What Do Successful Recognition Programs Accomplish?

If your recognition initiatives hit these FIVE "E's," you're on your way to a successful and sustainable program with increased employee engagement and improved morale!

ENGAGE .  First, you must capture the attention of the participants - and this means ALL participants, leadership on down.  This engagement will create a CULTURE OF RECOGNITION rather than "just another program."

EDUCATE.  Everyone must understand the rules of engagement and they must be simple and attainable for the entire population.  Everyone must have an equal opportunity to participate and be recognized.  Nothing will kill a program faster than the perception that only a few chosen employees will ever be eligible.

EXCITE.  Once the rules of engagement have been established and communicated, you

must REINFORCE the communication so you are able to generate ongoing excitement.  This is the "water cooler effect" - the office "buzz" around the program that has participants enthusiastic and eager to play.  This is often the most difficult element to achieve as it must be sustained.  You must stay creative, keep changing things up, and continuously solicit your employees for feedback.

ENCOURAGE.  Once the program is up and running, KPI's are in place, and you have selected the

award component, you must continuously ENCOURAGE.  Your program should be established with large and small behaviors that are both achievable and aspirational to everyone. Frequency, frequency, frequency and lots of public recognition.

EVALUATE.  Finally, you must have a measurement tool in place to evaluate program success.  Engagement is an amorphous thing - it's hard to get your arms around   Engagement is a Practice, not a Goal.  Don't let it just be a "vanity metric."  Decide what spells success for your organization and do regular assessments and evaluations of results.

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

What Criteria Are Present in the Most Successful Recognition Programs?

The most effective, motivating, and sustainable employee recognition systems are:

SIMPLE - for everyone.  They must be simple for upper management to administer and easy for participants to use; 

EMBRACED AND SUPPORTED by leadership - not just "on paper" but also in practice;

TIMELY!  You must recognize and reward the behavior as closely as possible to the behavior occurring.  This is why ongoing recognition is so much more effective than an "employee of the year" type program.  If an employee thinks he has a one in 4000 chance of being recognized, that's certainly not as aspirational as knowing your manager might stop by your desk and award you on any given day;

RELEVANT - both in the behaviors being recognized and in the awards themselves. CHOICE is vitally important due to varied demographics, locations, buying behaviors, and wants and needs;

REINFORCING.  The program or platform must reinforce your specific key performance indicators - those goals you want to achieve in safety, sales, health and wellness, extraordinary customer service, upholding company values, etc.  Whatever those KPI's are for your organization, your recognition program must align with those goals and reinforce them on an ongoing basis.

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

Why You Can’t Afford NOT to Offer a Recognition Program

What is the number one reason that employees give for leaving their jobs?  A LACK OF APPRECIATION AND PRAISE!

A few quick statistics that may or may not surprise you:

• A study conducted by Towers Watson revealed that only 30% of the current workforce is ENGAGED. By the simplest definition, this means that engaged individuals exhibit a level of enthusiasm and dedication towards their jobs.  These people actually CARE about their work as well as the performance of the company and they sincerely feel that their efforts make a difference.  Engaged employees are in it for more than just the paycheck.
•  But now for the bad news.  This study also revealed that 54% of employees are NOT engaged; and that 16% are actively DISENGAGED. That’s a lot of ambivalence and negativity walking around every day!
• And even more disappointing is that 60% of new hires – who came in all bright- eyed and bushy-tailed with big dreams of making a difference – fall into the Not Engaged category after just 6 months on the job.

So if you subscribe to the belief that low engagement equals low performance, you’ll certainly understand the importance of keeping your employees excited and sustaining their belief that they are valued and appreciated.

And remember, losing an employee that you’ve spent time to hire, train, and onboard is significant.  The cost of replacing an employee who leaves is at least 30% of that employee’s annual salary.  To put that in perspective, with a $150M annual payroll, just a 20% turnover cost would cost that company $9M a year.

Recognition is not just a “nice to have” – it’s a MUST HAVE.  

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