Disengaged employees cost U.S. businesses an estimated $550 billion a year. Low engagement rates can cause businesses to struggle with employee retention, production, and even profit.
Employee recognition programs can help businesses boost employee engagement and improve workplace culture. Your business can achieve a recognition-rich culture without a lot of strain. The key to success is selecting the right program for your business. Here is our quick guide to employee recognition programs and how you can get started in your business.
Points-based Incentive Programs
What is it? A points-based incentive program is a type of employee recognition program that allows employees to earn and spend points on gifts and incentives they select for themselves.
How does it work? Employees earn points for completing tasks or participating in events in the workplace. The points they tally can be redeemed for products such as jewelry, home appliances, vacations, exercise equipment, and more. You can set goals within the program and allow employees to earn points.
How do I implement the program? There are three keys to a implementing a successful incentive program.
- The goals you set must be clear and consistent.
- The goals must be achievable.
- The rewards must be something your employees actually want.
The benefit of a points system is it allows you to reward your employees for a huge variety of behaviors and goals. For instance, employees could earn points for punctuality, hitting sales goals, recruiting new employees, practicing safety, minimizing sick days, landing new accounts, or all of the above.
Recognition Programs
What is it? An employee recognition program that centers around employee performance makes use of a variety of recognition tactics in order to keep employees engaged and feeling motivated. Performance recognition recognizes employees for their contributions to the workplace through the use of small gifts, certificates, award plaques, personalized recognition, and more!
How does it work? Use our cloud-based system to recognize success in the moment. Our real time recognition tools allow you to:
- Post recognition on a public forum
- Send personalized emails and recognition cards straight to employee inboxes
- Call out a workplace accomplishment
- Recognize behaviors that build your culture
- Reward employees for innovative thinking
Our recognition programs encourage you to do more than just cyber-recognition. We provide a complete recognition platform that includes recognition products such as certificates, trophies, plaques, and even personalized gifts.
How can I implement the program? Use our Employee Recognition Program Get Started Guide to start planning the type of recognition products and services you want to implement into your company. We’ll start building your custom recognition program right away! But don’t wait for us to start recognizing. Start showing your employees how much you appreciate them with on-the-spot recognition cards, announcing their success in front of their peers, or simply walk over and say, “Thank you.”
In the meantime, we’ll use your answers to the planning guide to put together an employee recognition program that works for you and your workplace.
Safety Recognition Programs
What is it? Creating a healthy and safe work environment is necessary for every workplace, but industries like manufacturing, utilities, agriculture, transportation, hospitality and others may want to take things a step further with a program that focuses solely on safety. A safety recognition program is a program that encourages all of your employees to actively participate in the company’s health and safety procedures. It does this by offering an interactive experience that reminds employees of valuable safety information while rewarding them for demonstrating safe practices.
How does it work? A recognition platform provides an easy way to disseminate safety information, administer quizzes, and ensure that everyone is up to date on the latest procedures. As employees engaged with the safety program, you can recognize their participation with a variety of recognition gifts and awards. Recognizing and rewarding employees for safe behavior sends the message that it’s a priority for your company, and that it should be one for them as well.
How can I implement the program? Levy Marketing + Awards can help you build a custom safety recognition program for your company. Successful safety recognition programs are built from the following elements:
- Structure- Having a clearly defined safety goals and a plan for reinforcing these goals is pertinent to shaping employee behavior and adopting the safety program from the start.
- Reinforcement- To reinforce safety behaviors and continued progression toward safety goals, feedback is essential. Feedback lets employees know how well they are progressing toward and achieving their safety goals, allowing them to adjust their efforts to meet those goals.
- Recognition and Rewards- Before distributing recognition, prizes, and other rewards, be sure these incentives are paired with a consistent set of behavioral contingencies. Employees should know what is expected of them before a reward can be given. For example, individual-level safety compliance might be rewarded with a small prize or a note card, while unit-level safety compliance might be rewarded with a plaque that is displayed in their department.
- Program Tracking & Evaluation- All aspects of the safety incentives program should be regularly monitored and evaluated for effectiveness and to ensure program goals are being achieve and to identify possible problem areas that can be improved upon.
A successful safety recognition program is one that is implemented and promoted throughout the organization. Supervisors and human resources personnel should strive to share program goals, highlights, and featured incentives with every department of the organization.
Custom Programs
Our employee recognition programs are versatile and customizable. We work with you to design a program that focuses on your company’s specific needs. Whether you have one or 100,000 employees, our custom recognition programs can excite and engage employees. We have the tools you need to get started with new hire recognition, milestone and performance recognition, recognition for special occasions, and other fun programs! Download our free Recognition Programs Guide to learn more about implementing a recognition program in your company!