An employee recognition program can seem like an unjustified expense and an unnecessary effort – until you take the time to set one up and start seeing all the benefits it can bring.
Employee recognition programs make employees happier and more productive. They boost engagement and retention, knit teams more tightly together, support a strong company culture, and foster trust in management. Employee recognition is one of the most potent things you can do to improve your profit margins and make your company a better place to work. Here’s why your company needs to make employee recognition a prerogative.
A Little Recognition Builds a Lot of Trust
If your employees don’t trust you, they’re not going to be as engaged at work. They may even feel that your workplace is toxic and that they need to get another job as soon as possible.
Trust is the solid foundation on which any healthy relationship must be built, including the employer/employee relationship. You can’t have a healthy relationship with your employees if they don’t trust you. Trust is a key driver of engagement in the workplace. Employees need to feel like you have their back. They’ll work harder for you if they can trust that you value them as people, and not merely as employees. Thanking employees for their hard work, taking the time to recognize their accomplishments, and apologizing when you make a mistake takes hardly any time at all but can foster a great deal of trust.
Trust between team members is important, too. It helps everyone feel like they fit in, and contributes to a healthy and desirable company culture. Teams work better together when they like and trust one another, and knowing that you can rely on your teammates fosters the kind of company culture that makes employees want to stick around. Find a comprehensive employee recognition platform that allows for peer-to-peer recognition as well as recognition from leadership.
Praise and Appreciation Keeps Engagement and Retention High
What motivates your employees? It’s not money, at least not entirely. Employees also want recognition and gratitude for their hard work.
Employees who receive the recognition they crave are happier, and happier employees are 12 percent more productive on the job. Even just saying thanks when an employee does a good job, stays late to finish a project, or otherwise goes the extra mile can mean the difference between a satisfied, engaged employee and a disgruntled one.
Showing appreciation for your employees’ hard work means they’ll appreciate you in turn. They’ll be more committed to your company – they won’t have to search elsewhere for a role where they can feel valued if they’re already feeling valued in their current role with your organization. It lets people know that their work has meaning, and more than money, people want to do meaningful work.
Employees who feel deeply engaged with their jobs, appreciated, and valued are employees who are likely to stay with the company for longer. Lower turnover can save you a lot of money. Replacing an employee that makes $40,000 a year can cost up to $80,000. If you’re losing a lot of employees, that money adds up in the form of lost productivity time while you search for a replacement, lowered productivity while that person learns the ropes, and, usually, higher salary costs for the new hire. The cost of running an employee recognition program pales in comparison to the literal millions you could lose each year to turnover.
Employees Value Recognition Highly
The things that make employees happy in their jobs can’t be quantified. Sure, people need to work for money to survive – lots of people wouldn’t bother working if they won the lottery or inherited a fortune. But some people would continue to work even if they didn’t have to, and it’s because they need to feel like they’re making a meaningful contribution to something, like their skills and abilities are seen and appreciated.
Appreciation and gratitude can be the deciding factor when it comes to whether or not an employee stays in their job or seeks a new one. Just because your employees need to make a living doesn’t mean that they don’t value recognition for their efforts and achievements. Recognition is one of the driving factors of employee engagement for a reason.
If you want to make your company a better place to work, you need an employee recognition plan. Employees crave recognition, praise, and thanks for their contributions. By giving it to them, you could become the employer of their dreams.
