For companies that are interested in starting an employee recognition program here are some tips that will help you along. Firstly you need to you need to evaluate how management deals with your employees and evaluate if they operate on an open door or closed door philosophy and also evaluate the atmosphere as to whether it is business like, production driven, fun filled or customer orientated. You also need to define what the current mood is in the office and define if the employees trust management. Once you have established these factors then the second step is to determine the objective of such a program, by defining if such a program will benefit your employees and your company.
When setting up a recognition program you need to define the behaviours and performance you would like to encourage, as the certain type of behaviours you want to encourage will likely be repeated, not only the staff member you are issuing staff awards but your entire staff will start following this example. Make sure you get input from your employees and management with regards to the expectations required for a recognition program to be put into place effectively. Allow your management team and employees to make suggestions as to the behaviours and performance they would like to see rewarded and then use these suggestions as guidelines to identify the type of performance that will be recognized and rewarded with corporate Trophies and Plaques.
Once you have an agenda then discuss this with your staff to see if the measures are reasonable and worthwhile and most important if the program will increase productivity and incentive. Once you have a program in place then you need to define who will be eligible for each awards program and make sure once the program is running that there is no misunderstanding or misinterpretation. Define clearly if only certain divisions are eligible for awards or if all employees are eligible for awards. You then need to appoint a decision maker of which may vary depending on the type of program put in place. For example, you do not need a decision maker for people receiving awards for their extended services.
An ideal situation would be to distribute the responsibility and authority among as many employees as possible and at the same time demonstrate the type of work behaviour that will warrant employee awards, which will make it far easier for them to judge and understand the required outcomes. By distributing the responsibility, this will ensure timely recognition, as it is vital that employees are thanked for their effort promptly, otherwise such program will lose their effectiveness.
