition software will offer this as a core feature of the program.

A virtual recognition wall gives you freedom to recognize your employees at any time, and gives everyone on your team the opportunity to celebrate too. Employees can use the wall to post their own recognitions to each other, and they can also nominate people for awards, comment on moments as they happen and see all the good work as it occurs.

The best part? You don’t have to spend a lot of money creating a virtual recognition wall. There are numerous online platforms that make it easy to create recognition walls.

Don’t forget to celebrate milestones.

Whether your employees are celebrating an anniversary with the company or an important milestone like graduating from a training program, you may want to recognise these moments.

When employees reach a milestone, like a one-year anniversary with the company, it can be easy to forget to celebrate it. But, as a manager, you should make sure to do your best to recognise these accomplishments.

Milestones like this help employees feel connected to their company, like they belong to something bigger than just their job. Plus, they’re a great way to show your team that you appreciate their ongoing loyalty.

If you want to create a memorable milestone celebration, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

First, decide what you want to recognise and why. Is it someone who’s been with the company for 10 years – recognising loyalty - or someone who’s completed an important training program – recognising achievement? When you’ve decided who to celebrate, find a creative way to recognise their milestone moment. You can share on the virtual wall, have a small celebration at work, offer them a special gift, or put together a celebratory email that goes out to the whole company.

Provide gift cards or rewards with recognition.

While recognition is a great way to show your employees that you appreciate their hard work, they don’t have to reward big. In fact, it’s often best to keep you’re the reward low key. Instead of giving your employees a big, fancy present, offer them a points they can save for a reward of their choice or a small non-financial reward, like an extra hour of paid time off.

Rewards don’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. They can be as simple as providing your employees with an extra 15 minutes of time with you every week.

Recognise employees with time off.

As opposed to offering your employees rewards that they may or may not want, consider giving them the one thing we never have enough of – time off.

Time off is a great way to recognise employees for their hard work. Depending on the type of work you do, you may have many opportunities to give your employees time off.

For example, in the accounting industry, tax season is extremely busy. During this time, accountants are likely to work extra long hours. If you can, it may be a good idea to give your accounting team more time off before and after to help them get ready for and recover from the busy period.

When you’re determining how much time off to give your employees, keep in mind that more time off doesn’t necessarily mean better results. Give your employees a few extra days off here and there, but not so much that they’ll lose productivity.

Help employees grow personally and professionally.

While the above employee recognition ideas are great, they’re not the only way to show your employees that you appreciate their efforts.

To help your employees grow professionally, try to get them more involved in industry groups or associations. These organisations hold conferences and other events where employees can meet other professionals and learn new skills.

To help your employees grow personally, you may want to start hosting team-building exercises or including personal development activities in your team meetings.

For example, you may want to start scheduling time in your meetings for employees to discuss their goals and challenges. This will help your employees learn more about themselves, which is a great way to help them grow personally.

All these ideas for employee recognition are simple to implement, though may not all gel with your culture. Choose the ideas that you think will have the biggest impact and start there.