Employee recognition is a crucial part of any company’s culture. However, it can be difficult to find the right way to express your gratitude for employees’ hard work and dedication. Luckily, there are many employee recognition examples that you can show your employees how much they mean to your business—and all of them will help improve employee morale in the process.
Employee service milestones
Employee service milestones are the key to keeping your employees happy. But what is an employee service milestone? It’s an occasion that falls between their first day at work and their last day at work, such as their anniversary with the company.
A simple way to recognize employee service milestones is by giving them a gift card or something else they’ll like. You could also be creative and give them a picture frame or something else personalized which has meaning to them.
Acknowledgments of success
Acknowledgment of success is important. It acknowledges the hard work and effort your employees have put into their tasks, and it builds morale. Acknowledgments are also a great way to show employees that you’re paying attention to what they do, which can help build trust between you and your team.
Most companies do some sort of acknowledgment to recognize their staff members’ accomplishments, but not all companies do it well. If you want your acknowledgments to be meaningful and effective, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
- Know why you’re doing this—Why are we giving out awards? What purpose does it serve? Is there another way we could recognize our employees’ successes without having an award ceremony?
- Make sure everyone knows about it—avoid surprises. Ensure that everyone who might be interested knows about the event beforehand so that they can prepare for what’s coming up so that they can celebrate their successes together as a team.
On-the-spot awards
You can make employee recognition as simple as patting someone on the back and telling them how great they’ve done. You could also write them a thank you note or email, but even if you don’t have time to do that, simply saying something like “Thank you for everything.” Often this is enough to make an employee feel valued.
Another way to recognize employees is by giving small gifts or trophies that show appreciation for their work. For example, you could give employees who have helped you out with something a small gift card to a store like Target or Wal-Mart. You can also give trophies out for things like “Employee of the Month” or “Employee of the Year.”
These may seem like small things but they go a long way—especially when an employee sees another person wearing one of these items. In this instance, they’ll immediately make the connection between the possibility of themselves being recognized and the gifts that they could obtain if they go above and beyond.
Awards for best performance
You can give a trophy or certificate to the employee who has performed the best. You can also award a bonus, promotion, or raise. Let’s take an example of a company which has only 2 employees working in the marketing department: Bob and Jane. The company is planning to award a bonus of $100 to the employee who performs best over a year. They decide that both Bob Jane will each receive this bonus if they perform well, with their boss deciding when to give out this form of recognition.
Conclusion
Whether you’re just getting your company off the ground or it’s one of the biggest in its field, employee recognition is always important — especially when it’s good. And it doesn’t take much to show your employees you appreciate them; little things go a long way. These four employee recognition practices will help grow your business and keep employees happy in the process.