Employee Recognition: 5 Ways to Recognize Your Employees (2024)

When it comes to retaining great team members,employee recognition programscan play a crucial role.

According to Josh Bersin, founder and principal at Bersin by Deloitte, companies with a recognition-rich culturehave a 31% lower voluntary turnover rate.

Arecognition-rich culturemakes people feel valued, which leads to deeper commitment, better teamwork, happier employees and more satisfied customers:

What Is Employee Recognition?

In a nutshell,employee recognitionis the process of showing appreciation for an employee’s achievements, attitude, implication in the business, and engagement.

When you recognize your employees, you show them that you value their work and you help them understand that their work has a great impact on your business success.

Employee recognitionis a great way to boostemployee motivation, improve theemployee experience you deliver,and increaseemployee engagementat your workplace:

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How to Recognize Employees in the Workplace?

Here are five ideas to consider for your employee recognition program:

Tip #1: Set Up Peer Recognition Programs

Peer recognition programsmake it easy for staff members to recognize fellow employees in a public way.

Not only does this promoteteamwork, but it also bubbles up stories from the frontline that management may not have been aware of otherwise.

A basic framework for apeer recognition programis to create a way for employees toacknowledge publicly another employeefor work well done.

You can have atraveling trophythat gets passed on by an employee whenever the current recipient sees another person doing something great. For example, OfficeVibe use a red cape in theiremployee recognition program.
You can create apage on your corporate intranetor a“wall of fame”in the company break room or conference room where people post weekly “shout outs.” Use cute certificates or fun-shaped sticky notes for the wall of fame. Provide fun animated gifs or emoji for the intranet page.
Upper management can take it a step further during acompany-wide meetingor throughthe company newsletterby publicly thanking or mentioning those individuals identified by their peers.
Use peer recognition apps likeBonusly, which allows everyone in an organization to publicly recognize their peers through small bonuses that add up to meaningful rewards.

Tip #2: Include Gift Cards Incentives into Your Employee Recognition Program

Gift cards also motivate employees and make them feel appreciated. You can tie these to specific metrics (most customer tickets resolved in a month, etc.), gamify your whole tasklist, or use them to reward above-and-beyond performance (an employee driving across town to hand-deliver a report).

Regardless of what type of employee recognition program you choose, make sure the recognition efforts are public, frequent, and tied to thecompany goals and values.

Tip #3: Encourage Social Media Recognition

In the digital era,taking employee recognition to social mediacan be a powerful way torecognize employees.

You can highlight anemployee of the weekon your LinkedIn or Facebook company page. Create a tweet to highlight how a team member went above and beyond for a customer. Have an executive write a LinkedIn recommendation for a job well done. Here again, you can use special animated gifs or emoji to give it some visual flair.

Not only do these types of rewards make team members feel great, but they also help them establish theirpersonal brands.

These shout outs can also strengthen the confidence of customers who follow you on social media. They will see what a dedicated and talented team you have.

Tip #4: Reward Your Employees with Team-Building Activities

If a department or team has pushed themselves above and beyond to complete a project or serve a customer, ateam-building activityorteam outingmay be the perfect way to recognize the contributions of the group.

For example, we atHaiiloorganizefun activitiessuch asyoga classes, sportstournaments, or cheese tasting workshopsto reward our hard-working employees!

Corporateteam-building activities(bowling, mini golf, laser tag, etc.) or even a pizza party demonstrates that the company realizes the extra effort the team put in to accomplish a goal for the organization.

Tip #5: Give Your Employees the Opportunity to Be Heard

Another way to make employees feel valued and appreciated is to give them an opportunity todevelop ideas and present them to upper management.

You may need to develop guidelines and a vetting process, but it can be well worth the effort. Not only does this type of program make employeesfeel valuedas individual contributors, you could uncover ideas that save money, generate more sales, or improve customer satisfaction.

Another way to recognize your employees is to give them the opportunity to takeownership of their work.

Let your employees suggest ideas, implement solutions they’ve suggested and most importantly, let them make decisions. That way you show them that you trust them and that you appreciate their work.

Letting employees take ownership of their work is one of the key elements of thecompany cultureatHaiilo:

Bonus: The Do’s and Don’ts of Employee Recognition in the Workplace

The Do’s of Employee Recognition

Make each employee feel special
Offer personalized perks
Show honest appreciation for a completed task
Launch an employee recognition program that reflects the company culture
Be fair when it comes to employee recognition
Be proactive in recognizing your employees
Explain why you chose to recognize specific employees
Recognize also teams
Do make employee recognition public

The Don’ts of Employee Recognition

Don’t forget that your employees are your best asset so don’t forget to recognize their contribution to the business success!
Don’t launch competitive games
Don’t forget to reward any kind of contribution to the business
Don’t set the bar too high
Don’t forget to reward team efforts
Don’t forget to use surveys for better employee recognition
Don’t ignore your employees’ hobbies so you can reward their hard work with personalized perks
Don’t forget to make employee recognition fun
Don’t forget to encourage your employees, even though they haven’t delivered exceptional results yet

In a nutshell

Employee recognition is the key when it comes toemployee motivationandemployee engagement in the workplace. If you want your employees to feel engaged and stay at the company, you need to show them that you value their work and their contribution to the business. Remember that your employees are your best asset so take care of them!

Check out our report on the key drivers of employee engagement

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