Making an Employee Recognition Program from Scratch

I had written this blog on my LinkedIn and wanted to share it on here as well to assist those in the industry who are looking for innovative ideas to start an employee recognition program at their job.

Crepes, there are so many varieties.

An employee recognition program is no different, and finding out what type of program you want to develop is crucial to ensure it meets expectations. You may find that there are many out of the box recognition programs out in the market, but just like crepes, making an effective employee recognition program is best when it fits your organizational needs and made from scratch.

Flour

In his book Working, Author Studs Terkel interviewed many different people about what they value most in their work.

One of the interviews occurs with a farmer, Robert Acuna, who described his life as laborious seventeen-hour days to make a small profit. Although he knew his job was tough, Acuna was proud of his work, and it helped keep his feet on the ground relative to how others may see the world. He expresses the detail and hard work it takes to grow crops, and how the slow process of farm work helps him become mindful of food, and his own life. Acuna is mindful of each grain of wheat, and the effort it took to harvest it. This is what makes him proud.

Be mindful of the foundation for your employee recognition program, because like crepes, your employee recognition program needs a solid foundation to ensure your employees feel valued.

Mission Statement: In order to provide growth and change within your organization, you need to have a clear communicated mission statement for the future that your employees believe in. Your employee recognition should help promote the mission statement.

Values: Reward employees who uphold the companies values, and encourage others to do the same. By encouraging behavior specific to your organizational values, your employees will want to support the company's vision and priorities.

Egg

Add richness, color and flavor to your program.

Most employees will begin employment at your company with energy and enthusiasm, but after a while, this enthusiasm can be lost if managers fail in their role as a motivator. Motivation can be a challenge for many, as motivating factors can be different for each person.

Due to this, your employee recognition program should focus mainly on intrinsic motivational factors. Ask around the office and meet with managers to find out what motivates them, and their employees. You may find that all an employee needs to stay motivated is the option to have a reserved monthly parking spot; a day to shadow in another department; recognition at your company-wide meetings; the ability to choose a prize that best fits their lifestyle; newsletter shout outs, or thank you notes from their managers.

Remember to keep in mind that an employees intrinsic motivation, will be different from another. Therefore, when recognizing employees, give them a couple of different options to choose from.

Butter

Lighten it up. Don't make your program too complicated.

Make it Stick: Create a pitch to help your employees remember the name and intent of the program.

Keep it Short: Keep the program details down to one page so that it can be posted around the office.

Keep it Simple: Make it easy for employees to be recognized.

Milk

Make a strong batter; senior executives are a vital part of making sure your employee recognition program is successful.

Executive Buy-in: Get senior management involved to make sure they understand the importance of tying the program with the company's mission and values.

Communicate: Meet with the department managers and explain to them the importance of the program. Work with your marketing team to help spread the word.

Keep it relevant: Make it part of your onboarding program so that new employees understand how they can participate.
Get involved: Be approachable and listen to your employees who may want to offer improvements to the program.

Sugar

Sweeten it up so that employees are talking about it around the office!

For anyone that is recognized, give them a shoutout on the company newsletter, internal communication channels, and get their managers involved with a thank you email.

By spreading the news, you're encouraging others to do the same, and increasing intrinsic motivation around the office.

Varieties

Your employee recognition program should provide a couple different options for all employees to participate. Below are a couple of examples to help you launch yours!

Dessert

Peer-to-Peer Program
Establish a way for employees to nominate each other for exceptional service. Develop nomination cards that can be dropped into Peer-to-Peer boxes at each one of your facilities and send a shoutout to those employees that receive a nomination through your internal communication channel or company newsletter. In order to further increase intrinsic motivation and participation, hand the nomination card to the recognized employee after taking note of the nomination card details.

Organize a panel of peers to review the details from the nomination cards at set times throughout the year in order to determine who receives a set monetary amount. This monetary amount should not be sent out as cash, but instead given as a set amount that allows the employee to choose what they would like. We use a program called WishList Rewards that allows the recipient to choose between local activities, gift cards, hotel stays, or live events.

Spot and Objective Based Recognition
Goals and plans enhance employees' motivation and commitment by reducing uncertainty and clarifying what they should accomplish. Therefore, while your managers conduct their 1-on-1's, have them develop goals that are concrete and unambiguous. As your team members meet the established objectives, you can recognize their accomplishments in a variety of ways such as performance reviews, public recognition during company meetings, or through rewards programs.

Top Teams
Get your senior executives involved by recognizing teams who outperform or work extremely well together. Each quarter, executives can decide which team or department would receive a trophy that gets passed around each quarter for working well together, provide great customer service, exceed expectations, or demonstrate any traits you wish to promote within your organization. Some companies have also rewarded winning teams with a quarterly bonus.

Main Course

There are a couple of different ways to make your program fulfilling, below are a couple of examples

Mission Based Recognition
Reward your employees who contribute to the organization’s mission. Managers and peers should be able to nominate an employee for achieving mission-driven milestones through an informal system. These employees could be rewarded with a reserved parking space, lunch with a key executive, mentorship opportunities, plaques, or even time to shadow with another department.

Values-Based Recognition
Launch this at the beginning of the last quarter of the year, so that you are able to recognize employees who represent your core values. As said at the beginning of this article, by encouraging behavior specific to your values, your employees will want to support the company's vision and priorities. Have managers and peers nominate team members for living up to your core values by sending an email or letter to the Human Resources department on which value they represent. Employees can be recognized yearly at your holiday party.

With this recipe, I hope that you are able to gather ideas on how to improve or create your employee recognition program to fit your organizational needs and improve employee motivation.