The Guide To Modern Employee Recognition: Learn More About Employee Recognition at Bonus - Ly
The Guide To Modern Employee Recognition: Learn More About Employee Recognition at Bonus - Ly
The Guide To Modern Employee Recognition: Learn More About Employee Recognition at Bonus - Ly
Introduction 5
1. What Is Employee Recognition? 6
2. Why is Employee Recognition Important? 10
3. Types of Employee Recognition and Rewards 14
4. How Do I Build a Successful Employee Recognition Program? 18
5. Employee Recognition Tools and Resources 27
6. 12 Unique Examples of Employee Recognition in Action 33
Introduction
Recognition can take many forms, but whatever your approach, it's one of
the most valuable areas a team can focus on. Implementing the right kind of
recognition program is a critical factor in giving your business the
competitive edge. With that in mind, o rganizations are increasingly adopting
and rethinking recognition programs. They’re powerful, and they can
improve employee engagement, r educe turnover, increase productivity,
boost morale, and build purpose when used correctly.
Top-down recognition
Recognition is traditionally given in a top-down system, where an employee’s
supervisor, manager, or leadership team witnesses and appreciates their
contributions.
This is a great model for many reasons: since these leaders are typically in
decision-making roles, their recognition often has monetary results, like a
raise or promotion. These people are also in the best position to assist
employees with their chosen career path or growth plans.
However, giving frequent, real-time, and specific recognition isn't a simple
proposition for management. It requires managers to witness, catalog,
recognize, and reward countless contributions.
In most cases, there are too many valuable contributions made on a daily
basis for a solely top-down recognition approach to be effective. Most
Peer recognition
In a peer recognition system, managers as well as other co-workers are all
empowered to recognize and reward the contributions of everyone else. It’s
easy for managers to congratulate an employee on their general job
performance, but their peers are working right beside them, day by day.
They're in a much better position to recognize an employee's specific
contributions and understand the immediate impact those contributions
have.
It's simple. You see a teammate do something valuable, then praise them for
it.
We also can’t ignore the benefits of bottom-up recognition. Managers need
appreciation, too! Recognition is motivating and insightful for everyone, even
those in senior positions. With 360-degree style recognition, everybody in the
company has a voice in how they want to express their feedback.
Recognizing direct supervisors and leaders for the work they do isn’t
brown-nosing––it’s a method of interpersonal communication that benefits
everyone involved.
When you implement one, you give employees a way to celebrate each
other's achievements. These interactions build stronger teams, cultivate
richer company culture, and motivate employees to do their best work.
When executed successfully, recognition provides positive peer influence and
communicates the notion that good work is valued by everyone in the
company.
Looking at the bottom line, companies that score highest for building a
"recognition-rich culture" have 3 1% lower turnover rates than their peers.
What’s more, employees who don’t feel recognized are t wice as likely to quit
within a year.
After all, being appreciated just feels good. Why? It releases the flow of
oxytocin, the chemical our bodies create when we bond with others and feel
loved. The T INYpulse Employee Engagement and Organizational Culture
But why?
Understanding employee recognition is the first step, and in the next
chapter, we'll share why employee recognition is important. Read more to
Retention
Do you know how much employee turnover costs you each year?
You and your team no doubt monitor spending on advertising, hardware,
and workspaces, but you might not have a grasp on just how much employee
turnover is costing you—which is why it’s probably costing more than you
think. 💸
Between writing and posting a job description, screening and interviewing
candidates, negotiating relocation packages, paying referral or signing
Indirect costs of employee turnover include decreased productivity, lost
institutional knowledge, and lower morale. When an employee leaves, their
team absorbs additional work, which hurts company culture in the form of
unhappy team members who are less productive. Even once an organization
has hired someone to fill an open position, that new employee needs to be
oriented and trained. While w elcoming a new team member is typically an
exciting time, it’s important to note that productivity might drop with the
addition of a new team member before it goes up.
Fortunately, recognition is something all employees appreciate and respond
to. It’s a critical step in reducing turnover.
In a study by Bersin & Associates, organizations with recognition programs
that were highly effective at improving employee engagement had 31% lower
voluntary turnover than those with ineffective recognition programs. As it
stands, 6 6% of workers are likely to leave their job if they feel unappreciated.
Productivity
Productive employees benefit companies in every way, from increasing
profitability to optimising resources. Productivity is very closely tied to
companies’ profitability, and is a top driver of success at modern companies.
According to B ain & Company, the best companies are 40% more productive
than the rest, and have operating margins 30%-50% higher than their
industry peers.
What this means is that taking the time to appreciate employees pays huge
dividends on your bottom line. Recognition boosts employee engagement,
which then increases productivity. When you add inspiring employees to do
their best into the mix, productivity skyrockets:
If satisfied employees are productive at an index level of 100, then engaged
employees produce at 144, nearly half again as much. But then comes the
real kicker: inspired employees score 225 on this scale. From a purely
quantitative perspective, in other words, it would take two and a quarter
satisfied employees to generate the same output as one inspired employee.
–Eric Garton and Michael Mankins, H arvard Business Review
Giving employees the right feedback to know which of their efforts are most
appreciated helps everyone better understand the impact of their work and
what to prioritize. This doesn't mean you need to give a standing ovation to
every employee who made it to work on time, but it's crucial to let everyone
know exactly how (and how much) each of their contributions move the
organization forward.
Morale
Employee morale is the glue that holds your company together. It’s a crucial
part of any organization, and should be a top concern on your priorities list.
With low morale, nearly every aspect of an employee's contributions will
Purpose
Recognizing employees’ work and their impact on the team encourages a
sense of purpose. This type of transparency helps employees understand
how their work ties into the bigger picture of the company and how their
contributions matter. Purpose is important, and 5 7% of younger Americans
said that they wanted to be part of something that was enjoyable or made a
difference in society.
As humans, we’re motivated by knowing how our work helps others, and
recognition is a key part of that. This idea applies anywhere from working
toward a company’s broader mission to promoting cross-team collaboration.
It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day work. Frequent and visible recognition
reminds everyone that they’re all working toward a shared goal.
Communicating clear company missions and values through public
recognition also fosters a sense of community, which helps keep employees
engaged and alleviates some uncertainty about roles and responsibilities. By
recognizing someone for embodying company values, you develop your
organizational culture and reinforce objectives in an intentional way.
Next steps
Building a culture and environment based on employee recognition
improves each of these important areas, but it's crucial to understand how
the foundation fits together before starting to build the rest. In our next
section, you’ll learn about how recognition can take shape at your
organization.
Types of Recognition
Bonuses
There are many types of bonuses, ranging from small to large.
Small bonuses, sometimes called spot bonuses because they’re given “on the
spot,” are small monetary rewards given frequently by one colleague to
another in recognition of a valuable contribution. Although small bonuses
can be given by managers to their direct reports, they can also be given by
other colleagues, and even from a direct report to a manager.
Written praise
Writing thank-you notes can not only show appreciation, but is tangible proof
of an employee’s contributions. Written praise is a flexible method of
recognition and notes of praise are almost universally appreciated, whether
written or sent as electronic communication.
Verbal praise
Verbal praise is perhaps the oldest, and longest-standing form of
peer-to-peer recognition in the workplace. Verbal praise is given by
colleagues, generally in an ad-hoc fashion, in recognition of a staff member's
valuable contribution.
Although nearly always informal in nature, verbal praise is occasionally
solicited as part of a formal staff recognition program.
Events
Birthdays
Birthdays are a special occasion for a majority of people. If you’re in a 9-5 job,
chances are employees will be spending a good amount of that special day in
the office. While everyone has different preferences around the level of
attention they’d like to receive, it’s not a bad idea to show them that they are
recognized and valued.
Milestones
Work anniversaries
Work anniversaries are one of the most common uses of modern employee
recognition, but they're often poorly executed. We consider work
anniversaries an e piphany moment, and they should be treated as such.
Reaching a work anniversary is a key milestone when employees often reflect
on their past, contemplate their future, and assess their well-being at their
workplace. So receiving a simple gift card or plaque can feel impersonal,
leaving an employee disillusioned about the work they put into the company.
A work anniversary should represent another year of a job well done, and
should be meaningfully recognized. It’s a great opportunity to thank the
employee for the specific impact they've made over the past 12 months and
over the course of their career. But don't just say, "You've made a big impact
this year." Explain exactly what the impact was, why it matters, and how
crucial their work is to the team, the organization, and the people it serves.
Project completion
It’s always a weight off the shoulders when a project is completed, launched,
or published, so this is also a great time to recognize all the work that went
into the process. Be sure to recognize team members in a timely
Year end
A year end or annual bonus is financial compensation given to employees in
addition to their base pay. Annual bonuses are given once per year, usually
at the end of the fourth business quarter. They can be given for a multitude
of reasons, but are usually based on goals, either the performance of the
organization, the individual, or both. Depending on the organization or
industry, annual bonuses are sometimes expected as part of an employee’s
total compensation package.
Quarterly review
Quarterly bonuses are similar to annual bonuses, but are metered out more
frequently, on a per business quarter basis. Quarterly bonuses are most
commonly given as part of a heavily performance-based compensation
model. Sales organizations or teams are common users of the quarterly
bonus structure.
Timely
Recognition is most effective when given in a timely manner. Unfortunately,
the association between contribution and recognition weakens over time.
Aim to give recognition as soon as possible to produce a clear connection to
positive behavior.
Frequent
Frequent recognition translates into more engaged employees, stronger
business results, and lower turnover. Employees make contributions every
week, and failing to provide regular feedback about those contributions
increases the likelihood of individuals feeling undervalued in their role.
You don’t need to wait for a huge milestone or achievement to give
recognition. It’s important to celebrate the small victories, and research
backs that up. Take this stat into account: 71% of highly engaged employees
work in organizations that recognize employees at least once per month.
Specific
Why is it important to call out and recognize specific contributions?
Specific recognition helps employees understand exactly which of their
actions contributed to their team’s goal. Being specific means acknowledging
the details and context of a task or project, not just a “Thanks, great job!”.
When feedback isn’t specific, it risks coming across as insincere or unclear.
Naturally, this type of praise should occur soon after any contribution.
Remember: a quick “great job last month” isn’t useless, but it denies the
recipient some crucial feedback.
Visible
Private recognition can be effective, but public recognition offers several
additional advantages. For one, being recognized publicly magnifies its
impact. Sharing praise with a wider audience helps everyone learn about the
work being done across the organization, facilitating collaboration and
Inclusive
Inclusive recognition helps foster a sense of equity, belonging, and
psychological safety for all employees. Showing employees they belong
should be a top priority for leaders, and understanding the actions and
people who are recognized means understanding what is really valued in
your culture. Who is recognized most frequently and for what?
A powerful way to ensure more people are recognized is to diversify the
parties responsible for giving recognition. Recognition from all levels
provides more opportunities for contributions to be appreciated.
When employees are empowered to recognize peers, praise occurs more
frequently while also carrying more context and nuance. A 360-degree
recognition program with a foundation of peer recognition provides a better
understanding of what a whole team and organization considers valuable
while removing the bottlenecks imposed by top-down recognition and
breaking down team siloes.
Values-based
Values-based recognition encourages teams to work toward the same vision.
When sharing positive feedback, think about how a contribution lines up with
your values. If your company culture is really based on a shared set of values,
reinforcing those values through praise should be a deep-rooted habit.
Implementation
Implementing a successful employee recognition program might seem
imposing, but by following the above advice, you can simplify and streamline
your efforts. In the next chapter, we'll discuss aspects of tools that can make
implementation even better for your team.
Employee recognition is a powerful way for any organization to succeed, and
using a specially-designed recognition program like B onusly can be an
extremely effective way for teams to feel valued, perform better, stay
engaged, and more. We invite you to t our the platform and join us for a
demo to learn more about how you can start building a recognition-rich
organizational culture.
Integrations
Easy ways to bring recognition tools into your existing workflows are through
integrations. Pay special attention to tools that offer integrations with your
collaboration tools HRIS systems, SSO solutions, and other areas.
Collaboration Tools
Slack is a useful tool for both real-time and asynchronous team
communication. It also includes file sharing, contextual search (to help find
important conversations and files anytime), and a huge list of app
integrations. S lack's Bonusly integration makes it an excellent tool for
employee recognition by allowing users to broadcast recognition activity to
their team, and even give small bonuses without breaking their workflow.
We love Slack. It's our go-to communication and collaboration tool for nearly
everything, and we frequently use it to give recognition.
Every time someone receives a small bonus, the entire company sees it pop
up in our #recognition channel. Since we all practically live in Slack, it's a
highly-visible way for everyone to see all the great work that happens on a
daily basis, no matter which location they're working from.
Other great collaboration tools include M icrosoft Teams and Google
Hangouts Chat, which also have Bonusly integrations.
HRIS integrations
Your HRIS system includes valuable data about your employees, from their
birthdays to organization connections to contact information. Many
employee recognition tools can sync data between systems to reduce the
administrative effort required to implement and maintain programs.
Other integrations
Zapier is a powerful platform that allows you to easily connect the different
apps you use to automate tedious tasks. Zapier's Bonusly integration allows
teams to integrate recognition into Zapier’s catalog of over 1,500 different
apps, including Hubspot, Small Improvements, and Asana. Here are some
templates for inspiration.
Screens
From big to small, think about the screens your team works on.
We have offices in New York City, Seattle, and Boulder, CO. To make sure
we're always aware of the great work everyone is doing despite the distance
that separates us, we project a dashboard displaying all the recognition going
on throughout the day. It's impossible to miss, and there's something special
about seeing your achievements posted in a larger-than-life format.
For our smallest screens, we use i OS and Android mobile apps to make sure
we don’t miss recognition in action.
Usability
When you think you’ve found a tool that seems to fit the bill, test its usability.
Is the experience intuitive across platforms? Think about the different people
who will ultimately use the tool on a regular basis.
Provide rewards
Modern employee recognition is powerful, but if your recognition tools don’t
offer rewards, your field of dreams could be nothing more than a cornfield.
Effective employee recognition tools allow users to recognize each other with
praise backed up by real-world rewards. Our research has shown that even
small rewards with real-world value encourage users to give recognition
more frequently and by more people than.
According to D eloitte’s 2018 Global Human Capital Trends report,
“employees respond favorably to agile compensation programs that provide
raises, bonuses, or other incentives more often than the traditional
once-a-year rewards system.” One study even “found that employees who
receive regular small rewards, in the form of money, points, or thanks, are a
staggering eight times more engaged than those who receive compensation
and bonus increases once a year.”
In order to enjoy all the benefits of frequent recognition (i.e., increased
employee engagement and retention), you’ll need to encourage your
employees to engage with your recognition program and make recognition a
habit. The promise of rewards can be enough to get your employees over the
hump that adopting new tech tools so often presents. By linking recognition
to rewards, you can actually facilitate more meaningful exchanges.
Learn more about the link between recognition and rewards here: Accelerate
Your Employee Recognition Program with Meaningful Rewards.
Bonusly Analytics
Bonusly Analytics uses the rich social data produced by the giving of small
bonuses and transforms it into useful data, predictive metrics, and timelines.
Officevibe
Officevibe is another great tool for measuring employee sentiments. You can
send weekly surveys to measure employee satisfaction and engagement,
while offering useful and actionable advice on ways to improve it.
Officevibe's Slack bot, Leo is a great way to keep that communication channel
open and present without disrupting your team's workflow.
Scale easily
Running a recognition program requires time and effort from your team. It
includes plenty of planning, oversight, and consistency for everyone involved.
Fortunately, tools can help your team easily scale recognition programs.
Look for tools that can help you onboard new team members quickly,
require little maintenance, automate rewards redemption, and provide
strong integrations. Finding the right tool will help you minimize the
administration time needed to build a recognition-rich culture.
To make things even easier, look for tools that can manage work anniversary
bonuses, b irthday bonuses, and other a
utomated or manual awards.
Bonusly Blog
The Bonusly blog covers a range of useful topics from creative employee
reward ideas, to employee engagement and inspiring employee loyalty. You'll
find engaging infographics and regular interviews with industry experts and
culture leaders who share their insights on a range of important topics.
Officevibe Blog
The Officevibe blog is a great resource. It includes entertaining, yet
educational articles and infographics about employee engagement, company
culture, and how to improve both. Officevibe's blog also features 'culture
TLNT
TLNT is a publication focused on HR news and insights. There are articles
ranging from HR basics, to more complicated subjects like onboarding
techniques, narrowing workforce skills gaps, and improving employee
retention.
Next Steps
Now that you know what to look for in employee recognition tools and have
a few resources to bookmark, we invite you to take a tour of Bonusly and
schedule a demo if you’re interested in learning more.
When you’re ready to learn about unique examples of employee recognition
in action, take a look at o
ur guide’s next section.
Make it personal
I've always valued how our CEO recognizes our team on work anniversaries
and birthdays. He'll write a hand-written note thanking us for the hard work
we put in each day and highlighting some of our recent achievements. Hand
written notes are an extremely underutilized form of appreciation, but they'll
never go out of style.
Crush it call
Each Friday afternoon, our entire team comes together to recognize another
team member's hard work during that week. We go around the room stating
who we want to "Crush," and also one thing we're grateful for.
I think this tradition has been especially important as our team has grown.
When your company is only about 30 people, you usually know what
everyone else in the company is working on. But once you start approaching
100 people, the overall interdepartmental interaction goes down a lot.
Sançar Sahin | T
ypeform
At Typeform, we have a kind of internal play book with a list of values and
guiding attributes we try and follow. It helps us maintain a humble, friendly,
and ultimately more human environment.
Spontaneous applause
One of the things on the list is to "celebrate with spontaneous applause". It
sounds a little cheesy and sales-y but it's actually a nice Typeform tradition.
Whenever someone does something noteworthy—however big or
small—anyone can start a round of applause. The whole office joins in. The
beauty is that most people have no idea why they're applauding, but the
person receiving the applause does. It's a nice, momentary break for
celebration.
Stephen Milbank | B
utton
Personalizing appreciation
Everyone wants recognition for their contributions to the company, but not
everyone feels recognized in the same way. At Button, we have each new
employee fill out an orientation survey on their first day.
One of the questions we ask is, tell us about a time you felt appreciated for
your work. This provides the management team with insight into how to
make sure all Buttonians are able to be recognized in ways that they feel
appreciated.
Nemonations
“Nemonations” is our large format, company-wide recognition for going
above and beyond expectations.
Each Friday at demos, team members can “nemonate” their deserving
colleagues who went the extra mile that week and we pass around a stuffed
Nemo (of Disney’s Finding Nemo fame) to the recipients.
Giving props
For smaller, everyday props, we have a kudos system focused on our
company values. Team members are encouraged to recognize their
colleagues who exemplify the values in practice. Kudos are distributed in
Slack and are also announced at Demos at the end of each week.
Props bot
At Culture Amp, People Scientist Chris Barrell came up with the idea of
creating a S lack “props bot” from scratch for peer-to-peer recognition. He
says, “The idea for the Props Bot arose from wanting to publicly thank and
recognize some of my colleagues. We already had a public slack channel for
kudos but it was more customer orientated. When you wanted to give thanks
and recognition to a fellow employee, where did you do it?” He realized that
there was an opportunity to create a system for documenting and sharing
employee recognition and praise. Chris and a small group of Campers
created the Culture Amp Props Bot, which has given over 3,000 props since
its inception in 2015.
Love Leafs
Because these values are so central to our culture, we reinforce their
meaning by encouraging a culture of recognition. During our monthly Last
Thursday meeting (our version of an All Hands meeting) each team member
Chloe Oddleifson | D
ribbble
Celebrity shout-outs
As a fully-remote team, we've had fun getting creative with how we recognize
achievements, accomplishments, and when someone goes the extra mile to
help someone out. We integrated Bonusly with Slack, which makes it super
easy for us to give bonuses and keep recognition visible, but it's really the
personal touches that make recognition all the more meaningful and
effective. We love creating extra-special rewards that are specific to our
team's unique culture. For instance, we use Cameo to get celebrity
shout-outs for our teammates that are funny, unexpected, and
memorable—Rebecca Black, Sean Astin, and Flavor Flav have all made
appearances at team meetings in the past year!
Learn more about employee recognition at bonus.ly