Celebrating Employee Appreciation Day

Celebrating Employee Appreciation Day

HR directors can strengthen their company’s competitive edge with staff recognition

On 6th March, the US will be celebrating Employee Appreciation Day – during which companies take a moment to show recognition for their team’s hard work. Be it thank-you notes, a staff get-together or even closing the office early, it’s a great excuse for employers to build rapport with staff through a meaningful gesture. However, forward-thinking HR teams recognise that every day should really be Employee Appreciation Day.

Aside from being a kind, thoughtful way to treat staff, there’s a strong business case for employee recognition. When employees are shown how central they are to their company’s success, they feel more able to make an impact, so are more likely to thrive in their role. Not only has employee recognition been proven to boost employee happiness and wellbeing – thus boosting productivity – but on a more intrinsic level, it helps to build more cohesive, collaborative, motivated teams too. For HR directors, having a strategy for positive recognition is an effective tool for retaining talent and helping staff feel more connected to their place of work – and the people they work with.

HR directors may want to think bigger than having an employee of the month scheme dictated by management. In its most evolved form, employee recognition is a real-time, peer-driven exercise, where positive performance is rewarded as and when it happens – in a non-hierarchical way that’s visible to the rest of the organisation. It’s a tool for reinforcing a management’s expectations of its employees, while informing staff of what’s going on in departments other than their own. By showing what is working well, it highlights what isn’t by default – without naming and shaming individuals. If rewards are being presented to employees who have performed well, make them truly relevant and valuable to staff in order to send the right message.

Employee recognition strategy should also be a platform for bringing disparate team members together. Traditional reward and recognition schemes tend to focus on the efforts of in-house staff. But the rise of flexible working and the gig economy means that remote workers have a big pat to play in the success of a company. Despite this, however, the in-house team can often be unaware of just how vital these contractors and employees are.

Fortunately, the latest slew of digital reward and recognition platforms help to overcome geographic barriers. The likes of Perkbox Recognition and Workstars are easy-to-use solutions that can be integrated into a company’s preferred software (such as Salesforce, Slack or Microsoft Teams). A colleague’s triumphs or hard work can be seen at the click of a button, so all staff members are able to see their achievements. Personal messages of congratulations can be sent and the individual can choose what kind of reward they would like – be it monetary, medical, a perk such as a free coffee or gym membership, or a donation from the company to the charity of their choice. Platforms like these simplify the process of recognising and rewarding remote workers, and better integrate them with in-house teams – something that will only become more crucial as flexible working powers ahead as a trend.

HR directors can maximise the effectiveness of employee recognition by tailoring rewards as closely to individual employees as possible. According to IWG’s Global Workspace Survey, for 54% of the international workforce, a choice of work location was found to be more important than an increase in holiday allowance. By going beyond traditional perks, and finding ways to reward staff with more flexibility in their daily lives – such as the option to work from a flexible workspace closer to home – HR teams can truly get the most out of their teams and create a covetable company culture in the process.

Find out more about how HR directors can use flexible working to help create a company that works for everybody


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