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Creating a Happier and More Engaged Workplace Through Difficult Times
The state of the workforce is dismal. Disengagement is at an 11-year low and stress at a record high level, which means that HR professionals face a major challenge:
What initiatives can they implement to help make their team more motivated, satisfied, and happier?
The answer?
Recognition.
Get actionable insights and best practices for creating employee recognition initiatives that deliver real results.
This in-depth guide has everything you need to know about employee recognition and will arm you with the knowledge you need to transform your workforce through effective recognition programs. By exploring employee recognition's important role in the workplace, this guide will help you create a lasting impact across your organization and tackle today's toughest HR challenges, including disengagement, burnout, and more.
Click below to learn about employee recognition.
Recognition Examples and Ideas to Inspire Your Program
Transforming the Modern Workplace with Recognition
Click here to learn why recognition is critical for employee and organizational success and how to measure its effectiveness.
Click here to master the basics of employee recognition and learn how to establish a robust program.
Click here to get inspired with practical examples and innovative ideas to enhance your recognition efforts.
Transform Your Workplace with Inspirus
Inspirus is a leading employee engagement and recognition solutions provider — recognized by Everest Group as a star performer and major contender in the 2023 Rewards and Recognition Solutions PEAK Matrix.
Offering a holistic solution through tailored engagement and recognition programs, we empower organizations to create a thriving workforce that reduces turnover, boosts engagement, and more. Talk with an Inspirus specialist today to see how we can partner with you to elevate your organization’s employee experience. Inspirus is a Pluxee Company, the global leading employee benefits and engagement partner that creates meaningful, engaging, and personalized experiences to contribute to the well-being of individuals at work and beyond.
Talk with an Inspirus Specialist
Up Next: Recognition 101
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Employee Recognition
The Ultimate Guide to
Recognition 101: Back to the Basics
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The Ripple Effect of Recognition Hover over arrows to learn more.
Supervisor or colleague recognizes employee for good work.
Recognized employee is more likely to appreciate their fellow colleagues.
Discover What Recognition is and Why it is so Important in the Modern Workforce
A thriving company culture and purposeful employee experience are essential for any successful organization. The key to achieving this? Employee recognition. Recognizing employees for their milestones, accomplishments, and life occasions can motivate and inspire employees, improving their engagement levels, strengthening belonging, and increasing retention.
What is Employee Recognition?
Employee recognition is the act of recognizing an employee’s efforts, dedication, and achievements. It can take many forms, from a simple pat on the back to a thoughtful note to a gift. No matter how big or small, the cumulative effect of recognition is powerful. Each recognition touch-point strengthens an employee’s commitment to their organization and shows them that they are valued members of the organization.
3 Ways to Show Recognition
Moments to Recognize in the Employee Experience
When should you recognize employees? There are many moments throughout the employee experience you can reward your employees for.
A few common moments companies often recognize include: At the start of on-boarding Yearly work anniversaries Career Achievements Going above and beyond for a project or team member Birthdays and other life occasions Holidays Employee Appreciation Day Yearly employee awards
Learn More About Employee Recognition
Employee feels a sense of belonging. Motivation, satisfaction, and happiness increase.
As you outline your recognition initiatives, remember to incorporate frequent recognition touchpoints. Consistently celebrating your employees' milestones, whether big or small, can help create an enhanced employee experience that will keep your team motivated and satisfied.
The Purpose of Employee Recognition
Workplace recognition motivates, provides a sense of accomplishment and makes employees feel valued for their work. Recognition not only boosts individual employee engagement, but it also has been found to increase productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to higher retention.
As any successful organization shows, when employees are recognized, they thrive. Recognition is a powerful tool. When employees are recognized in a meaningful way, they are more likely to feel intrinsically motivated to excel, stay committed to their company, and feel a stronger sense of belonging. And data validates this: Recent research shows companies that recognize their employees achieve better business results.
Gallup
Click below to learn more:
Engagement
Belonging
Retention
Learn About the Power of Recognition
Employee Engagement: Employee recognition drives productivity because when employees feel appreciated for their efforts, they work harder. This positive reinforcement helps them know what it is that they’re doing that is making a difference, and they commit to doing more of. In fact, 80% of employees would work harder if they felt better appreciated.
Recognition increases employee engagement, productivity, and performance by 14%.
Recognized employees are nearly 6 times more likely to stay at their job compared to their counterparts.
Employee Retention: While turnover can arise from various factors, a few of the leading causes can be boiled down to not feeling recognized, valued, heard, or seen. Actively showing your hardworking employees’ appreciation on a consistent basis sends a powerful message of their value and impact of their contributions. This frequent recognition reinforces the importance of their role within the organization, thereby strengthening their commitment to an organization.
Deloitte
Zippia
34% of employees feel they belong most at work when their unique contributions are valued.
Employee Belonging: A key component of every human being’s fundamental needs is to feel like they belong and have purpose – and this holds true in the workplace as well. Building a culture of appreciation, where each team members’ successes are recognized, can help instill a strong sense of belonging and purpose within the organization. Research by Deloitte suggests that when employees experience this sense of belonging, it positively impacts business performance and success.
EY
Types of Recognition Programs
There are numerous ways to implement a recognition program and various use cases for one. From service awards to encouraging peer-to-peer recognition to simply fostering connection, recognition programs can vary. Recognition programs can be broken down to three main types. Click below to learn more:
Traditional Rewards Program
Social Recognition Program
Monetary Recognition Program
Traditional Rewards Program: A traditional rewards program is a one-time program that allows program administrators to recognize and reward employees on a specific date. This may include service awards, spot programs, holiday gift programs, or life occasion celebrations. Depending on the program, an organization may present a certificate, plaque, trophy, or gift to an employee to recognize their excellence or milestone.
Social Recognition Program: A social recognition program encompasses encouraging meaningful peer-to-peer recognition within a company. Often, organizations will use a digital recognition platform or the company intranet to encourage employees to celebrate each other’s achievements, dedication, partnership, and more. This type of program can help HR teams foster connection and belongingness regardless of where their employees are located.
Monetary Recognition Program: A monetary recognition program is a recognition and rewards program that provides tangible rewards to employees for their accomplishments, contributions, and behaviors. These programs often incorporate peer-to-peer recognition, enabling eligible employees to send their fellow colleagues points in celebration of work accomplishments and teamwork. A monetary program is great for incentivizing meaningful peer-to-peer recognition to increase program adoption and create a more unified workforce.
Discover What Type of Rewards and Recognition Program You Need
Setting Up a Recognition and Rewards Program that Fits Your Needs
The key to setting up a recognition and rewards program that makes a real difference to your people and organization is using a strategy that suits your team’s specific needs. By tailoring your approach to your employees’ preferences and company values, you can prevent your programs from falling flat and maximize their impact. Click the buttons below for examples of how you can tailor your approach.
Frequent Recognition vs. Spot Programs
Frequent Recognition: Build a cohesive culture of appreciation by consistently recognizing your staff and encouraging employees to recognize one another. By recognizing all the moments that matter throughout an employee’s tenure, a company can enhance the employee experience and empower them to excel at work. Social and monetary recognition programs are best for achieving frequent recognition.
Spot Programs: Celebrate your employees’ achievements, milestones, and life occasions with a spot recognition program. These programs are the perfect way to honor timely events, such as holidays, or reward a smaller group of employees for programs like a nomination program. You can use a digital recognition and rewards program like Connects Celebrates to make celebrating these moments easier by automating the rewards process.
Offering Points Monthly vs. Yearly Allowance
Peer-to-Peer Recognition vs. Leader-Driven Recognition
Leader-driven Recognition: Leader-driven recognition is an initiative companies use to strengthen and promote recognition within an organization. One of the best ways to cultivate recognition is by setting an example. When leaders recognize their direct reports and teams, it shows the rest of the staff that recognition is important.
37% of employees report that the best way to improve their engagement is for their superiors to give them recognition.
Peer-to-Peer Recognition: Peer-to-peer recognition is when employees recognize their colleagues for milestones, contributions, life occasions, and partnership. This bottoms-up approach helps organizations create a unified work environment where employees feel a sense of purpose and belonging.
92% of employees are likely to repeat a specific action if given recognition for it.
Monthly Point Allowance: A monthly allowance program provides employees with a set number of monthly points. This type of program is perfect for encouraging frequent peer recognition throughout your organization. For instance, an eligible employee may have $5 worth of points at the start of every month to send to their colleagues.
Yearly Point Allowance: A yearly point allowance provides your eligible employees with all of their points at the start of the year, allowing them to send points however they see fit throughout the year. For example, an employee could send 40% of their points in one month and no points the next three months.
How to Build an Effective Recognition Program
A recognition program is only as great as its implementation. Without a structured plan in place, employee recognition will only have a limited impact. To drive meaningful change in your organization, it’s imperative that you organize and implement a robust and strategic recognition program. Here are a few best practices to follow when setting up your programs.
01. Define Clear Objectives for the Programs The key to any successful initiative is ensuring it has a clear objective and goal. Before you launch a program, consider the objectives you want to achieve with the program. Do you want to boost employee engagement, improve employee satisfaction, strengthen culture, or just simply recognize your team’s big milestones?
02. Track Analytics and Relevant KIPs Aligned with Desired Outcomes One problem many program administrators run into is finding ways to attach recognition programs to business outcomes. As you plan out and maintain your program, identify and track key metrics aligned with your program’s objectives. To understand if your programs are making an impact in your organization, consider implementing employee surveys to get real-time insight into how your people think, feel, and behave within your organization. This data can help you understand whether your programs are impacting engagement, satisfaction, company culture, and more.
Metrics you can track include: Program participation Turnover rates Employee happiness levels Pulse survey results Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
03. Get Buy-In from Leaders and Managers Contrary to popular belief, recognition is not just an HR initiative. Research from Deloitte reveals that “high-performing rewards functions are 1.7x more likely to report employee experience as an HR leader/C-suite priority.” If you and your organizational leaders want to create a positive work environment where employees are empowered and motivated to perform at their best, then all leaders and managers need to lead by example and participate in recognizing their teams and colleagues.
A few ways you can get buy-in from your leaders and managers include: Host regular meetings to educate them on the importance of recognizing direct reports and your team Incentivize your leaders and managers by giving them points each month Spotlight managers and leaders who go the extra mile to recognize their team Demonstrate the value of recognition by sharing real-time data of its impact
04. Frequently Communicate with Your Staff Recognition is often one of those items that gets bumped to the bottom of a person’s to-do list. The best way to prevent this is by proactively communicating about your recognition programs with your staff. Send regular messages through multiple channels with updates, best practices, and more to keep recognition top of mind for your employees.
05. Offer Rewards Your Staff Actually Want Another issue recognition programs often encounter is that employees don’t find the rewards they receive meaningful. In today’s digital age, employees expect to have a personalized employee experience – and rewards are no exception to the rule. Traditional rewards like pizza parties or desk accessories are no longer cutting it for today’s workers. The key to implementing recognition and rewards programs that have an impact and drive change is offering gifts that employees truly want. Fortunately, a digital recognition and rewards platform like Inspirus Connects can help you achieve this. These digital tools empower employees to select a budget-aligned gift of choice from an expansive online catalog, ensuring employees receive a gift that’s truly valuable to them.
These five practices can help you create and foster an environment where recognition becomes a key part of your employees’ day. When recognition becomes a regular practice rather than an occasional event, it helps create a more memorable employee experience and build a supportive work environment that results in happier, more motivated, and satisfied employees.
Learn More Program Best Practices
Up Next: Transforming the Modern Workplace with Recognition
While there are countless ways to show appreciation, most recognition efforts can be grouped into three key categories.
By incorporating these key forms of recognition into your approach, you create a balanced strategy that caters to different preferences and situations, ensuring every employee feels valued.
Public or Private Acknowledgment
Written Praise Through Digital or Hand-written Messages
Rewards for Achievements and Contributions
Driving Tangible Results Through the Power of Recognition
Want to know the secret to creating a thriving, engaged workforce? It's simpler than you think: consistently recognizing your employees. It’s not just about the big moments. Small but regular gestures of recognition are as important as one-off milestone celebrations. Although often overlooked, the power of recognition should not be ignored. When employees are recognized for their efforts, they thrive – and so does their organization.
Research shows that 34% of employees feel they belong most at work when their unique contributions are valued, and frequent recognition can increase performance, productivity, and engagement by 14%.
Here’s How Recognition Powers Business Results:
Fueling Employee Engagement
Elevating Employee Satisfaction and Retention
Building a Strong and Unified Company Culture
Transforming the Employee Experience
Measuring the Impact of Your Program
Discover best practices for calculating the ROI of your recognition programs. Learn how to turn these metrics into measurable financial outcomes for your organization. Click to learn more.
Recognizing key moments like milestones and achievements throughout the employee experience helps create a workplace where employees feel seen and appreciated. Click to learn more.
Recognizing employees reinforces cultural values, promotes appreciation, and helps create an inclusive environment where employees feel empowered to thrive. Click to learn more.
Frequent recognition boosts employee morale and satisfaction, creating a more rewarding experience that helps minimize turnover rates. Click to learn more.
Regular recognition enhances employee engagement by rewarding accomplishments and motivating employees to strive for excellence. Click to learn more.
How Recognizing Employees Fuels Engagement and Productivity
80% of employees would work harder if they felt better appreciate.
Business productivity increases by 31% when employees are happy.
Harvard Business Review
Employee Engagement is on the Decline
Before we dive into how recognition impacts engagement, it’s important to understand the current state of employee engagement. As of February 2024, Gallup reports employee engagement in the United States (U.S.) has hit an 11-year low, with only 30% of employees actively engaged at work. That’s a striking contrast to the record-high engagement levels the U.S. experienced during the pandemic, with 36% of employees engaged in 2020. Several factors, including the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic downturn, rising inflation, and a rapidly changing work environment, have all contributed to this steep decline of engagement levels.
GALLUP
26%
18%
30%
17%
29%
15%
20%
28%
19%
31%
33%
16%
34%
13%
36%
14%
32%
2000
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2012
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10%
40%
Actively Disengaged
Engaged
Hover over years to see averages.
U.S. Employee Engagement Trends
The problem is, this downward trend is not without its costs. Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace report indicates that low engagement is costing the global economy $8.9 trillion dollars, or 9% of global GDP each year. Likewise, another report reveals that disengaged employees cost their company up to 18% of their annual salary.
View Signs of a Disengaged Employee
Disengaged employees often exhibit one or more of the following characteristics.
Hover to learn more.
Reduced Productivity and Performance
Poor Job Satisfaction and Higher Turnover
Lack of Enthusiasm
Low Morale or Negative Attitude
Increased Absenteeism
Lack of Initiative or Desire to Learn
Meets the Bare Minimum
Why Recognition is One of the Best Ways to Improve Employee Engagement
One of the best ways to keep employees engaged and happy is by recognizing their contributions and achievements. Why? Because frequently recognizing each employee’s accomplishments and milestones – whether big or small – can intrinsically motivate and inspire employees to perform their best at work. In fact, Zippia reports that 80% of employees would work harder if they were recognized more often. When employees are engaged, they are more likely to contribute more to an organization and feel a stronger sense of purpose and belonging. This increase in motivation and commitment drives employees to work harder, often yielding better business results. And research supports this: Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workplace Report reveals that the behaviors of highly engaged business units result in better business performance.
Outcomes of Highly Engaged Business Units and Teams.
Difference between top- and bottom-quartile teams/business units within a typical organization. Hover over percentages to learn more.
10% increase in customer loyalty/ engagement
21%
23%
58%
17% increase in productivity (sales)
21% decrease in turnover for high-turnover organizations
23% increase in profitability
26% decrease in theft
58% decrease in patient safety incidents
63%
63% decrease in safety accidents
68%
68% increase in wellbeing (thriving employees)
78% decrease in absenteeism
78%
Discover More About How Employee Engagement Impacts Business Performance
Learn More About Recognition’s Impact on Employee Performance
Improving Job Satisfaction and Retention with Recognition
86% of companies with employee recognition programs report an increase in employee happiness and job satisfaction.
SHRM
Recognition satisfies the fundamental human need for appreciation. When employees are acknowledged for their hard work and contributions, they feel valued and respected. This sense of appreciation can significantly boost job satisfaction, leading to a more content and committed workforce.
The Cost of Turnover
Retaining your staff can have a significant impact on a company's bottom line and culture.
With nearly half of employees actively seeking or watching for a new job and a low unemployment rate of 3.7% as of May 2024, addressing turnover is vital for business success.
Employee turnover can be a major drain on resources, with costs sometimes reaching as high as three times an employee's salary. Of course, the actual costs vary depending on the type of role, work location, size of the available candidate pool, and many other factors. Despite these variables, the following still rings true: turnover can be a costly expense for organizations when all hard and soft costs are accounted for. Proactively prevent these budget-busting turnover costs by creating a positive work environment that rewards and recognizes all your staff’s important moments.
Top Drivers of Employee Turnover
If you are considering implementing a recognition and rewards program to help reduce your company’s turnover, you first need to understand what’s driving employees away. Gallup surveyed employees to understand the main reasons employees left their jobs in 2023.
Across all the responses, four common themes were identified as the primary drivers: (Hover over icons for more information)
Engagement and Culture
Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance
Pay and Benefits
Managers and Leaders
As you build out programs, determine strategies and programs you can use to help support and alleviate friction around these four drivers. If you are experiencing a high turnover rate but are unsure what’s causing it, consider implementing employee surveys to get to the root cause. Provide your staff with a 24/7 anonymous pulse survey to get real-time insight into their happiness levels and conduct regular culture and satisfaction surveys to understand employees’ sentiments. You can use the insights from these surveys to shape your recognition program and overall HR strategy.
How Employee Appreciation Impacts Retention
Better Employee Experience
Improves Job Satisfaction
Strengthens Employee Belonging
When employees participate in peer recognition, it builds a sense of community and collaboration. This network of support and acknowledgment enhances employees’ feeling of belonging, making them feel integral to the company’s mission and values. By fostering an environment where everyone’s efforts are valued and celebrated, employees are more likely to feel purposeful and committed to their roles, thereby reducing turnover.
Meaningful Peer-to-peer Recognition Fosters Belonging and Purpose
Regularly acknowledging employees’ efforts and successes is vital for enhancing job satisfaction. Employees who receive consistent recognition for their efforts tend to feel valued and appreciated by their company, which boosts their morale and happiness. When employees feel this sense of purpose and appreciation, they are more likely to feel satisfied and fulfilled by their current role.
Frequent Recognition that Highlights and Celebrates Achievements will Improve Job Satisfaction
Celebrating the important moments in an employee’s journey – such as work anniversaries, achievements, or personal milestones – enhances their overall satisfaction. These celebrations demonstrate that the organization values their contributions and milestones, making employees feel seen and appreciated. This sense of acknowledgement for their efforts and personal achievements fosters a stronger emotional connection to the company, reducing the likelihood of them seeking a position elsewhere.
Rewarding Key Moments Creates a More Fulfilling Employee Experience
Learn More About Reducing Turnover
Get More Retention Best Practices
Creating a Strong, Positive Workplace Culture with Recognition
As Forbes defines it, workplace culture is “The shared values, belief systems, attitudes, and the set of assumptions that people in a workplace share.” It serves as the foundation upon which an organization operates, encompassing the norms, behaviors, and traditions that shape the work environment. Although difficult to define at times, organizational culture has a profound impact on employees. Nearly half (46%) of all decision-makers and leaders report that culture drives improvements in areas critical to growth, such as employee productivity, retention, and engagement as culture improves, according to Arbinger. Likewise, a survey conducted by Deloitte found that 94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success. That’s why creating a strong, positive culture is crucial for building a thriving and successful organization.
More and more I hear stories of people prioritizing their personal physical and mental well-being in the workplace. They desire company cultures where they are valued, accepted, and supported in their personal and professional life. Life is too short to be in a ‘job’ that doesn’t align with your values. People want to belong and with as many hours as we spend at work, its important to find a great culture where you feel like you belong so you can thrive at home and work.
Theresa Harkins-Schulz Senior Vice President of Customer Experience and Products
How Recognition Programs Strengthen Organizational Culture
As Gallup states, “A weak, misaligned culture can be detrimental to your organization, both internally for your employees and externally for your customers.” The larger an organization is, the harder it is to create a unified and cohesive company culture. But there is hope — a robust employee recognition program can help. In fact, Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace Report reveals that:
41% of unengaged employees would change their culture or engagement at their workplace if they could.
One of the main areas they would change within engagement or culture? Being recognized for their contributions. Employee recognition programs are designed to celebrate and acknowledge the achievements and good work provided by employees. By aligning your program with your organization’s values, you can help reinforce the desired organization culture and create a more positive workplace. When employees see their peers being recognized for behaviors and accomplishments that reflect the company’s values, it sets a clear example of what is expected and appreciated. This creates a positive loop where recognized behaviors are likely to be repeated and emulated by others.
See How Each Stage of a Recognition Program Increases Company Culture
Click to reward for milestones and anniversaries
2. Click to embed recognition in workflows such as daily meetings
3. Click to celebrate the small and big moments
4. Click to implement peer-to-peer recognition
5. Click to incorporate company-wide recognition
Milestone and Anniversary Rewards Implemented!
Recognition is Embedded in Workflows!
Big and Small Moments are now Celebrated!
Employees are Empowered with Peer-to-peer Recognition!
Company-wide Recognition is Incorporated!
Congratulations! Recognition is now embedded into your organization’s culture!
6 Tips for Creating a Unified Culture through Recognition
Align Recognition with Core Value: Ensure that the criteria for recognition are closely tied to the company’s core values and mission. This reinforces the behaviors and attitudes that are most important to your organization.
Encourage Meaningful Peer-to-Peer Recognition: Implement a system where employees can recognize each other. Peer recognition can be a powerful tool as it fosters a collaborative and supportive work environment.
Diversify Recognition Methods: Use various methods of recognition such as public acknowledgments, awards, bonuses, and personalized thank-you notes to cater to different preferences.
Make Recognition Visible: Celebrate recognized employees in visible ways, such as during team meetings, in company newsletters, or on the intranet. This visibility reinforces positive behaviors across the organization.
Click Here to Check the Health of Your Workplace Culture
Enhancing the Employee Experience with Recognition
Every employee’s journey is shaped by their experiences, whether good or bad. That’s why getting the employee experience right is so important. Employees who experience a rewarding and enriching employee experience are more likely to feel a sense of belonging, stay committed, and be engaged with their job.
Not only does this impact an employee, but it impacts the organization, too. An employee’s experience with their company significantly impacts key business outcomes, such as employee engagement, retention, and the bottom-line. Research shows that companies who deliver a great employee experience outperform the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 by 122%. Be intentional with your company's employee experience. Design it to celebrate every important milestone and achievement. Doing so will create a more meaningful employee journey and deepen the sense of belonging.
Hear industry experts, Theresa Harkins-Schulz, SVP of Product and Customer Experience at Inspirus, and Matt Phelan, Co-Founder of The Happiness Index, discuss what makes employees truly happy, and how gathering feedback and celebrating big moments can create a more rewarding employee experience that increases employee happiness and engagement.
Learn how to Enhance the Employee Experience with Recognition
The Key to Creating a Rewarding Employee Experience: Recognition
Celebrate the most important moments in the employee experience. Click each icon to learn more.
Starting Day One During Their Onboarding
Annual Employee Service Anniversaries
Team or Department Achievements
Holidays and Birthdays
Life Occasions, Such as Getting Married
End of Year Employee Accolades
Retirement or Departure
Best Practices for Recognizing Frontline Workers vs. White Collar Workers
One thing to keep in mind is that your approach to recognizing frontline workers and white-collar workers may need to vary. Frontline workers and white-collar workers have vastly different roles, environments, and expectations. To ensure your recognition efforts are both relevant and impactful, it is crucial to develop programs that cater specifically to the unique needs and preferences of each group. Click buttons below to learn how.
Frontline Workers
vs.
White-Collar Workers
TIP: To get a better understanding of how your employees feel and their preferences for recognition and rewards, actively seek input through surveys and other feedback mechanisms. This can help you tailor your programs to better fit their needs and preferences, ensuring your recognition programs resonate with your team.
Frontline Workers Set up a safety awards program to recognize to promote workplace safety and recognize those who prioritize safe behaviors Have managers and/or leaders reinforce and remind workers about the recognition program during team meetings Ensure digital recognition programs are accessible via mobile phone to increase program adoption If using a digital recognition program, post QR codes connected to your platform throughout the organization for easy access Use on-site TVs and company bulletin boards to display information about your recognition and rewards programs and reinforce them Include information about recognition and rewards programs in internal company newsletters or communication channels Create a Wall of Fame or Employee of the Month award to highlight those who go above and beyond
White-Collar Workers Use company-wide emails, newsletters, or intranet channels to communicate about the recognition program and highlight individual or team achievements Implement a digital recognition platform to allow employees to recognize each other's achievements and promote peer recognition easily Conduct regular training sessions with managers and leaders on how to effectively recognize and reward their team members Ensure leaders frequently endorse and participate in recognition programs, demonstrating their importance If using a digital recognition platform, give managers visibility into their team’s participation and the amount of recognition each team member receives
Be Specific and Timely with Recognition: Recognize employees as soon as possible after their achievement. Specific praise about what they did well and how it aligns with company values makes the recognition more meaningful.
Include All Levels of Employees: Create opportunities for recognition at all levels, from entry-level to leadership. This inclusivity ensures that everyone feels valued and appreciated.
How to Calculate ROI from a Recognition Program
A problem many HR teams face with recognition programs is building a business case for investing in a recognition and rewards program. This is because many of the benefits of recognition and appreciation are often intangible. Additionally, other organizational leaders may feel that recognition programs don’t have a significant impact on organizations, they shouldn’t be a priority, or that its return on investment (ROI) is not trackable. Yet, as shown in the above sections, recognition is powerful, and it does have an impact. To help other organizational leaders understand this, the benefits of recognition must be converted into monetary values and presented in a compelling format.
Discover How to Calculate ROI from a Recognition Program
Understanding ROI
While the ROI of recognition may not always show up on a balance sheet, it’s clear that frequent recognition does deliver value to an organization. A return on recognition should be measured not just from a financial standpoint, but also for intangible benefits such as cultural changes and morale improvement. To prove employee recognition is worth the investment, it’s important to measure the components that can identify improvements in your organization. The issue is that it can be difficult to accurately measure your recognition program’s ROI. That’s because it’s not all about easily quantifiable things like money. You need to measure the impact your program has on intangible outcomes such as belonging and culture.
TIP: Monitoring Employee Engagement
To help you quantify your program’s impact, here are some useful KPIs you can track:
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5
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3
2
1
Number of Users that are Registered and Active in Your Recognition Program
Number of Recognitions Sent Over a Period of Time
Employee Engagement Levels Surveys
Employee Net Promoter Score
Employee Absenteeism Rate
Employee Turnover Rate
Employee Sentiment Analysis
TIP: Monitoring both employee engagement and retention levels can clearly demonstrate a recognition program’s ROI. When employees are satisfied and engaged, they are more committed and productive. When engagement levels are high, it indicates that employees feel good about and support the company culture, thus being more productive and helping fuel the organization’s business performance.
How to Calculate ROI
(Net Benefits - Program Costs)
Cost of Program
ROI =
x 100
Example of ROI Calculation For this example Benefits of Program = $430,000 Cost of Program = $230,000
(430,000 - 230,000)
230,000
ROI = 87%
Steps for Calculating ROI
Understanding the tangible impact of your recognition efforts is essential for optimizing your recognition strategy, maximizing results, and demonstrating its value to key stakeholders. Follow these clear and concise steps to get your program’s return on investment. Start by clicking on Step 1.
Report Results
Gather Data
Outline Goals
Analyze Data
Develop ROI
Outline Goals Develop and review program objectives. In this stage, you should establish which data should be collected and which KPIs should be tracked to provide a baseline for your program(s).
Gather Data Once you have identified your key metrics, collect the data from the period before and after implementing your recognition program(s).
Analyze Data Using your collected data, compare the results between the two periods, searching for any major changes in the two periods.
Develop ROI Convert your analysis results to a monetary value to calculate your ROI. Be sure to account for intangible measures such as the impact on culture or morale.
Report Results Once the ROI is determined, craft a compelling story using the results and report your analysis to key stakeholders to demonstrate the program’s value and impact.
For more information on calculating ROI for your recognition program, download our budgeting eBook. Still not sure where to start? Try out our ROI calculator to get a general idea of the value your program(s) may be generating.
Ready to transform your workplace through the power of recognition? Talk with an Inspirus specialist today to learn how we can help you.
Talk with a Specialist
Up Next: Recognition Examples and Ideas
Should you replace or reward and retain your people? Find out with our turnover calculator!
Get More Insights Into How Recognition Programs Impact Culture
Recognition Examples and Ideas That Will Leave a Lasting Impact
The benefits of recognizing employees can only go so far without a comprehensive strategy in place. Sporadic, ad-hoc programs lack the structure and frequency needed to make employees feel truly valued and seen. Programs that will leave a lasting impact on your staff require a formalized strategy that incorporates a variety of touchpoints. Discover how to build a robust strategy with these top recognition ideas and examples. Click any button below to learn more.
Effective Employee Recognition Ideas
Best Examples of Recognition Programs
How to Make Recognition Meaningful
Recognizing employees in ways that resonate with their individual preferences is crucial in today’s multi-generational workforce. Different generations may appreciate varied forms of recognition. For example, while younger employees might prefer public recognition and digital acknowledgements, older employees might value private thank-you notes or financial rewards. To create an effective recognition program, it’s important to offer a range of recognition methods and rewards that resonate with your team. Consider your employees’ desires, your company’s culture, and your business goals when developing such a program. By incorporating various recognition touchpoints, you can create a program where every employee feels appreciated in a way that matters to them.
Hover over the numbers to explore 6 effective ways to celebrate your team.
Digital Recognition Platform: Provide employees with an online hub where they can acknowledge each other’s achievements, teamwork, and milestones.
Physical or Digital Awards: Reward your employees with tangible or virtual items like plaques, trophies, or e-certificates given to them to formally recognize their contributions and hard work. This could include Employee of the Month, President’s Club, or a Leadership Award.
Digital or Handwritten Notes: Give employees a personalized message sent electronically or written by hand to express appreciation.
Public or Private Praise: Simply acknowledge employee’s achievements verbally either in a public setting (i.e. team meetings, company announcements) or privately (1:1 meeting).
Company Hosted Lunches or Events: Host a special gathering like lunches, dinners, or team-building activities to celebrate and recognize employees’ achievements.
Gifts: Reward your staff with tangible tokens of appreciation such as gift cards, merchandise, experiences, or company branded swag.
Not sure which rewards to offer? Hover over the icons to see some popular choices to consider.
Common Types of Employee Rewards
Celebrating employees’ achievements with tangible incentives is a powerful way to show appreciation for their hard work and dedication. When you offer rewards that match your team’s needs, you can amplify the impact of recognition and boost their motivation to excel.
Gift Cards
Merchandise
Company Branded Swag
Charitable Donations
Additional Paid Time Off
Cash or Bonuses
Travel or Experience Packages
Tickets or Events
When Should You Recognize Your Employees?
There are countless opportunities to recognize and celebrate employees throughout their journey with your company. When planning your recognition program and allocating your budget, use these five key categories as a guide to help you identify the most impactful moments to celebrate.
Performance-Based Recognition
Performance-Based Recognition Honor and recognize employees for their exceptional performance, such as achieving sales goals, completing projects the contributes to the business success, or even just consistently delivering high-quality work. This type of recognition highlights individual contributions and encourages continuous improvement.
Values-Based Recognition
Values-Based Recognition Celebrate employees who consistently demonstrate the organization’s core values in their actions, behaviors, and interactions with clients, colleagues, and stakeholders. This type of recognition highlights individuals who embody the organization’s mission, vision, and principles.
Employee Milestones Employee milestone rewards celebrate significant achievements or milestones reached by employees during their tenure with the company, such as completing onboarding, years of service, or reaching career milestones.
Employee Milestones
Special Occasions
Special Occasions Provide opportunities for organizations to show gratitude and recognize employees for their hard work and dedication. These occasions may involve celebrating holidays, congratulating an employee for getting married or having a baby, or even major company changes.
Nomination Programs
Nomination Programs Nomination programs enable employees to nominate their peers for awards based on specific criteria such as teamwork, innovation, or leadership. This form of peer recognition program can be incredibly powerful as it showcases the appreciation of fellow peers.
Learn About Employees' Recognition Preferences
Best Examples of Employee Recognition Programs
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to recognition. To make recognition truly effective, you must implement programs that align with your company’s unique culture and team’s needs. As you plan out your programs, consider all the important moments in the employee experience your program should support and celebrate.
Click on the buttons below to see a few common programs you can consider implementing.
Traditional Rewards
Digital Recognition
Service and Milestone Awards: Recognizing employees’ service anniversaries and milestones is a long-standing tradition in many organizations. Celebrating these milestones acknowledges the dedication and commitment of employees over the years. Service and milestone awards can range from personalized gifts and plaques to extra vacation days or a public shoutout during a company meeting. Birthdays and Other Life Occasions: Celebrating employee birthdays and other special life occasions can add a personal touch to recognition efforts. Acknowledging birthdays with personalized cards, small gifts, or even a sweet treat can make employees feel valued on their special day. This simple gesture shows that the company cares about employees beyond their professional roles. Employee Appreciation Day: There is no better day to celebrate your employees than on Employee Appreciation Day! Happening on the first Friday in March, this annual celebration provides employers with an opportunity to express their gratitude for their team’s hard work and dedication. Safety Incentive Programs: Implement a workplace safety program designed to encourage safe behavior and discourage unsafe behavior and safety infractions. The goal of this kind of program is to minimize preventable accidents and create a safer, more positive work environment. Retirements: Retirement is a significant life event, and celebrating it appropriately is crucial. Recognition for retiring employees can include a formal ceremony, nice gift of choice, or a heartfelt speech acknowledging their contributions over the years. Providing a memorable send-off can leave a lasting positive impression on the retiree and demonstrate the company’s appreciation for long-term service.
Social Recognition: A social recognition program leverages a social-media style platform to enable employees to recognize and praise each other publicly. These platforms often feature a news feed where team members can post shout-outs, comments, and likes. Social recognition platforms are helpful in fostering a culture of appreciation, allowing everyone to see and celebrate achievements in real-time. Points-Based Recognition: A points-based recognition platform allows employees to earn points for various achievements, which can then be redeemed for a reward of their choice. This system provides flexibility and caters to diverse preferences, ensuring that employees receive awards that are meaningful to them. Points can be awarded for a range of activities, from meeting performance goals to demonstrating company values. Recognition Channel: If your organization uses a communication tool, consider creating an internal recognition channel to promote peer recognition and showcase key milestones. This could include features such as a recognition wall, where accomplishments are posted, and dedicated sections for service anniversaries, employee spotlights, and project completions. Plus, digital recognition platforms, like Inspirus Connects, can often integrate with communication tools, allowing you to set up a recognition channel within your own intranet.
Spotlight on Success: Employee Recognition Success Stories
Decreased Turnover by 10%
ATCC
ATCC, a leader in the scientific community, was experiencing higher than industry average turnover rates, leading to budget-busting recruiting and training costs. With the help of Inspirus, ATCC implemented a formalized recognition program, empowering them to increase retention rates by 10% within one year. Learn More
246% Increase in eCards Sent
University Hospitals
University Hospitals, a national healthcare leader with over 28,000 physicians and employees, needed help centralizing multiple recognition programs after going through numerous acquisitions. By consolidating all ad-hoc programs into one formalized enterprise-wide program, UH was able to increase adoption and usage of their platform with a 246% increase in eCards sent and 146% more mobile logins. Learn More
51% Increase in Recognitions Sent
National Insurance Provider
When regulations in the financial industry changed and the Covid-19 pandemic forced workers remote, a national insurance, investing, and banking services provider – with 36,000 employees – needed to find new ways to recognize employees, while remaining compliant. With Inspirus guidance, this national insurance provider was able to centralize 105 different recognition programs into one compliant platform. The best part? This new platform led to a 51% increase in recognitions sent per employee. Learn More
5 Tips on How to Make Employee Recognition Meaningful & Impactful
Employee recognition is a powerful tool that, when done right, can significantly boost morale, enhance job satisfaction, and increase overall productivity. But to reap its full benefits and impact, it’s important to set a strong foundation for your recognition strategy.
Gift cards are one of the most preferred types of reward. Recent research from the Incentive Research Foundation reveals that gift cards were selected in the top three reward preferences for most respondents.
Click below to learn how you can make the most of your recognition programs.
Leadership Involvement
The Gift of Choice
Genuine and Timely
Moments That Matter
Recognize Frequently
Frequently Recognize Your Team
Providing your team with frequent recognition is vital to fostering and maintaining a motivated and engaged workforce. Regularly acknowledging employees’ efforts, even for small accomplishments, helps create a positive work environment and reinforce employees’ sense of purpose and belonging.
Reward the Moments that Matter Most
Set your team and program up for success by celebrating all the important moments in the employee experience. By rewarding these moments, such as significant achievements, milestones, or behaviors that align with core values, you can make sure your recognition is both relevant and memorable. This targeted approach ensures that recognition is not only frequent but also impactful and meaningful.
Send Genuine Messages that are Timely
For recognition to be meaningful, it needs to be genuine and timely. Generic thank you or good job messages tend to feel insincere and as a result, fail to resonate with employees. Instead, recognition should be specific, personalized, and directly related to the individual’s actions or achievements. Timely recognition shows that you are attentive and appreciative of your team’s efforts as they happen, reinforcing these positive behaviors.
Offer a Gift of Choice that Meets Employee Needs
While verbal recognition is important, tangible rewards can also play a significant role in making employees feel valued. Offering a gift of choice rather than a one-size-fits-all reward can significantly enhance the impact of recognition. Whether it’s a gift card, extra time off, company swag, or a unique experience, providing options allows employees to choose a reward that truly matters to them, providing them with a more rewarding experience.
Get Leadership and Management Involved
For recognition to really take off, a top-down approach can make all the difference. Research from Gallup indicates the relationship between managers and their team members can account for 70% of variance in employee engagement. This means it’s necessary to get leaders and managers involved for a successful recognition program. Host educational meetings and communicate frequently on the importance of recognizing team members consistently.
These five practices, when executed well, can provide your team with rewarding recognition moments that will leave a lasting impact on their morale, engagement, satisfaction, and more.
Discover Other Best Practices for Making Recognition Meaningful
Up Next: The Inspirus Difference
Other Examples
Creating a Better Tomorrow for Your Employees
Employee Engagement
Employee Experience
Employee Belonging
Company Culture
Employee Retention
Delivering Best-in-class Recognition and Engagement Programs with Inspirus
Recognize:
Send employees recognition for a job well done, or any other accomplishment, either publicly or privately.
What Makes Inspirus Different
A paycheck and basic benefits are no longer enough to motivate employees and foster long-term loyalty. Today’s employees want to have a meaningful journey at their place of work that inspires and motivates them. That’s why choosing the right employee engagement and recognition tool is essential for tackling today’s challenges with disengagement, burnout, and turnover. Here’s what makes us different.
At Inspirus, we strive to 'Bring joy to work' by creating environments where employees feel valued, motivated, and connected. Our commitment to excellence and innovation makes us a trusted partner for organizations looking to enhance their employee engagement and achieve superior business results. Want to create recognition and rewards programs that make an impact on your people and business? Talk with an Inspirus specialist today to see how we can help you do just that.
We Bill on Reward Redemption vs. Up-front
Designed for Employee Engagement
Global Marketplace that Offers a Gift of Choice
130 Years of Experience in the Rewards and Recognition Space
With over 130 years of experience, our team of specialists have strong expertise in creating recognition programs that drive real results for organizations of varying sizes and industries. We will work with you to tailor our recognition and engagement solutions to meet your organization’s unique needs and challenges.
Talk With an Inspirus Specialist Today
Unlike some recognition companies that require upfront payments, our flexible pricing model is designed to align with your team's actual engagement. You’re only billed when employees redeem their rewards, ensuring your spending reflects the program’s true impact. This approach allows you to maximize your budget while ensuring that rewards are meaningful and utilized by your employees, without the pressure of upfront costs.
Our intuitive platform includes a 24/7 anonymous pulse survey and robust analytics to help you understand how your employees think and feel, as well as how recognition is impacting their engagement levels. Managers also have access to detailed insights on how often their team members are giving and receiving recognition, allowing them to track engagement and ensure that recognition is happening consistently across the team.
We believe in the power of choice. That’s we empower you to give your employees the gifts they actually want. Our global digital reward catalog serves 185 countries and offers over 2,500 popular brands for your employees to select from with options across merch, gift cards, experiences, & more! This diverse selection guarantees that every employee can find a reward that resonates with their unique preferences.
Companies who deliver a great employee experience outperform the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 by 122%.
Employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their company are 3.8 times as likely to strongly agree that they feel connected to their culture.
Employees who are recognized are almost 6x more likely to stay at their jobs than their counterparts.
Celebrate:
Never miss a key moment with personalized experiences that cover the complete employee journey, including service anniversaries, birthdays, and more.
Encourage:
Encourage employees to consistently recognize their peers by making it easy to celebrate achievements and milestones.
Reward:
Show appreciation, reinforce positive behaviors and create a valued award experience with tailored recognition programs.
Redeem:
Empower your employees to select a gift of choice from over 2,500 popular brands within a global reward marketplace.
Report:
Get real-time insight into employees’ engagement and usage with robust dashboards and reporting capabilities.
Ready to create a recognition and rewards program that makes a tangible impact on your team and organization? We're here to help make it happen! For more than 130 years, Inspirus has empowered organizations to keep their teams engaged, motivated, and performing at their best through tailored employee recognition and engagement programs. Our tailored programs are designed to improve the employee experience by tapping into the powerful motivators of connection and belonging. With our technology-enabled solutions, employees can stay connected with colleagues, senior leaders, and company culture, celebrating every milestone, achievement, and success together. Through true partnership, we help you create a comprehensive employee recognition and engagement strategy that nurtures the satisfaction and wellbeing of your entire workforce. Click below to learn about Inspirus’ recognition and engagement solutions.
