This article is part-three of a six-part series that includes what we are advising small and medium-sized employers to do right now to create a superior workplace. In previous post’s, we discussed the importance of Onboarding New Hire Effectively and Providing Opportunities for Growth. Click here for the post on Onboarding New Hires Effectively. Click here for the post on Providing Growth Opportunities.
In today’s article, we explore the actions small and mediums-sized business leaders can take to foster a culture of appreciation and recognition.
Foster a Culture of Appreciation and Recognition
It is no longer enough to recognize the performance and achievements of employees once per year. Employee recognition needs to be an ongoing effort of showing your employees that they are appreciated, valued, and a necessary part of your organization.
Why does it matter?
Effective employee recognition has been linked to reducing turnover, improving productivity, and building trust and loyalty within an organization. In fact, according to the O.C. Tanner Learning Group, 70% of employees leave their jobs because of lack of appreciation. In addition, according to insights from McKinsey,being rewarded and recognized for work is one of an employees’ top concerns during the COVID-19 era.
Clearly, recognition and appreciation mean a lot to employees, so how do you to ensure employees feel valued and appreciated? In this post, we provide 6 practical ideas to foster a culture of employee appreciation and recognition.
6 Practical ideas for Managers –How to Foster a Culture of Employee Appreciation & Recognition
1. Implement Peer-to-Peer Employee Recognition
Peer-to-peer recognition is feedback coming from each employee’s peers instead of, or in addition to, their manager. It offers everyone a chance to give and receive input from fellow employees at their same level. It is a useful and well-regarded way to give employees more feedback and recognition while offering special meaning because it comes from people who count on them daily.
Peer recognition breaks down the hierarchical structure to allow employees to assess and recognize each other to achieve common goals. While managers are still and will always remain a crucial component to success, giving employees some freedom to work together and acknowledge each other’s strengths adds new interactive dimensions to their relationship with others and their own work.
Implementing an official peer-to-peer recognition program lets your employees know that you are serious about hearing from them. If you want to start off small, then consider introducing peer recognition by encouraging your team to give each other positive feedback. This could be as simple as an email thanking a co-worker or a giving a compliment during a virtual meeting.
2. Share Client Compliments
Client compliments often reflect the great service provided from a whole team or single employees. Sharing good feedback gives employees an insight into the level of service they should be aiming to provide your company’s clients.
Like many companies, you likely have some mechanism in place that enables clients to give feedback about your company and employees.
Here are a few suggestions on how to share client compliments with the rest of the team:
Weekly team meetings
- Sharing positive client feedback from the previous week could be a motivational lift for your team.
An email from the business leader
- Good service should be recognized throughout your organization. A short email from a business leader to a team or an employee that performs particularly well can remind people that their contributions are valued by the whole organization.
The company intranet
- Sharing feedback on the company intranet can increase the visibility of client feedback and can provide specific client feedback in real time.
Before you get started, survey your team, and ask them how they would like to receive information. Taking the time, up front and asking what your team prefers will ensure that you meet your employees’ needs.
3. Provide Frequent, Just-in-Time Employee Recognition
Recognizing daily accomplishments has a significant impact on employee motivation. Try sending regular emails to your team to say, “good job” and encourage your team to make it a practice too. These “micro-recognition” moments occur as informal, real-time exchanges of social praise and feedback, and are performed by employees and leaders alike.
4. Acknowledge Your Employees Virtually
Team staff meetings are great opportunities to show your employees how much you appreciate them. These weekly or monthly moments when everyone gets together to touch base and discuss what they have been working on are a great way to keep your team aligned and to help set useful and efficient goals. This is a time when everyone is together and engaged in discussion, and it is a fantastic informal opportunity to share appreciation for work well done, recognize goals reached, or just to celebrate the little things!
Try this. At each meeting, select a couple of employees and say a few words about their recent accomplishments.
Publicly recognizing them will show everyone on the team about the value that they add. It also makes praise the norm and can increase the peer-to-peer recognition your employees give to each other.
5. Hold a Remote Employee Appreciation Day
Employee Appreciation Day comes every year and falls on the first Friday in March. This unofficial holiday is celebrated in many parts of the world and is meant to honour employees for the work they do and to thank them for their contributions. The main purpose of this day is to strengthen the bond between employer and employee.
While your organization may not be able to do a traditional off-site or gathering you can still take the day to recognize your remote teams.
Consider scheduling a virtual Employee Appreciation Day for your remote teams and check out this to learn more about how to host a virtual employee appreciation event.
6. Build Recognition into Your One-on-One Meetings
Oftentimes, one-on-one meetings are used as a regular check-in on projects and act as a status update, but they are also a perfect time to recognize your employees!
Building recognition into your one-on-one meetings will give you an opportunity to reinforce the behaviours that you want to continue seeing in your team.
Want to know more? Based on research, recognition and appreciation is the number one thing employees say their boss could do that would inspire them to produce great work. See the full article here.
Recognition Best Practices
It is important to remember that employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces the most important outcomes people can create for your business.
To give the most constructive recognition, here are 4 recognition best practices:
1. Be Specific
- Service awards for just showing up do not impact engagement or performance in any meaningful way. Avoid comments like “great job today” or “good work” and be more specific with your recognition. Discuss why you thought they went above and beyond and how it impressed you.
2. Tailor the Recognition
- Know your people. Some employees like public praise, while others prefer it to be done in private. One person may want regular on-going praise during a project where another team member would find that annoying and would prefer the praise at the end.
3. Give the Recognition as Close to the event as Possible
- Avoid saving praise for a meeting or performance review. Waiting to recognize a valuable contribution can result in a fading impact of the recognition and a lost opportunity to encourage the same kind of positive behaviour.
4. Link Recognition to Your Company Values or Goals
- Values-based recognition encourages teams to work towards the same vision. When providing recognition, consider how the employees’ contributions aligns with the organizations values and goals.
Key Takeaways
The right forms of employee recognition and appreciation can have an unparalleled positive effect on productivity, morale, and business performance.
Moreover, employees become more engaged in their work and invested in the company goals and objectives.
Does your organization have the tools and management practices to inspire great performance? We’re here to help. Learn how to design powerful people-focused programs by contacting us today.
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Between recruiting and retaining employees to managing employee performance, there are many challenges small and medium-sized businesses face when it comes to the responsibilities of HR management. Outsourcing your HR through First Avenue Consulting can help businesses save time and money and allow you to focus on growing your business.
Get affordable and complete HR support that’s right for your business needs. Contact us for a free consultation info@firstavehr.ca or by phone at 647-406-4476.
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