Engagement Series: Does your employee recognition programme need a reboot?

Recognising good work among your employees is a key driver of great business performance.

The problem is that unless you keep your approach to employee recognition fresh, then even the best thought-out scheme will fail to do its job.

So how do you know if it is time for a recognition reboot in your organisation? We caught up with the experts at Edenred to take a look as part of a 4 part series on engagement.

Time for a change

Based on our experience of delivering high impact employee recognition schemes there are four common signs that your scheme is in need of attention:

1. Accident rather than design – One of the biggest problems we see is the “patchwork quilt” approach to employee recognition where different schemes and initiatives have been stitched together over time with little thought to the overall impact and whether it really hangs together. If the scheme you have in place today isn’t the one you would design if you had the chance, it is clearly time to change.

2. Analogue systems for a digital world – In recent years workplace communication has undergone a revolution. For employees to sit up and listen, messages have to be instant, informal and personalised. If your employee recognition scheme can’t work at the pace of today’s workplace, it simply won’t be able to do its job properly

3. Too much hard work – Until relatively recently, many organisations chose to adopt bespoke platforms for employee recognition. The problem with these is not only do they date quickly but they cost a lot to maintain. If your system is clunking relic of past technology, avoided by managers and employees then it is obvious it’s time for a change.

4. No return on investment – The last sign is perhaps the most obvious one – can you quantify the impact of your employee recognition scheme? If the answer is no, then it is clear your organisation will never know the things it is doing well and where it needs to change in order to drive engagement and motivation among employees.

Frequently, organisations know deep-down that they need to change their approach to employee recognition but fears around the “hassle factor” puts them off.

The truth is that today, implementing a best-in-class approach to employee recognition is easier than it has ever been.

A platform that works for you

Perhaps the simplest question anyone can ask themselves around employee recognition is this: do we have a platform which is working for us in each of these ways?

If the answer is yes, then congratulations, you will already have a powerful tool which makes a measurable contribution to employee engagement, motivation and business performance by aligning and reinforcing values and behaviours are critical to your business success.

If the answer is no, then it’s certainly time to reboot your approach to employee recognition.