Employee Recognition and the Reward for Your Business

Written by Erica Bell

Marketers are focused on “Big Data” and using the information available to develop better strategies for engagement and targeting. Big Data can benefit more than one department within your business and its impact on HR shouldn’t be ignored. Research from a wide variety of angles can help managers make better decisions that drive their business to be more successful. A recent survey from SHRM and Globoforce took a look at employee recognition and its impact on performance. This post covers some of the insights from the study and provides steps your business can take to boost employee performance.

Meeting the Challenges Head On

HR has their fair set of obstacles to overcome. Marketing may need better ways to measure their efforts and sales teams may need a new lead scoring system, but HR’s challenges are something different. From managing employee performance and the company culture to recruiting, some of the top challenges for HR are focused on workplace performance. An employee recognition program addresses these challenges head on. According to the SHRM survey:

• 47 percent of the respondents cited employee engagement as their top HR challenge, but another 48% said employee engagement increased with the implementation of an employee recognition program.
• 18 percent cited employee satisfaction as one of their top challenges. Employee recognition programs can help lower employee frustration. The SHRM study found that companies that spend more on recognition programs had lower levels of employee frustration.
• 35 percent of the HR professionals responded that culture management was one of their top challenges. A company-wide performance review and recognition program can promote a culture of success. In fact, 65% say that a review performance process is effective in achieving its goals.

What Your Business Can Do

When asked whether negative or positive feedback has a greater impact on improving employee performance, 94% of the survey’s respondents say positive feedback. As your business looks for ways to enable employees to be more successful, consider the steps you can take to address the obstacles your business is facing through positive feedback as part of an employee recognition program

• Provide recognition rewards. Employees are more motivated by recognition that includes a reward. Even if you’re a small business on a budget, look for ways to include rewards for jobs well done. In a recent post, Resource Nationprovides three budget-friendly ways to recognize employees.
• Crowdsource recognition data for a more accurate recognition program. Ask employees to partake in your review process, nominate peers for monthly rewards, and provide feedback. 90% of respondents in the SHRM survey say feedback from an employee’s peers across the organization is more accurate than feedback provided by just an employee’s manager.
• Realize employees will respond to different forms of recognition. As Business.com notes, different acknowledgement techniques will cause different responses from employees and your business needs to figure out what those are. Your rewards could be company-wide, by department, or tailored to individuals.
• Recognize employees regularly. Yearly service awards are the least effective in “driving critical HR metrics when used as the singular form of recognition.” Quarterly reviews and recognition on a regular basis will motivate employees to peak in performance quarter after quarter, day after day.

With an effective employee recognition program, you’ll have happier employees, a better company culture and the opportunity to reduce turnover. Take a look at what some of the biggest HR challenges are and how an employee recognition program can address and mitigate some of these. 

About the Author

Erica Bell is the Social Media Specialist at Business.com and writes on a number of topics including social recruiting, talent management, and marketing trends. You can connect with Business.com on Facebook!