Getting a Gold Star!
Great Job! Thanks! Excellent! Don’t hear those words enough at work, huh!? Well, you’re not alone. Too many work environments neglect recognizing their employees. Recognition—which can be simple—goes a long way for associates psyche. With companies hiring less people, those lucky ones with jobs are working longer hours, so recognizing their efforts can have a tremendous impact. Positive reinforcement creates a more fun, happy and satisfying work environment. It can also help lead to a corporate or office culture that will keep associates from wanting to go someplace else. Most importantly, less turnover should lead to happier employees and better job results.
When trying to come up with a good recognition program for your company/office, it’s important to take into account your employees, office culture, and desired outcome from the program.
Potential Desired Outcomes:
- Fun (working together is better than working alone)
- Motivation (to be recognized and work as hard as others)
- Unity (creating a synergy brining everyone together)
- Chemistry (positivity creates a closer bond)
- Commitment (for each other and for company goals)
Now how do you get the outcomes for the recognition you desire? There are three forms of recognition: verbal, tangible and written. Recognition can be between colleague to colleague and/or from managers/leadership to employees as well. Each has its own advantages/disadvantages. Do what makes most sense for your situation. Recognition programs can run for a week, a month, quarter or yearly. Having a program in place if there isn’t one already is a good move for all work places. Here are a few examples of programs to help the brain storming process:
Management to Employee:
Spotlight Cards: Managers give cards where they write down something they observed and what they liked about it, and then get one or two other management members to sign the card and present it to the employee. (Written)
Quarterly Emails: Managers send quarterly emails recognizing accomplishments for that quarter along with a sentence or two of significant accomplishment for some employees. (Electronic)
Employee to Employee:
Certificate/Award: “Pat on the Back” Award. Employee can give this award by simply writing in a person’s name who they feel has done an outstanding job and give it to them. (Tangible)
“Pay it Forward” Plaque: A plaque is given from employee to employee for exemplary work. So you get honored twice—once in receiving the award and also in selecting the next recipient. (Tangible)
Monthly Email: Allow employees to recognize each other through a monthly email. Ask employees to write a short statement about an accomplishment or effort they witnessed from a fellow coworker. (Electronic)
An apple a day keeps the doctor away…well a gold star a day or once in a while can keep your employees happier and more productive. So give it a go!
Alex Brown
Warning: call_user_func_array(): First argument is expected to be a valid callback, 'sociable_links' was given in /hsphere/local/home/thepinched/hiringwizard.com/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 395
Follow on Twitter
RSS Feed
Email updates