Employee Reward & Recognition

All employees like to feel appreciated for the work that they deliver.

An effective rewards and recognition program is a tried and tested strategy to drive employee engagement and job satisfaction, leading to higher productivity and retain their top talent.

There are many ways to recognise your high performing employees, and these do not have to cost a fortune!

·         Peer to Peer Recognition - Developing a peer-to-peer recognition program can support healthy relationships within the team. Ask your team to recognise achievements or behaviours that directly relates to your values. You can ask your team to vote for the employee who has demonstrated the values that are supporting your business and recognise them at a monthly morning tea in front of their peers.

·         Internal Newsletters and/or Intranet - Recognise employees and their commitment to your business or their excellent customer service through an internal intranet or newsletter. This can be an external newsletter that is sent to your external stakeholders or an internal newsletter highlighting their achievements.

·         Birthday & Milestone Celebrations - organise a morning tea and/or gift. This can be extended to other special occasions – work anniversaries, completion of study, etc.

·         Social Media: Give a shout out - Managers should make congratulatory announcements for the top performers. The announcement can be made in the employees’ area where they sit to boost their morale amongst peers and can also be posted to social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Employee rewards differ from recognition as they have a monetary value attached to them. Often the question asked when we talk about employee rewards is “Why not just pay your employees more?” The reason is that payroll is taxed significantly but employee rewards paid outside of this system can be classed as business expenses and therefore you can get more of a bang for your buck. It is a win-win for both the employer and employee!

The perks of a rewards program is that employees often get to share it with friends and family if they want to.  

You will need to make the reward meaningful to your team so don’t be shy to include them in the conversation. Some of the ideas used by organisations include:

·         Gift Cards

·         Coffee Memberships

·         Internal Loyalty Rewards Program

Many organisations have loyalty rewards. These range in offers but a good system I have experienced is an additional day annual leave for any employee who has worked for the company for at least 3 years. This then continues for 5 years so at the end of eight years tenure; the employee has an additional 5 days annual leave to spend with their family and friends.

You may also want to offer professional development. Inspire employees to do good work by offering incentives in the form of development opportunities. By offering this incentive, you encourage a cycle of constantly improving work that feeds long-term success.

The key is to offer rewards and recognition that align with the values of your business and are based on what the employee would like . We are all individuals so please treat your team as such and make the rewards and recognition count. You will see a positive impact on your workplace culture by doing so.