17 June, 2022
8 Creative Employee Recognition Award Ideas
A carefully designed employee recognition program is the backbone of any thriving work culture. However, it’s important to understand what really motivates your employees to gain the maximum benefit from your R&R efforts. According to a Gallup study, the most memorable form of recognition for employees is a “public acknowledgment via an award, certificate or commendation”. This blog aims to help you in creating memorable, effective recognition experiences through creative recognition award ideas. Read on to know more.
Benefits of Employee Awards
Employee recognition has gone beyond just service awards or annual performance awards. Not only do younger workers need more recognition, they also need appreciation to be authentic, in other words, employee rewards programs need to be tailored to recognize their unique contributions to the organization. Moreover, the expanding definition of business success means acknowledging the multitude of behavioral traits that helps an organization thrive in the long-run, such as ethics and process-building. The need of the hour is to make employee awards more inclusive, rather than focusing on purely the top target achievers through an annual ceremony. Some benefits of a customized, year-round R&R program are as follows:
1. Promotes company value systems
2. Reinforces positive employee behaviors
3. Helps define performance expectations
4. Motivates employees through smaller achievements
5. Endorses an appreciative work culture
New-Age Award Systems
Modern reward systems are a buffer against today’s competitive and volatile work environment. As organizations adapt to a distributed, hybrid working model, offline awards systems have become outmoded. Adapting offline R&R practices to a digital environment requires HR to partner with R&R technology providers to digitize the end-to-end award nominations process. Right from R&R framework and budget mapping to points allocation, employee data upload, nominations approval flows and award disbursement, everything can take place through a single R&R platform. Additionally, such technology can help in easily including newer award categories and creative award deliverables like digital certificates, congratulatory emails and social recognition on a company-wide leaderboard. Most importantly, an employee R&R platform enables timeliness and fairness in the nominations process through nomination status dashboards, automated award calculation and disbursal. This ensures a high-relevance and frequent ‘peak’ moments for employees, while reducing administrative burdens on HR teams.
Creative Award Names
Here is a list of creative award names you can use to motivate your employees in the form of Spot Awards or monthly/quarterly/annual awards:
- Performance Awards
- Star of the Month/Quarter
- BU/Department/Location Champion
- Bar Raiser
- Awards for Innovation
- Marvelous Maverick
- Eternal Einstein
- Newcomer awards
- Rising Star
- Most Promising Hire
- Customer Service Awards
- Customer Obsession
- 5 Star Reviews
- Mentorship Awards
- Iconic Mentor
- People’s Leader
- Peer Awards
- Great Job
- Hi5
- That was impressive
- Team Player
- Value Awards
- Integrity
- Quality
- Innovation
- Process-orientation
- Collaboration
- Behavioral Awards
- Captain of Commitment
- Makes it happen
- Before Anyone Else (Punctuality)
- Above and Beyond
- Parental Instinct
- Never say Never
Personalization is Key
Creating a winning reward and recognition program is an art as much as it is a science. Tapping into employee pulse and giving them awards they will cherish requires regular surveys, feedback as well as personalization in awards. One way of achieving this is through curated physical gift hampers with a heartfelt message or note. An employee rewards vendor can help in a seamless end-to-end reward fulfillment and delivery to employees’ homes. Another great way to offer freedom of choice to employees is through gifting them with monetary reward points through an employee recognition platform, which they can then redeem for their desired vouchers, products and experiences.
Want to create customized digital and physical awards for your employees? Get in touch with our team to know our vast catalog of offerings in the R&R space.