Why a recognition program?

In the employee satisfaction studies that have been done, we’ve never found a firm with low employee recognition scores and high employee satisfaction scores. There is some debate in the HR community as to whether it is better to reward employees with more money, or in non-monetary ways. These two methods need not be mutually exclusive.

Compensation is important. If the average compensation in your company is well below average for other competing firms, then certainly it is an issue you should address. However, the most prevalent complaint we have observed about compensation is the lack of relationship between pay and performance. If there is a lack of a strong pay/performance relationship in your organization, a non-monetary recognition program will be of limited value. If your organization pays its employees market rates, and grants larger pay increases to top performer, an employee recognition program should be able to boost morale.

A recognition program does not have to be expensive. The structure of a recognition program is limited only by your imagination. An effective program has the following components:

Fairness
High visibility and consistency

To be fair, a program must not favor one employee over another, merely because of his position within the organization, or his relationship with his supervisor. There must be an effective means of identifying employees who should be recognized. In many programs, there is an easy means by which employees can nominate others for recognition. As a supplement to a nomination program, supervisors can keep list of notable employee achievements. Making certain that a program is highly visible helps to ensure consistent implementation. If a recognition program becomes viewed as management’s “program of the month,” nominations will drop and those who are nominated may well be those who are perceived in the eyes of many to be management’s “favorites.” Small, but meaningful achievements may be ignored unless there is a plan to actively solicit nominees.

The actual rewards can be anything you want. One approach is to have small rewards initially, and make each employee who receives eligible to receive a larger reward at the end of the year. Some of the awards to consider include the following:

Dinner certificates
Award Plaques
Cash
Trophys & Plaques
Reserved Parking Place
An Extra Paid Day Off
And many more… Just think what you enjoy receiving and make it fit your budget.

The reward itself should be part of the process. Recognition can be achieved by having the reward given at a gathering of employees, and by recognizing the award in corporate communications., such as corporate newsletter or Intranet site.

If you know of an employee relation’s policy that works please email us at mickey@mickeys.net so we may add it to our site. We are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to recognize and reward employees.