10 Creative Ideas of Employee Appreciation

World at Work survey results states that 88% of organizations have a staff recognition program in place, which could range from small perks, such as gift cards, dine outs, small bonuses to Employee of the Month programs

One of my professional networks asked me last week, can you suggest some creative way of doing recognition schemes that is not boring.

The right kind of employee recognition programs and activities can elevate the performance of employees, increase their morale, motivation and reduce the attrition in the organisations.

However, according to our 2019 Employee Engagement Report, there is very little in the number who feels highly valued and recognized at work. What’s more, only one in three people feel they were properly recognized the last time they went the extra mile and performed well.

To make sure that your employees never feel that way, keep reading this article to learn:

• Types of Employee Recognition

• Employee Appreciation Ideas

We all know why employee recognition is important and what wonders it can do to employee performance. But, it's not necessary that what programs work for one will also work for another, each company is different, it depends on how the organisation operate, what culture they possess and what values are used for everyday decision making. (Oh! this is my favourite topic). But generally, some elements should be in all recognition and appreciation programs, they should be a)authentic, b) personalized, c) relevant and d) specific.

As per Andrew Sumitani, 2020 there are many ways to show appreciation and recognition to employees.

1) Microrecognition - this is more frequent and ongoing recognition, like weekly meetings, sprints, also known as day-to-day recognition. This may include sending emails, posting on project management tools, bulletin boards, giving cards or anything that you can do quickly fairly and authentically. This is perfect for continuous appreciation, you can embed this in your organisational culture without spending a ton of time and resources.

2) Informal Recognition - this is an appreciation for teams or individuals when they achieve certain milestones or reach goals. This may be organised like Pizza Party, or cinema tickets, or a trip to the pub, happy hours, this is a low budget recognition program and does not come in very structured or formal recognitions.

3) Formal recognition - this is more structured, like employee of the month programs, involved nominees, selection process or special annual events. This doesn't happen frequently and need a higher budget and planning to organise.

This recognition type depends on your organisation maturity, are you a start-up/scale-up or well established multi conglomerate, you can choose any or all of three but make it personalised and authentic for your employees.

Now that you have understood the types of recognition, get inspiration from these creative ways to recognize your employees;

1. Recognise your high performers on Social Media

2. Host an employee peer to peer dinner

3. Give gifts through family members

4. Personalised gifts (get the liking/disliking at the time of onboarding of employee)

5. Recognise special effort with a surprise treat

6. Offer professional development opportunities

7. Create an employee Wall of the Fame (my fav)

8. Pass out prize tokens and tickets

9. Encourage employees to recognize daily wins

10. An offsite day

While some of these ideas are perfect for one company and relatively inconsequential for another. It's a constant effort that an HR department must make to personalise and authenticate the recognition and appreciation schemes. Try different tactics, surveys or feedbacks to get to know more about your employees, their likings and disliking. pay attention to what your employees want to make your efforts more meaningful.

Good Luck!, Let me know in the comments if you have some wonderful ideas to recognize and appreciate your employee's efforts.