Employee recognition is the act of rewarding your company’s staff for their work performance. It is an act that reinforces behaviors, practices, and attitudes that lead to improved business performance and results. Are you an employer or a human resources manager (HRM) looking for an effective way to recognize your employees? You’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll share some great tips for choosing an employee recognition activity. Without further ado, let’s get to the heart of the matter.
The Benefits of Employee Recognition
By deciding to implement a recognition program for your employees, you offer your company many benefits. Among these, here are the top 5:
- Increase happiness at work
- Retaining employees
- Boosting the morale of your teams
- Developing a corporate culture focused on personal development
- Increase the productivity of your business
Do you want to take your business to the next level? Know that recognizing your employees is one of the undeniable keys to achieving this.
Accolad is Canada's best solution when it comes to employee, customer or business partner recognition. It has already helped dozens of major companies recognize their employees through specific activities.
Let’s look at some effective tips to help you identify employee recognition activities.
7 Tips for Choosing the Right Employee Recognition Activity
There are many activities to motivate employees and celebrate their achievements. In this regard, employees respond best to recognition that is specific to them. Here is a list of employee recognition activities to get you started:
1. Employee of the month
Employee of the Month is an award given by management to employees who have excelled in their role within the company that month. When recognizing the monthly recipient, be sure to list the specific accomplishments that led to the award and how those accomplishments align with your company values.
Your intention should be to link the organization's values to the productivity of your employees in order to motivate them to achieve their best performance. During this employee recognition activity, you can give out other rewards that complement the employee of the month award. The goal is to generate greater commitment from your employees.
Here are some examples:
- Prize for problem solvers
- Customer Service Recognition
- Office Joy Awards
- Hope Prize
2. Employee recognition days or events
If your team or company has met or exceeded its goals, host an employee recognition day at work to celebrate their contributions. Take the entire day to organize and participate in team building activities to strengthen your bond with your staff. You can also provide food and rewards to appropriately recognize each team member's victories.
Here are some examples of team building activities:
- Potluck
- Water balloon throwing
- Treasure hunt
- Public service
- Karaoke night
- Escalation
- Escape rooms
- Axe throwing
3. Peer recognition programs
Peer recognition program is one of the activities to motivate employees. It also gives employees the opportunity to listen to feedback from their colleagues about their work. This approach can be informal or part of a formal program established with your approval.
This type of program differs from a traditional recognition program in that employees facilitate the nomination of those who deserve the best recognition. In this way, employees are more likely to be recognized. Peer recognition programs may include:
- Personal and meaningful handwritten notes
- Congratulations message board
- Departmental Recognition Awards
- Daily Affirmations
- Team meetings
4. Employee Wall of Fame
Instead of a peer recognition activity, you can opt for an honor roll. This type of honor roll can be an extension of an employee or peer recognition program. It features photos of employees' accomplishments.
You can create a wall of fame at the company and department level, and award prizes on company recognition day. A collage or storyboard showing how an employee achieved the desired outcome of a project can foster interaction among employees. It can also provide additional inspiration for completing ongoing tasks.
5. Gift to pass around to recognize employees
You can identify and purchase a fun gift, stuffed animal, or figurine that you can pass around the office. Give this gift to an employee who deserves recognition for their performance and commitment to the organization.
Then, ask him to keep it on his desk for a week or a month before passing it on to another member who has reached the performance threshold. No matter the value of your company, Accolad has a wide catalog of recognition gifts to suit your needs.
6. Employee recognition activity: social network
Recognize your employees' accomplishments in a public domain like your company's social media channels. Describe who they are, their role, what they did to receive the recognition, and why it had such an impact on your company.
Also highlight your new hires' background by mentioning the department they will be working in. You can also include the manager and employee in the same photo, to show who the new hire will report to.
7. Bonuses and treats
This strategy is one of the activities involving a gift to recognize employees. When evaluating performance, see how they like to be rewarded and whether a bonus reflects their performance. Treats are another strategy to reward your employees for their daily activities.
For example, after your employees leave for the day, place their favorite treat or snack on their desk. Small tokens of appreciation will boost morale and motivate the team.
Accolad, the solution for choosing the right employee recognition activity
Are you struggling to choose the best activity to reward your employees? If yes, you don’t have to worry anymore. With qualified staff and experts, Accolad is the go-to employee recognition platform. It offers you the most powerful tools to meet all your needs. Moreover, you can import your employees’ data into the platform, track their progress, and find the perfect time to reward them.
Finally, Accolad offers a range of gifts tailored to your business needs, making it easy for you to choose. This saves you time and gets great results. Want to learn more about Accolad? Join the thousands of Accolad users today.