Leader’s Guide to Employee Recognition

There are many ways to engage your employees, but employee recognition may be the simplest and most impactful. Read our guide for leaders on why, when, and how to recognize your people and help them thrive at work.

 

Why recognition from leaders is so important

Employee recognition is a powerful way to engage your teams, improve their wellbeing, and help them be more productive. Modern leaders know the secret to thriving teams is showing appreciation. Here are a few ways recognition boosts teams:

  • Engagement: Organizations with integrated recognition are 4x more likely to have highly engaged employees
  • Perceptions of leadership: Employee recognition programs can improve employees’ perception of leaders by 23 points
  • Retention: While 79% of people who quit cite “lack of appreciation” as their reason for leaving, when employees receive consistent recognition, they are more likely to stay an additional 3.5 years
  • Productivity: The probability of great work increases 18x when organizations have integrated recognition, and when employees are recognized they are more likely to work at 80% capacity or higher
  • Innovation: Employees who receive recognition are 33% more likely to be innovative and generate 2x as many new ideas per month
  • Connection: When recognition happens regularly in teams, odds of employees feeling a strong sense of workplace community increase 508%

 

What accomplishments to recognize

Many leaders are unsure of exactly what to recognize. Do I recognize extra effort, or only when employees go above and beyond? Should I recognize an employee’s 2 years with the company or wait until 5? Do I recognize an employee from another team if they’ve helped out my team?

No effort is too small to be acknowledged. From an employee’s first day of work until their last, there are endless opportunities to say thanks and show employees you see and appreciate them and their work. Here is a list of reasons to start with, but remember to look for great work happening every single day.

As a leader, be sure to recognize:

  • New hires: Welcome new employees and make them feel valued on day 1
  • Everyday effort: Say thanks when a team member lends a hand outside of their job scope, gives insight that inspires others, drops everything to tackle an emergency project, or demonstrates resilience
  • Small victories:Recognize employees when they make progress on a special project, overcome an obstacle, or collaborate successfully
  • Big wins: Celebrate when employees complete a major project, exceed goals, or innovates
  • High achievements: Recognize transformational or breakthrough work, significant innovations, or top performance
  • Career anniversaries and milestones: Honor an employee’s life at work (including retirement)
  • Team success:Cheer on your team when they complete a project, innovate, or achieve something together (and remember to celebrate wins and progress along the way). Tools like Initiatives in Culture CloudÂŽ make it easy to customize and recognize specific team goals.
  • Company celebrations: Celebrate company achievements and milestones (like industry or calendar holidays, company anniversaries, reaching a financial goal, new product launches, or winning a big client)
  • Life events and occasions: Commemorate an employee’s personal life event (birthday, new home, new baby, promotion, new skills, or a personal achievement like running their first marathon)
  • Learning and development: Recognize both after training or certification but also during the skill-building process‍
  • Job transitions: Acknowledge when employees start a new role or join a new team in the company, or when they have been promoted, with special recognition

 

O.C. Tanner’s Culture Cloud employee recognition program with eCards, awards, and career anniversary Yearbooks

 

How to recognize employees

There are many ways leaders can recognize their employees. From verbal recognition or handwritten thank you notes, to more formal recognition with points or symbolic awards, the most important thing to remember is that the award should match the accomplishment.

While a note or points might be enough for someone who has stayed late to help a team member, a symbolic award or more substantial gift is more appropriate for someone who is celebrating 10 years with the company or retains a big client. Awards like Careerscapes™ are collectible ways to honor an employee’s career and team accomplishments over time, and company swag or swag boxes can add a fun element to team celebrations.

Swag boxes, custom awards and thank you notes, designed and curated by O.C. Tanner

 

Another important part of recognition is the experience itself. How can you recognize employees in a meaningful way? Here are 7 steps to create a personal, genuine, impactful recognition moment.

1. Plan out the moment

Decide when and where you will recognize the employee, who to invite, and what award you will give.

2. Prepare your remarks

Outline what you want to say in your recognition moment, detail specific accomplishments or contributions the employee has made, and connect those back to the organization’s purpose and share how it has impacted the team.

While celebrating career anniversaries, be sure to focus on the employees’ contributions over time, not just their tenure with the company.

3. Invite others to speak

If appropriate, invite other team members, leaders, senior leaders, and even clients to speak. Let them know ahead of time so they can also prepare their remarks.

Tools like O.C. Tanner’s Yearbook™seamlessly allow teammates, peers, former leaders, family, and friends to add their memories, photos, or notes of congratulations for career anniversaries and major accomplishments.

 

O.C. Tanner’s Culture Cloud Anniversaries experience with a gift and custom Yearbook with comments from teammates

 

4. Choose an appropriate award

It should match the accomplishment and be memorable. See our guide to meaningful recognition for suggestions and resources on choosing the best award for different types of great work.

5. Gather together

It could be a big crowd or a small group but make the event appropriate for the accomplishment and the individual who is being recognized. Public recognition is always best, and if you have any employee who is more reserved a Zoom recognitionor one-on-one recognition moment can also be meaningful.

6. Present the award

Instead of just handing the award to the recipient, speak on what the award represents and connect it back to your organization.

7. Invite the recipient to speak

In some instances, the recipient may want to say a few words about the recognition or even recognize others who have helped them earn it.

 

How often to recognize employees

Another common question for teams is how often to recognize. Daily may feel a bit much, but once a year is not enough. Luckily, we have the answer.

Our research from the O.C. Tanner Institute finds recognition must be weekly or every other week in order to be effective and truly integrated into your company culture. As the chart below shows, more frequent recognition contributes to a higher level of recognition integration for both monetary and non-monetary recognition.

 

Recognition integration increases as the frequency of recognition increases, based on O.C. Tanner Institute research

 

The research also shows that frequent, tailored recognition experiences spread throughout the year have a larger, more lasting impact on recognition being integrated into workplace culture than singular company-wide, all-employee events.

 

How can leaders remember to recognize employees? Here are a few tips:

1. Set reminders

Use email calendar reminders to help you remember to recognize each week.

2. Block out time on your calendar

Perhaps set aside an hour each Friday or 10 minutes every day to recognize. An SVP at Heritage Bank blocks off time every Friday to read and comment on recognition given to employees in her division.

3. Leverage reminders in your recognition platform

Use automated nudges and manager tools in your recognition platform to remind you to take action, especially for employees who may not have received or given recognition recently.

4. Post anniversaries and employee accomplishments

Posting employee anniversaries on your shared intranet site enables other employees to see upcoming anniversaries. Social walls let everyone see the great work an employee has done and enable others to like and comment on the recognition, spreading the impact even further.

 

Tools for managers in O.C. Tanner’s Culture Cloud platform, including team recognition reporting and reminder nudges for giving recognition

 

Model and encourage recognition

As a leader, it’s important you not only give recognition, but model and encourage it. This means:

  • Giving recognition regularly and publicly. Let employees see you use your company’s recognition tools and give recognition to employees.
  • Talking about recognition often and calling out your team members’ recognition in team meetings. If it’s a priority for you, it will be for them.
  • Liking and commenting on team members’ recognition on social walls
  • Recognizing up (recognizing your own leaders). Remember that leaders need recognition too. Doing so might also inspire your employees to appreciate one another, and you.

 

Source: O.C. Tanner, www.octanner.com