The last three years have seen massive changes taking place, including the impact of the pandemic and hybrid working on people’s mental health and wellbeing. According to SHRM research, 80% of companies now offer employee recognition and reward programmes. We look at growing trends to see how organisations are implementing such schemes.
Rewarding and recognising your people leads to greater employee engagement, which increases retention and helps to create a more positive workplace culture. Employees are far more engaged when their successes are being recognised, either verbally or through rewards. Employees feel more empowered when they have been recognised and rewarded for their efforts, and this leads to cultural acceptance within the organisation.
Peer recognition is an aspect often ignored by employers. Employees expect to be recognised by their colleagues and this is becoming the ‘new normal’. It encourages middle and lower-level employees to feel valued and incentivised. Being recognised by your peers for your achievements is a great motivator, resulting in a more empowered employee.
I firmly believe employee empowerment is the future. We are seeing an increase in candidates seeking more than attractive remuneration and benefits packages, and employers are trying hard to retain their key talent through a recent surge in buy backs, often at point of resignation.
Employee recognition and wellbeing programmes
Organisations thrive most when they feel appreciated, recognised and rewarded. Productivity and performance levels increase, resulting in a more efficient business ‘engine’. Your people are your most important asset. Therefore, wellbeing needs to continue as a top priority and employers must be more inclusive. If you get this right, you will boost employee retention.
Recognising and rewarding your employees will show you respect and appreciate their efforts. It also shows that you trust they are doing their jobs well, which encourages them to remain in your organisation and work harder for you. Based on the behavioural theory of motivation, this suggests people are motivated by a drive for incentives and reinforcement.
There are many ways to recognise and reward your employees. One way is through long-service awards, usually given in five-year increments. Another way to recognise an employee is through their performance. You could reward someone for their ideas, where their input has improved a process, product, or where they have provided excellent customer service.
Rewards should support every aspect of employee wellbeing, and your approach to recognition should link to your business goals. You could offer discounted access to gyms or wellbeing classes. Offering more flexibility in working hours and a better work-life balance can also improve employee wellbeing.
You could publicise employee achievements through a company-wide internal newsletter, add a notice to your website or give out a certificate. Some organisations hold awards ceremonies, such as Employee or Team of the Year, or more low-key rewards in the form of team lunches. You could offer people the opportunity to help the community with a volunteering day of their choice.
Many companies give monetary rewards in the form of gift cards or vouchers. If your organisation operates headcount globally, then you may want to consider a customisable reward they can choose themselves. Today, employees respond best when they have access to digital recognition platforms.
Benefits of performance-based rewards
An effective, performance-based rewarding approach can bring multiple benefits to an organisation and their employees. Firstly, this motivates people to perform better in alignment with the organisation’s goals. They will have a clearer insight of what needs to be achieved to meet these goals, along with the chance to learn and enhance their skills. As a result, this can progress their career development.
When employees feel they are part of the organisation’s big success, this increases more confidence, commitment, and leads to more innovation in the workplace. This also leads to a decreased attrition rate, empowering long-term employee retention. As a result, there are less recruitment costs, which helps the financial stability of the organisation.
An increase in employee involvement (Participation Management) results in autonomy, more productivity and satisfaction. Therefore, our recommendation is to always link performance to rewards. It’s critical that rewards must be directly linked to the desired behaviour to have the most impact on influencing employee performance.
Organisations who fail to provide recognition in the workplace are at risk of losing employees. In these uncertain economic times, I believe we will see more attention and action when it comes to “employees being your most important asset”!
Mandy Turpin
Director - Teare Executive Search
Our in-depth knowledge of employee recognition and reward initiatives give us a leading edge on other recruiters. Get in touch today for Executive Recruitment with board level insight. Call 01625 315 017 or email: mandy.turpin@teareexec.com
