Does employee recognition always mean reward? The line between thank you and performance.

As a leading agency there is rightly an expectation that we will share our extensive knowledge and experience. Most of our clients would acknowledge that their initial project brief or tender document did not have the benefit of external thinking or best practice insight from other businesses and sectors.

We have a proven method of thinking that helps our business show how we work and what we believe. Being the leading provider of online motivation solutions means we have to believe there is a way to do things and a way not to do things. Without this approach we cannot develop functions and processes that provide clients with off the shelf solutions that are proven to work.

Our approach to employee recognition does not to start with reward, costs, budgets, data or any other obvious component. Our starting point and interest is in how your directors, managers and staff say a simple thank you or congratulations.

Should a recognition programme include a non financial element?

Successful recognition programmes are always structured with the following six objectives at their heart:

• A non-financial mechanism to say thank you, well done and congratulations
• Capture the moment by making people feel happy, proud and appreciated with instant recognition.
• Rewarding performance excellence across all roles and skills.
• Must compliment and enhance your company reward package.
• Supporting the companies values by encouraging specific behaviours.
• Empowering managers to express themselves and motivate people.

Our experience shows that including a non financial mechanism ensures that the other key objectives can be maximised as well as ensuring efficient use of your budgets.

One obvious example is the identity or brand your recognition programme has and it’s perception by your employees and managers. Without including and embracing recognition without a value you will guarantee your programme is only associated with a financial reward. Every business should be taking a little time to acknowledge the small things seen on a daily or weekly basis. In providing only financial recognition tools your business will miss out on providing employees with this valuable recognition due to managers not feeling them worthy of a reward. Worse still you may find budgets are being used to say thank you or well done because you have not provided managers with the correct mechanisms.

Should employees receive small gifts for working late one night or missing the odd lunch break?

Some clients think so, others do not. Our solutions provide various options to cater for this need. However, this is a thank you whether your company’s culture feels as though a simple e-card says everything or if indeed, it does merit something more. We believe a successful recognition programme has to be structured around this thinking.

From our experience a quarter of all peer to peer nominations should be handled as a thank you, less than that for direct manager recognition. Interestingly though, clients never reduce their budgets based on this recognition model. Their reaction is to increase the minimum recognition values from what have probably been £5 or £10 to maybe £25 ensuring there is a clear difference between thank you and a financial reward.

Another example of how this structure assists your programme will be clear when communicating your behaviours and values, which is the key to employees understanding the direction and personality of your company. Leadership by example, strategic thinking, acts decisively and passion for customers are just a few of the strongest messages a business can send. Providing employees with clear examples and documentation that demonstrate what your business is rewarding is essential. Having non financial recognition ensures employees and managers understand recognition is about appreciating people as much as rewarding them.

As the UK’s leading provider of online motivation solutions we try to give each new and existing client the benefit of our experience, gained from working alongside HR specialists.

For more information on employee recognition, please contact us on 0161 438 6010.