What’s Missing from Your Employee Recognition Program? Two Secret Ingredients to Add Today

One-size-fits-all approaches, lack of transparency, and overlooking a company’s core values. These all prevent programs from becoming the cultural phenomenon they have the potential to be.

Most of you know this. So why isn’t employee engagement increasing? When does an incentive become less motivating? Who do employees want praise from? What feels most rewarding?

If you’ve implemented all of the usual advice but are still pursuing higher engagement rates, keep reading. Today, we’re sharing what’s missing from your employee recognition program.

Four problems with employee rewards, recognition, and incentives

This is what we observe when we put some recognition programs under a magnifying glass. If you’re not getting the results you wanted after a few months, one of these could be holding you back.

1. Employees already know what to expect from rewards.

Dare we say, they’re even a bit bored by it? They do The Good Thing a certain number of times in exchange for a gift card. We know recognition can’t be one-size-fits-all, but let rewards get away with it.

Rotating rewards of varying magnitude feels more organic and proportional. Like recognition, rewards are personalized to preferences, so they have more meaning.

2. Employees aren’t buying what you’re selling.

We talk a lot about the importance of leadership buy-in and personalization for program success. If managers and other leaders are meeting quotas with choreographed recognition, it won’t stick in the hearts and minds of employees.

Rote recognition doesn’t feel sincere, even when you deliver it the way the survey said you should. It hurts trust and has little impact on morale. Different causes and circumstances alter what effective recognition looks like.

3. Incentive programs are short on recognition.

As far as employee incentives, gifts and cash alone won’t yield the biggest benefits. Dangling a carrot to turbocharge performance has its merits. But it’s much more effective when an employee feels a sense of purpose and belonging.

Employee incentive programs should complement–or rather, be baked into–recognition programs. Making it part of a supportive, positive culture boosts participation.

4. Employees are waiting around for management to recognize them.

Frequent, genuine recognition from higher-ups can be hard to come by. To truly capitalize on a recognition program, include ways for coworkers to recognize one another. This type of recognition:

• Promotes inclusivity
• Strengthens teams
• Reduces managerial blind spots
• Feels authentic

Read more about how peer recognition works wonders.

What’s missing from employee recognition programs?

Here’s how to knock out a whole handful of challenges with just two special ingredients.

1. Meaningful employee reward ideas that make people feel truly seen

Let’s look at a few occasions where an employee might earn a reward:

• Keeping team morale high during stressful moments
• Completing 10 years of service at a company
• Doing extra work to help the company meet a goal
• Coming up with a new solution to a problem
• Pitching in to cover for a coworker during a difficult time
• Using feedback to make substantial performance improvements

How many rewards do you have in your rotation to cover all of these instances? Do those rewards positively reinforce that employee’s specific actions and behaviors?

For example, take someone who has done extra work to help others or improve their own standing. They might appreciate some flexibility or easing of duties for a short time. People innovating solutions may want additional resources and career development opportunities as a reward.

Tailoring a reward to an employee means tailoring it to the occasion, too. It imbues the reward with more meaning. I got the morning off because I went above and beyond to meet that deadline. I got sent to that conference because the company values my perspective.

💡Add even more meaning: Use the five languages of appreciation to make rewards hyper-relevant to the employee and situation.

2. FUN employee recognition software that promotes positivity as a habit

Recognition frequency suffers when it’s not integrated into workflows. The natural point of resistance there is, Oh. Another thing added to my workflow. Lightweight tools that add elements of gamification bust up resistance and make peer recognition second nature.

Gamification works because it satisfies two desires employees have:

• A way to directly impact their progress (the action that spurs progress)
• A way to visualize and measure that progress (such as by ascending levels)

These two factors add up to engagement–working in earnest toward a goal and being invested in the progress toward meeting it. But to make this a long-lasting, dynamic, and meaningful strategy:

• The actions are linked to positive sentiments and values
• We ritualize the actions and make it part of the team’s language

💡See how it’s done: Learn how real companies use gamified peer recognition software to create team-strengthening rituals, meaningful rewards, and genuine recognition.