Employee recognition: actions and benefits for your company

Employee Recognition allows you to reinforce positive behaviors for your company while increasing employee satisfaction and pushing them toward excellence. 

The ultimate consequence is increased productivity, but the benefits cover all areas of the organization, from improving the business climate to specialization in the talent evaluation necessary to integrate an equitable, clear, and consistent rewards program.

The above is just enough to address simple but effective employee recognition actions throughout this article and share with you the great benefits you can obtain through them.

What is employee recognition?

Employee recognition is a talent management tool that seeks to reinforce positive behaviors and conduct that respond to the organizational strategy and are aimed at increasing employee productivity. 

This reward must be sincere, consistent, specific, and timely, and for it to be comprehensive, it must come from both superiors and colleagues.

The importance of employee recognition is decisive, as it is part of the internal factors involved in the level of motivation and satisfaction of teams. It requires a minimum economic cost and, in return, provides great advantages for your organization.

Remember that if you develop an employee recognition program, you must maintain it over time since you will create expectations. You can obtain counterproductive results if you do not manage it properly with effective structure and follow-up.

Employee Recognition Actions

The first of the employee recognition actions is the creation of a program that allows you to evaluate talent from your Human Resources department following 4 steps:

1. Know your employees. To understand their tastes, detect their skills and needs.
2. Define the rewards program. You must determine what will be rewarded and how and ensure equitable rewards.
3. Analyze the blockages. For example, reducing rewards solely to monetary recognition is less effective than betting on professional development.
4. Create a communication plan. With this, you integrate your teams from the beginning into the program with total transparency and encourage their participation.

To facilitate the process, you can resort to software that not only helps you automate certain stages of a progressive incentives program but also allows you to evaluate your company’s talent objectively.

This appreciation can be developed based on different aspects contributed by the employee, such as:

• Performance.
• Evolution.
• Work improvement.
• Contribution of innovative ideas.
• Contribution to the good business climate.
• Achievement of goals.

To carry it out, you can use various actions through different types of employee recognition that you can also combine.

Informal employee recognition actions

Informal employee recognition in the workplace helps celebrate a specific success or milestone, such as closing a project with a particular worker or team. You can send an email valuing the effort, thank publicly as a surprise in a meeting, etc. These are small, comforting actions for your teams.

These initiatives can also include celebrating a lunch or dinner or carrying out a joint fun activity that, on the other hand, improves relationships between collaborators and strengthens participation in the corporate culture.

Formal employee recognition actions

Formal reward and recognition require structured programming and can translate into an awards ceremony and public appreciation. 

Launching an employee of the month award, for example, is something simple that strengthens the organization’s values and the personal gratification that the worker feels when recognized. 

You can organize a company-wide vote to strengthen ties and integrate them into the nominations.

Another tool may be to introduce gamification in project monitoring. With this methodology, you can playfully evaluate and recognize your collaborators’ work, establish badges or decorations as they progress, complete stages, and accumulate milestones.

Monetary recognition actions

Monetary recognition can be achieved through a salary increase, bonuses, retirement plans, tangible rewards such as watches and trips, or by facilitating promotion to reward the person’s loyalty and contributions to the organization.

Non-monetary recognition actions

Non-monetary recognition actions translate into words of encouragement, especially at the beginning of the employment relationship, to comfort and motivate the employee. 

In the long term, these actions are no longer enough, so it is necessary to incentivize the achievements of workers by implementing personalized professional career plans, for example. 

A tangible reward could be paying for the virtual course the employee desires to take, which can enhance their skills and employability. 

Another option is to offer them an executive coaching program that allows them to prepare for new responsibilities in the company. 

These are just some ways to inspire you, although endless possibilities exist.

Benefits and importance of recognition in the workplace

Having an employee recognition program offers you a series of advantages that you should know. 

1. It is an excellent performance motivator.
2. Decreases frustration and staff turnover.
3. Improves the work environment.
4. Reinforces commitment to the company culture.
5. Increases productivity.
6. Generates trust in employees.
7. Promotes talent retention.
8. Enhances your brand image to customers and future candidates
9. Boosts your competitiveness. 

On the other hand, the lack of recognition in employees generates problems of different natures that negatively impact your project. 

Another internal factor that improves the commitment and trust of your employees is how you handle their evaluations, training, or other digital exchanges. 

To help you, at Smowltech, we have designed a series of proctoring products that provide you with online supervision solutions with which you can create secure environments for your remote activities. 

Discover practically everything we can offer you by requesting a free demo.