Few things can make an employee lose motivation quicker than a lack of recognition at the workplace. Smart employers understand the importance of employee acknowledgment and a fair workplace reward system.
Unfortunately, more than 50% of employees worldwide believe their organizations could do better in recognizing employee talents and effort in working environments. As a result, companies with solid workplace recognition programs are 40% likely to enjoy better employer ratings and improved employee engagement.
While some employee qualities like positive attitude, problem-solving, and thought innovation might be challenging to quantify, companies can still rely on many criteria to identify recognition-worthy employees. Below are five measurable performance indicators to consider when building an employee reward program.
1. Attendance Records
Persistent employee absence can hamper an organization’s operational efficiency and overall performance. Though absence from work can arise from genuine reasons like illness or car breakdown, attendance records provide easy-to-measure criteria when assessing employee work commitment.
Employers should consider rewarding staff with exceptional attendance records and offer those with less impressive attendance records a chance to make up for missed working days. More importantly, employers should avoid penalizing employees for absences on days not scheduled to attend work.
2. Incorporate Peer Recognition
Employees value constructive feedback and recognition from their peers more than other sources. Employers should use staff feedback as the foundation for staff reward programs. Furthermore, an organization can nurture a recognition culture within their workforce by encouraging frequent recognition among staff teams. Recognition among peers also makes it easier for human resource teams to single out outstanding team players eligible for employee of the month awards.
3. Personal Milestone Achievements
Milestone achievements are excellent reward criteria for organizations with well-defined working processes. For the recognition program to work correctly, the set milestones must include achievable targets that can be met as long as the staff remains committed to the organization. Unrealistic milestones can put off workers and dampen their motivation.
Human resource teams must clearly understand working cycles and other workplace variables when instituting milestone reward programs. Understanding the working cycles enables human resource teams to select relevant milestones for different groups, given that employees play different roles within an organization. Examples of suitable milestones include celebrating staff birthdays, a 10-year service award for long-serving staff, or a 100,000-dollar revenue milestone for sales representatives.
4. Manager Recognition
Junior employees often look up to their managers, supervisors, and senior executives for leadership and guidance. Supervisors often have a direct line of sight on their employee’s performance and are best placed to single out outstanding employees. With that said, an organization’s leadership should be actively involved in employee appraisal.
Employee surveys show that recognition and constructive feedback from managers and supervisors as very effective in building trust and reinforcing relationships around the workplace. Managers who excel at staff recognition, in turn, benefit from better employee engagement. Organizations should incorporate manager acknowledgment alongside peer recognition in their employee reward programs.
5. Social Employee Recognition
While monetary rewards and promotions are the most popular employee recognition methods, social acknowledgment is another excellent way to reward top performers. Social recognition is particularly effective in boosting staff involvement across the organization’s departments.
Through social recognition platforms, employees can share their experiences, achievements, and recommendations, giving them a sense of belonging within their respective organizations. Social recognition improves the visibility of the firm’s inside happenings, allowing human resource teams and managers to provide exceptional employee services and reward them appropriately.
Tips for Developing a Reliable Employee Recognition System
An impactful recognition program is not always an easy task, even for seasoned HR professionals. Therefore, organizations should eliminate bias and non-inclusiveness when designing employee reward programs.
Appraisal teams need to understand their employee’s needs and career development goals when establishing reward programs. If possible, organizations should have staff recognition committees comprising senior and junior employees to align reward programs with employees’ needs. Like sales promotions and product launches, organizations should create awareness about the recognition platform to encourage staff engagement. In addition, there should be training to teach workers how the program works and the criteria employed in the recognition system. In addition, human resource teams should incorporate recognition training during staff promotion and onboarding processes to boost staff awareness about the program.
