Looking for creative ways to recognize employees for a job well done? You’ve come to the right place!
The other day I was in a local restaurant picking up a tea to drink. The employee seemed upset and flustered. She was upset that she didn’t have extra help. She went on to tell me that she was running the front line all by herself and that her boss was upset that the lemonade wasn’t filled.
“It’s frozen!” she said. “There is nothing I can do about frozen lemonade.”
“Well,” I said, trying to lighten her mood. “I think a frozen lemonade slushy would be an amazing new menu item!”
A faint smile appeared, and she said, “You know, all of this would be OK if they just appreciated me. I would feel much better if they simply told me nice job or thanked me for working through my life.”
Feeling Appreciated Matters
How many times have you felt that way in your job? Middle managers are often in a hard spot of doing work, managing people, and helping plan for a better future for their team. Instead of making everyone feel encouraged and building growth plans, they are left putting out fires and running in circles most of the day leaving little time to recognize employees.
Start small: send regular thank you emails.
Recognizing and rewarding your employees doesn’t take as much time as you think. In fact, if you can flip your mindset, slow down, and invest in some low-cost ideas, I bet you can get started with rewarding someone right after you finish reading this blog post.
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my life, it’s the fact that everyone wants to feel appreciated. Male or female, parent or child, manager or employee, husband or wife, we all want to feel valued and appreciated. Unfortunately, in our fast-paced, over-worked, deadline-driven work environment it’s becoming increasingly rare for organizations to maintain consistent and meaningful reward and recognition programs. It’s like we are too busy to say, “thank you” and yet we crave “thank you” just like everyone else.
When was the last time you thanked someone on your team? If you can’t recall the last time – stop what you’re doing and send a thank you email right now. Seriously, go on. We will be waiting for you when you’re back.
Focus on intentional, thoughtful recognition beyond pay increases.
Most Workers Are Disengaged
Recent results of Gallup’s 2017 Study of Global Workplace revealed that 85% of global workers are not engaged or actively disengaged. Unfortunately, too many managers and organizations underestimate the power of employee recognition and its impact on creating an engaged workforce.
Numerous studies have found money is important to employees but, what tends to motivate them to perform is intentional, thoughtful, and true appreciation for a great job. What’s more powerful? When the recognition creates a story, which they can then share with family and friends.
Celebrating Your Employees
If you are an avid watcher of “The Office” – you know they do “The Dundie Awards” – while these are comical and often offensive awards from Michael Scott, there is a lesson to this approach. Having employee awards that celebrate your team members will go a long way.
One step better? Include your employees as part of the nomination process. You can create a portal or form that your team can fill out to nominate employees for your annual, monthly, or quarterly awards.
Recognize your employees in front of everyone during an all-hands meeting, present a plaque, and give them something special for their hard work and dedication.
When I received the “Employee Excellence” award at my first job outside of college, I was celebrated at the annual Christmas party, received a plaque – which I still have on my desk today – and I got a $250.00 Amazon gift card, which I used to purchase my first kindle! That was nearly 5 years ago, and I will never forget the pride I felt as an employee. If that company wasn’t acquired, I can promise you that I would still be working there today – that’s how much I loved the company, the culture, and their focus on celebrating employees.
Your Go-To-List of Fun, Thoughtful and Effective Ways To Recognize Employees
When working with clients, we often hear rewards and recognition take a lot of time, money, and resources to implement. So, we’ve created a list of 20 creative ways to recognize employees that can be implemented by almost any manager with just a little effort and money.
- Number one should always be a handwritten thank you card, it’s an oldie but a goodie!
- Give your employees a casual dress day with a twist, like 80’s era or Hawaiian Shirt Day.
- Host a surprise picnic for team members hosted outside on a beautiful day, sun usually equals fun.
- Host a free car wash day in partnership with a local kid’s sports team.
- Gift cards are always great but, do it with flare by rewarding them with gift cards from local unique small businesses.
- Offer house cleaning gift certificates when a project required a lot of overtime to get it done.
- Team mugs or t-shirts are a great way to recognize a special committee formed for a specific project, not only does it say thank you but, it helps them remember being part of this special project.
- Offer a gold coin coupled with a fun card that reads “You are the Gold Standard of Mentors” for a small thing like mentoring an intern.
- Flowers or candy are always nice but, step it up a notch with companies like; Wicked Good Cupcakes.
- Ship directly to their home a high-quality engraved notebook like Levenger’s Circa Notebook.
- Give them a book that aligns with their interest is a great way to say thank you, the key is….. aligned to the person’s interest.
- Host a pancake breakfast but, the manager, leader, or CEO is the chef (don’t forget the chef hat)
- Send recognition of a “job well done” email and copy their manager
- Do a “Positive Shout out” or thank you on a team call
- Award a half-day off on Friday
- Celebrate employees on Social Media and other online platforms
- Call to personally thank an employee for their contribution
- Offer to pay for lunch, their choice of location and their choice of who to bring
- A day out or evening out at a sporting event, movie or theater performance
- High-quality company swag like a Yeti cup with the company logo
But Wait! What About Cash?
Yes, yes, we know the saying “cash is king!” but, the reality is cash cannot be enhanced, can become expected and is not really exotic or fun. That’s not to say a raise, bonus or other cash incentives should not be used because it should be but, cash is not always king. Sometimes it just takes “thank you. I appreciate you and your work” that can make all the difference in the world to an employee like whether to stay or go. The key is to recognize employees the way they want to be recognized.
So, the next time you are thinking of a way to thank your employees, for a job well-done pull out this list of 20 creative ways to recognize employees!
What’s one of your favorite workplace ‘thank you gifts’?
Free Reward and Recognition Planning Guide
Your organization doesn’t have a standard for how, when, or why to reward and recognize your employees? We’ve got you covered! Download the Reward and Recognition Planning guide.
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