Did You Know This About Employee Recognition?

We’ve all seen surveys that address employee satisfaction relevant to job performance.  While we are always hesitant to report on these surveys for a variety of reasons, collectively they can form a solid impression when addressing specific subjects.   In the case of employee recognition, following is another set of statistics recently released through the Employee Engagement Alliance.  Without knowing the methodology employed in conducting the survey or specific definition of terms used, in general the results might be something you may to consider:   

• The number one reason employees leave their job is because they feel underappreciated
• Employees who are highly satisfied with the job are 12% more productive
• Sales reps with high job satisfaction levels produce 37% more sales
• Peer to peer recognition produces a 41% improvement on customer satisfaction
• Companies with formalized recognition programs have 31% less voluntary turnover than those who don’t have one
• Peer to peer recognition has a 37% greater positive impact on financial results than manager only recognition
• 85% of companies that spend at least 1% of payroll on a recognition program report a positive effect on engagement
• Thanks and praise tops financial incentives for 67% of employees
• Less than 15% of companies provide managers the tools or information they need to implement effective employee recognition systems

You all heard the expression about how ‘figures can lie’, etc.  Research is often conducted by companies as a way to enhance their selling proposition with “facts” that support their positions, making their products and services easier to sell. We are not a research company, and we have no way to validate the above points.  But the one thing we do know is that employee recognition does work and will produce positive results.  We do know that a satisfied employee base is a powerful influence on the success of a company.  We have seen through the implementation of hundreds of recognition programs that it works. 

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Just Say Thanks

We are constantly amazed at how far the employee recognition industry has come from the early days of presenting someone with crystal bowl for 25 years of continuous service.

And we at Ultimate Choice are happy it has; we have been able to build a multi-million dollar enterprise because of it.  But it also amazes us of how complex  the entire employee recognition industry has become.  When HR professionals embark on building an engaged employee culture with reward and recognition as a component, they can be bombarded with more award ideas and systems than they can be expected to consider.  Does the research, the training, the in depth communications strategies, the sophisticated feedback methods all combine to make employee recognition more multifaceted than it really needs to be? 

When you get right down to it, shouldn’t it just be as easy as saying Thank You? 

• Do you thank at least one employee a day on average?
• When was the last time your manager said thanks to you?
• When was the last time senior management said thanks to anyone, not in an email?
• When was the last time you wrote a quick hand-written note to someone for doing a good job?
• When is the last time you received one?
• When you recognize someone do you also tell their supervisor?
• Do you look forward to thanking someone, or do you consider it a chore? 

When you foster a culture of gratitude, it can be a game changer for sustainably better performance. 

Organizations aren’t necessary stingy with saying thanks, the problem is that employees do something all the time and no one knows about it.  All you need to do is create a simple process for any individual in any location to feed a suggestion for recognition of a peer up the management chain, and then have a quick and easy process to make it happen

Many organizations over-engineer their recognition programs.  Making a genuine connection with someone who has done something you appreciate is a powerful management tool.  Don’t neglect it…

Just Say Thanks!

And remember...

"the more personal the thank you is, the more value it has."

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Kiss Recognition – Simplify Your Employee Recognition

What do you think about the recommendation to the International Organization for Standardization to create formal standards on employee engagement?  It was recently accepted BY the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to the OSI and could be approved as early as 2017. Employee recognition will undoubtedly be included in the standards in some way. 

As all the talk of employee engagement swirls around us, just remember that recognition is a very key element and the more complex you make RECOGNITION, the less likely it will remain the simplistic HR practice that is should be.

If you want your employee recognition program to be successful and sustaining here are some very basic simple things to do:

Keep the tenants of the behavioral model in focus: 

• Tell then what you want them to do
• Measure their performance
• Tell them how they did
• Recognize them for doing it with something that they want 

Oftentimes employee recognition doesn’t need to be any more complex than that.  For a short paper that will give you some great tips and show you some essentials for building the simplest recognition program, please click here.

Oh, and remember the most fundamental thing!

JUST DO IT!  

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Primary Objectives of Gift Card Award Programs

The “2016 Gift Card IQ” research conducted by Incentive magazine was recently released.  Following are the results to the question of “What are your primary objectives for using gift cards? 

Following is a recap of that research and a comparison of those same questions to 2015.

Answers	2016	2015
Boost Morale	65.7%	61.7%
Improve Performance	47.6%	56.0%
Build Employee Trust/Loyalty	44.8%	42.9%
Increase or Maintain Sales	33.6%	34.9%
Foster Teamwork	31.5%	23.4%
Build Customer Loyalty	30.1%	26.3%
Improve Customer Service	23.8%	28.6%
Start or Maintain Business Relationships	16.8%	20.6%
Improve Safety	9.8%	12.0%
Create New Markets	9.1%	6.3%
Improve Employee Health	8.4%	10.3%
Other	7.0%	4.0%

If you are sourcing your own gifts cards and want to view a gift card system that has $ for $ pricing with NO FEE and allows your participant to redeem for over 500 of the most popular brands of gift cards in the country, please let usknow.

 Here's just a few of the over 500 gift card brands that we use in our systems.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

  

Gift Cards Compared to Cash

Every year Incentive magazine conducts their “Gift Card IQ” research.  One of the questions surveyed was how effective gift cards are compared to cash.

Following is a recap of that research and a comparison of those same questions to 2015.

Question	2016	2015
Gift Cards are More Effective than Cash	40.6%	33.9%
Gift Cards are Equally Effective as Cash	34.3%	40.3%
Gift Cards are Less Effective than Cash	9.8%	3.4%
Do Not Use Cash Rewards	15.3%	22.4%

There was a time, not so long ago that cash was considered king in the recognition and employee engagement field.  Today it is almost non-existent.

Here's just a few of the over 500 gift card brands that we use in our systems:

If you are sourcing your gifts cards and want to view a gift card system that has $ for $ pricing with NO FEE and allows your participant to redeem for over 500 of the most popular brands of gift cards in the country, Ultimate Choice could be the answer.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net