Nearly half of employees would leave a company if they didn’t receive recognition, yet more than 40 per cent of senior decision makers don’t think thanking staff impacts on retention, according to a study from employee engagement company Reward Gateway.
The research suggests workers prefer to be thanked as and when they do good work, rather than at an annual event, like a work anniversary, performance review or company event. Perhaps time to rethink your organisation’s costly long service awards programme?
Only half of managers have techbased tools for timely thank yous, and even fewer have access to tools that enable sharing of praise publically between teams.
Alternatives for a recognition strategy that goes beyond long service awards include:
- Peer-to-peer e-cards, with everyone being able to send and receive for a variety of behaviours and actions, at any point in time. This helps reinforce the culture of recognition and get employees involved in celebrating good work with one another.
- Instant manager-to-employee awards, for example retail vouchers to members of the team who have gone above and beyond. Other actions (known as experiential awards) work too – dinner out with colleagues, or a free parking spot for a week.
- Quarterly awards, where staff nominate their colleagues to enter and winners receive a retail voucher or experiential reward.
- Employee of the year awards, with a selection panel reviewing quarterly to select the top ten employees, with rewards higher than that of the quarterly heats.
