Employee recognition is the appropriate cognisance of an employee’s contributions that improve an organisation’s business. Recognising employees is an important part of human resources development as it would improve the performance and productivity of the employees. Employees are usually recognised when they achieve their goals or over-achieve the goals set by their organisation. Employee recognition leads to workplace inclusivity as employees feel valued for their work and would pour their efforts into their work. Staff appreciation may take place either financially or non-financially. Employee recognition ideas on a budget or low-cost employee recognition ideas are those in which the employer spends only a few bucks. Still, the recognition has a lasting effect on the employee in non-monetary terms.
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List of Employee Recognition Ideas:
Here are the creative employee recognition ideas that can also be considered virtual recognition ideas that would help recognise the employees for their contributions.
The Best Employee Recognition Ideas for 2023 are:-
Virtual Recognition:
After the covid-19, many organisations have changed their workstyle; they have permanently permitted employees to work from home. For employees not working from the office, organisations can take the virtual route to recognise the employees for their contributions. Virtual recognition includes appreciating employees on a video call with their teammates present or sending accolades to the employees virtually. This can also include sending a video with appreciation from the top management and colleagues to the employee virtually to recognise their efforts.
Virtual Wall of Fame:
The virtual wall of fame is a wall which is virtual in nature where the employee’s photo would be displayed for some time. It is similar to the wall of fame in the offices where the best performer’s photo would be displayed. The virtual wall of fame can be the organisation’s internal website or an application that every employee uses. In this way, the virtual wall of fame would help recognise the employees for their contributions to the organisation. This is one of the best free employee recognition ideas where the employer needs no monetary spending.
Letters to Family:
The new employee recognition idea is to write letters of appreciation addressed to the employee’s family members. In this, the employer would write a handwritten letter or sign a letter addressed to the employee’s family member stating the employee’s contributions and the recognition that would be given to the employee by the management. Hand-written or signed letters are the market’s new and effective employee recognition ideas. In this way, the employees would be thrilled, and the family members of the employees would be excited that the organisation has recognised the employee’s efforts.
Birthday Celebration:
The other employee recognition idea is to remember and celebrate the birthday or anniversary of the employee in the organisation. The other way is to provide the employee with a dinner meal coupon along with their spouse on their anniversary or birthdays to recognise the employees for their contributions to the organisation. Birthday celebrations in the office would mean a lot to the employee, who can be given a greeting card to recognise the effort. Recognition can also be done when an employee exceeds his expectations so that the motivation would be there for longer.
Personal Gifts:
The other employee recognition idea is to give personal gifts to the employees. This would include surprising the employees with gifts on their anniversaries or gift coupons. Companies can also send employees abroad on tour or provide employees with durable goods as gifts for employee recognition.
Health Insurance:
The best way to recognise an employee is to provide a health insurance policy to the employee. If the organisation is providing group health insurance to the employee only, then it would be advisable to provide a family retail health insurance plan to the employee’s family members as a part of the recognition process. This would help the employee in terms of adversity as any other monetary gift would fade with time, but the health insurance would cover the employees in turbulent times. Organisations can also provide health insurance policies to the employee’s parents as a part of the recognition process.
Education as a Gift:
The other creative way to recognise the employees is to support the education of the employees. In some instances, employees can be provided with education, such as a subscription to Udemy courses, or pay the fees to attend a particular course. This way, employees can also grow in the organisation by improving their skills per their wishes.
Lunch with CEO:
The best and most creative way to recognise employees is to arrange lunch with the CEO. The top performers can be called on to have lunch or dinner with the organisation’s CEO. Imagery can boost employee morale, and photos could be distributed throughout your workplace. This would mean that the best of the best would get a chance to meet the CEO and put forth any ideas that could help the organisation.
Work Anniversary:
The other creative way to recognise the employees is to celebrate their work anniversaries. In this, the employers can present mementoes for the employees for their long-standing association with the organisation. Employees would be expected to work for more years if they had proper recognition. At one point, employees would feel the need to be recognised other than monetary compensation.
Recognize Punctuality:
The other creative way to recognise the employees is to reward them for their punctuality and attendance. Only some employees would be punctual to work. Punctual employees can be given some memento for their outstanding punctuality, which would inspire the other employees to be punctual.
Work From Home:
Giving work from home for a few days can also be an act of recognition of employees. Employees who feel sick or unable to work from the office can work from home, which would help them boost their morale. Employees can also be given a certain number of days to work from home in recognition towards their efforts in the organisation.
There are Two Types of Employee Recognition Which Can be Adopted in the Workplace Such as:
Informal Recognition:
Informal recognition needs to be more structured, spontaneous, and unplanned. It is also known as micro recognition. As the name implies, the recognition is done for micro thighs such as appreciating an employee for closing a deal, reaching monthly targets etc. In this type of recognition, people recognise each other with a high frequency for each other’s contributions. In informal recognition, the incentives are mainly social based, such as social influence, and not monetary. This type of informal recognition which involves social recognition has a significant effect on the motivation of the employees.
Formal Recognition:
Formal or macro recognition typically revolves around material and monetary incentives for employees. These workplace incentive programs typically boost the employees’ morale and motivation to a certain extent. Formal recognition forms a significant part of recognition in organisations where employees are given some monetary or material incentives in recognition of their work.
Need for Recognition:
There is a solid need to recognise the contributions made by the employees in their respective organisations. For this, the organisations recognise and reward the employees on time
The Need For Recognition And Its Advantages Are Mentioned Below:
Increased Productivity and Engagement:
Research has proved that recognition would help increase employee productivity and engagement. Employee recognition would increase the employees’ productivity as the recognition would increase the employees’ intrinsic motivation. Recognition is the feedback given to the employees for their performance in the organisation, which in turn increases the employees’ intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the driving factor for employee productivity—intrinsic motivation results in quality over quantity.
Decreased Attrition:
The other advantage of employee recognition is the reduction in the attrition rate. Attrition Rate, or Churn Rate as it’s sometimes known, refers to the proportion of employees leaving an organisation relative to its total workforce. The higher the number of employees leaving the organisation, the higher would be the attrition rate in the organisation. The attrition rate is used to analyse the organisational culture. A high attrition rate means the organisation’s culture needs to support the employees. Recognition would help the employees gain internal motivation to provide quality work. Attrition can be arrested by recognising the employees promptly. Rewards and recognition may take various forms – financial or non-financial. Promotions, bonuses, increments etc., form a part of rewards and recognition of the employees within an organisation.
Improved Team Culture:
The other advantage of recognition is that it increases the team culture among the employees. If an employee or a team is recognised for their performance, then it would improve the organisation’s overall culture. Other employees would be willing to work so that they also can be recognised. Improved team culture would lead to improved employee performance and vice versa. It is important to recognise the employees to improve the team culture among the employees.
Decreased CWB:
The primary need for recognition of employees in an organisation is to decrease the counterproductive work behaviour among the employees. If employees feel that they do not belong in their workplace, they might engage in counterproductive work behaviour such as absenteeism, reduced performance, stealing from the company etc. Counterproductive work behaviour is the leading cause contributing to the reduction in the performance of employees and organisations. Timely recognition of employees would help organisations reduce counterproductive work behaviour and increase workplace productivity. Withdrawal from work is also considered counterproductive in which the employee would be mentally withdrawn from the workplace by decreasing productivity. Employees may also engage in workplace abuse with other employees or the reporting supervisors, which makes the work environment hostile and affects the other team members working in the organisation. Counterproductive work behaviour can be observed in many cases where the performance of the employees is reduced drastically, and the employees engage in anti-company policies such as stealing, abuse, sabotage etc. Rewards and recognition are the best way to tackle counterproductive work behaviour in the work environment, as the employees would feel happy to be recognised and engage less frequently in the CWB.
Why is Employee Engagement Important?
Employee engagement directly corresponds with improved company performance, increasing employee performance and, ultimately, company results. Employee engagement measures the amount of excitement and dedication one has for their work; engagement can be achieved by properly implementing HR policies such as Person-Organisation suitability in choosing employees; selecting staff with values similar to that of your organisation will serve as motivation, leading them to feel happier while at work and increasing overall business satisfaction levels.
Engaged employees tend to display greater happiness and higher productivity rates than disengaged ones. Employers could employ Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a framework for employee engagement strategies; its elements cover fundamental requirements such as survival needs, mental needs and fulfilment as well as self-actualisation needs at various life stages; these needs should also be carefully identified to foster strong working relationships within organisations.
