When most people think of custom awards, they think of grandiose award ceremonies during year-end celebrations and galas. While this can work, it’s harder to justify those expenses when your employees live all over the country (and maybe the world.) How, then, can you use custom awards to recognize achievements when you have a remote workforce? There are so many wonderful ways to use custom awards remotely, and that’s what we are here to talk about today.
Make Peace With The Difference
Creating custom awards for a remote workforce is going to look slightly different from in-person events. You can’t control that fact, unfortunately. An award might break in transit, or your employees might get overzealous and open the award before you’d like them to. You do the best you can in a remote world and make peace with the difference between in-person and remote events.
Make Your Custom Awards Remote Work-Related
One cool way to recognize achievements
remotely is to make your awards related to this new world of work we find
ourselves in. Awards like: “Best Home Office” or “Most Likely To Be Muted“ can
make remote work awards more fun for your employees. Brainstorm a list of
remote work-related awards you can give to your employees. Make sure it’s a mix
of very positive awards and maybe some gag awards to keep things interesting.
Don’t Forget To Celebrate Achievements You Would Celebrate In Person
Your awards don’t have to all be remote work-related. Don’t be afraid to throw in a few awards you would typically offer, like Employee Of The Year or awards that celebrate employee tenure. You’ll want to honor these traditions, especially if your employees are used to these awards in an office setting before they went remote.
Pack Awards With Care And Track Their Arrival
As you send out individual awards to employees, you’ll want to pack the awards with care to make sure they arrive at their destination unscathed. You’ll also want to pick a shipping option that has tracking available. Keep up with these tracking slips, so you know when to expect each award’s arrival, and you can plan larger events and opportunities to celebrate your employees around that.
Have A Virtual Awards Ceremony
If you are used to large in-person events, try a formal virtual awards ceremony. Before you ship the awards, let your employees know that they might receive a box from you and only open the box during the awards ceremony. Set up the event a week or two after your employees receive their awards, and celebrate live with your award recipients. You can even have someone close to them announce them as award winners and let the award winner say a speech on Zoom. If you want to make it as close to an in-person ceremony as you can, reimburse everyone’s dinner that evening.
Write A Handwritten Note With Your Award
If you can’t find the time to do a virtual awards ceremony, write a handwritten note to go along with your award and throw in a gift card to their favorite store for good measure. It never hurts to show your gratitude a little more. Writing out what you would have said in a speech can go a long way.
Film A Video And Send It The Day They Receive The Award
If you want to make the award even more special, get colleagues to film short 30-second clips showing their gratitude and appreciation for the employee receiving the award. Then clip those videos together into a short film you can send once employees receive their award. This video will be something they can cherish for years to come, and it will make the custom award that much sweeter.
Conclusion
Custom awards have a place in the workplace, even if you have a remote workforce. Once you figure out the logistics of shipping awards to your employees, you’ll come to realize that custom awards are a great way to recognize achievements for remote workers.
If you want to learn more about Levy Recognition and our custom awards, check out our custom awards portfolio for examples and request information on bringing custom awards to your team.