7 Steps For Starting An Employee Recognition Program At Your Business

by Kylee Stone Nov 8,2019
Engagedly
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As an HR manager, it is important for you to understand why your company needs to have an employee recognition program. Employee recognition is often lumped with rewards as ‘Rewards and recognition’ but recognition mainly focuses on recognizing an employee’s work in a way better than just compensation and benefits. 

Recognition programs don’t have to cost the organization a dime because they are really different from the rewards and benefits programs. If you need a few tips on how to cultivate an employee recognition program at your workplace, you’re at the right place!

Determine The Objective

Before you start an employee recognition program at your workplace, it is important for you, as an HR, to have a proper vision about it. Don’t make recognition programs only about increasing your overall organization revenue. 

Identify the focus of the recognition program and make sure that it is consistent with your organizational values. 

Case Elements Of Success

Once you have understood the objective of introducing an employee recognition program in your organization, the next step is to specify what factors determine success. Recognition shouldn’t just be limited to the front office staff, so it is important to have meaningful criteria for recognizing employee performance. This practice can help you prevent any kind of bias or favouritism during recognition. 

Communicate

The next step is to communicate to your employees about the recognition program. Talk to your employees about the need for an employee recognition program at your organization and communicate clearly, the criteria for success. Talk to them about what they can do to be recognized and how often this program will be run. 

Form A Committee Of Judges

While you encourage positive feedback from everyone in the organization, it is important to have a committee of judges who get to decide which employees get recognized.  Most employees want to be recognized by the people they work with. Though as an HR, you want to be involved in this process, it is recommended that you form this committee with managers who directly work with employees.

Also read: 4 Employee Recognition Tips For Managers

Provide Tools For Recognition

The next step is to digitize the employee recognition process. There are various tools to recognize and reward employees for their exceptional work. Give the committee access to these tools so that they have a specific platform to recognize and reward employee progress and accomplishments.

Determine Recognition Ideas

Some organizations feel the need to change the way employees get recognized for their exceptional skills and work. Come up with various ideas to recognize employees contrary to traditional methods. For example, a few offices offer no meeting Fridays to their top performing employees and few other offices promote employee health and well-being by offering their teams gym discounts. 

Also Read: 5 Creative Employee Recognition Program Ideas

Practice And Revise

It is important to understand that there could be some limitations and challenges you face when initially implementing employee recognition programs. One thing to always remember is, practice makes perfect. So, keep practicing and revising the format of employee recognition programs, eventually you are bound to get it right.


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