Creative Employee Recognition Programs

Every member of staff has this innate need for praise and recognition. And the more they receive it, the more they want it. Employees try to strive harder to receive recognition. Employee recognition makes an employee feel as if his work is appreciated. Supervisors and managers are the best men to recognize employees. There are many creative employee recognition programs which help in reinforcing the belief of an employee in the corporate leadership.

Pros and Cons of recognition programs

Some supervisors and managers lay a lot of emphasis on the achievement of specific goals and hence, have rewards in place in order to boost the morale of the employees and make sure that the employees continue to generate better levels of performance. Though there are employees who try to cheat in order to get the rewards but there are many systems to check that in place. Creative employee recognition programs are designed in such a way that excellence in one aspect of the job is not rewarded. Instead to get an award, one has to perform exceptionally well in all the parameters. For example, an employee who is regularly coming late to office but delivers excellent customer service will not get the award. This is because though he is excellent in terms of customer service, he flouts office timings as well.

Suggestions for innovative Awards

There are many kinds of rewards which a company supervisor or a manger can give to his sub-ordinates in order to motivate them to perform well. One has to choose well from the many creative employee recognition programs in order to encourage the employees. The most difficult part is to choose whom to give what as every person has different wants and needs. Some people get motivated by cash rewards, incentives or promotion while others may yearn for public acknowledgement, fame, leaves etc. One could think of many options like the ones listed below to encourage the employees.

· Great Idea Award

· Customer Service Award

· Quality Award

· High Performance Unit Award

Areas of improvement

Since many organizations give away these rewards annually, there is a lot of time which has gone by between the performance and the reward. The problem here is, these awards are generally for the people whose excellence was visible for close to a year. Such employees are self-motivated and do not need awards to perform better. But human resources who have demonstrated that small spark of excellence in their work also need to be rewarded. In order to make creative employee recognition programs more successful, it is essential that managers and supervisors

· think more tactically about how the awards that can be linked to overall performance,

· reward the employees for excellence regularly and

· make use of innovative and encouraging programs for recognizing the employee talent.

Innovative ways to reward employees

Creative employee recognition programs need not be expensive or time consuming. With a little creativity and strength of mind, any one can reward an employee for his efforts without spending a single cent. This will keep the employees motivated and encourage others to follow. You need to publicly acclaim the employees so that the message is loud and clear and reaches all the employees.

· Giving greeting cards are a simple and a very cost-effective way to let your employees know that you care for them. You should write in the greeting card why the employee is being commended. This will be a source of inspiration for others as well. You can either get it printed or written from calligraphist. For a more personal touch, you could write it yourself. Leave the greeting card on an employee's desk or you can also display it at a public notice board.

· Call the employee to say thanks to him for his performance or a well done job. You can also ask the employees to assemble and then call the employee to say thanks. Public acknowledgement is a better way of recognition than giving cash rewards.

· You can also gift the particular employee a small gift card for lunch or dinner. Just make sure the card is enough for the employee to treat his family or a group of friends.

· You can grant the employee a half day leave. This can be added into the list of leaves which the employee already has on his name. The employee can utilize this facility to finish off some pending work or he can spend some time with his family or friends.

Creative employee recognition programs are considered to be a tool to reward the efforts put in by the employee to excel in his work. This can be done by recognizing the talent of a worthy employee through recognition, rewards and other behaviors. This method is though simple yet has a definite effect and is reinforcing.

Creative Employee Recognition Programs

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