Thursday, March 23, 2017

Employee of the Month Programs? - Ban Them!


When asked about Employee of the Month programs, Aubrey Daniels, the noted behavioral psychologist and one of the most sought after speakers and writers in the business management arena put it this way:

“Unfortunately End of the Month recognition programs violate practically every known principle of effective recognition and positive reinforcement.”

Many businesses still have these ubiquitous programs because they are relatively inexpensive to implement.  But you need to be careful with them because they often become a “have to do” rather than a “want to do” and can actually do some harm. 

If you need and want to reward employees on an infrequent basis, you might want to consider some of the following to help make them more effective. 

1.     Communicate your program criteria often so employees fully understand how they can qualify for the award.
2.     Use objective and measurable criteria whenever possible and avoid a selection process that is completely subjective
3.     Consider increasing your budget periodically to allow for more employees being recognized.
4.     Don’t exclude employees for future selection once they have earned the honor.  They are often your best employees you need to keep them doing their best by rewarding their performance as often as you can
5.     Make sure these are done on a timely basis.

6.     Allow for peer involvement in the selection process.

If you want to build a strong culture of engagement, you should always be looking for ways to recognize your employees!  Building a recognition culture that recognizes and rewards as many employees as you can on an often basis, even using diminimous awards to save budget dollars, will provide a great deal more engagement and employee satisfaction than only rewarding one at a time. 

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