Five Ways Social Media Has Helped Employee Recognition

Some would say that social media has become the greatest channel of communications ever invented.  It’s only been in existence since the mid 90’s and it’s mindboggling how it has taken over our lives from a social and a business standpoint.  To say it is ubiquitous is an understatement.  Whatever it may be, it has had an enormous impact on the recognition and reward business.

Here are some very important ways social media has transformed recognition since it showed up:

Program Consolidation
In the old days large scale award systems were run on main frame computers and were complex and unwieldly.  Remember the six foot stacks of computer printouts on your desk?  The time and cost to implement one was exorbitant.  Today using excellent software designed by many reward companies, these programs are run over laptops and on phones.  The programs are more consolidated and can handle multiple initiatives and manage all the usage data.

Instant Feedback
One of the most important elements of any reward or incentive program is feedback, the sooner the feedback the better.  Millennials don’t remember when we had to wait 30-45 days for the monthly reports to see how we were doing in our incentive program.  We live in a culture of instant feedback, and it was brought to us by social media.  This has become the standard. 

Instant Rewards

With the advent of electronic gift cards, a recognition manager can purchase a gift card code, email it to an award winner, the award winner can then take the code to a retail website like Amazon and redeem it for something they really want.  That can take thirty minutes or less.  Rewards have never been so easy to issue, and to be able to do that ten years ago would be unthinkable.

Comprehensive Providers
Traditionally the very large full service reward suppliers were the only ones who acted as strategic partners with clients to create things like ROI plans, marketing plans and on-theme messaging as basic services.  Now, even one-man shops with the experience can do it. The award field is wide open to all types of new and exciting creativity

Daily Recognition
In the past it was very difficult to manage and award individuals in the short term.  Today it can be done at a mouse click. Social media has increased our sheer daily engagement with each other and allowed organizations to keep them more engaged with employees on a daily basis.

Recruiting and Onboarding
Social media sites (for good or bad) have made our job activity viewable by anyone in our networks.  Recognition and achievement have become a major influence in work life; job hunters can get frank accounts of how well a company recognizes employees (a top driver of satisfaction).  From a hiring perspective recognition and rewards can be a chief consideration from day one.

Communication

The obvious advantage of social media is communications.  From start to finish it is the heart of recognition and engagement.  It makes personal actions more visible leaving fewer excuses for a lack of appreciation. With social media your communications can increase exponentially while communication cost decrease on the same scale.

Unquestionably social media and its attending technology have changed the landscape of the recognition and reward industry.  In the time it took me to write this post, I have sent out over 6000 emails to prospective customers about a new product we have.

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