If you want to reward top performers at work, then you should consider some of these employee recognition ideas. Taking a moment to honor these people can become an important and appreciated part of your workplace culture.
Recently, I held a poll on this topic on LinkedIn. Here are the choice and the voting results:
How do you recognize and reward strong employee performance?
- Bonuses: 44%
- Career Growth Opportunities: 31%
- Public Praise: 16%
- Flexible Hours: 9%
Let’s go through the choices and discuss the benefits and possible challenges of each.
Bonuses
During a time when inflation touches our daily lives, a little extra money is appreciated. It’s easy to understand the impact of a financial gift.
Bonuses can create jealousy and divide groups. This is true in situations where success may be subjective or there are elements that are out of people’s control.
To prevent hard feelings, make sure the criteria for the bonus is clearly spelled out. Also, is it potentially achievable for everyone or can only a select few reach that level? This preparation can incentivize performance and minimize hurt feelings.
Career Growth Opportunities
For some, extra money is less valuable than the chance to improve professionally. Career growth opportunities could involve learning new skills, getting to attend conferences, or networking opportunities. Career growth could even be about having a mentor from your organization.
In these scenarios, while people gain the opportunity to get better, that improvement will ultimately be felt by your business. Better employees produce better results.
Some may worry that funding self-improvement will result in people leaving your business. That’s possible but isn’t it better to have employees who raise standards, for a little while, rather than people who embrace average forever?
Public Praise
This is the most budget friendly option. And yet, a few well placed words of praise can be priceless and memorable.
In many cases excellent work will be easy to see. In others, you may have to look throughout your business to find excellence.
Make sure praise is not just concentrated in one department, often the one you know best or is closest to your office. Also, some employees shine professionally but do so quietly. You have to do a little more digging to uncover their brilliance.
Flexible Hours
Of our employee recognition ideas, flexible hours came in last. Perhaps, in an increasingly work from home world, it isn’t as important as it once was.
And in some cases, feeling constantly plugged into work, makes flexible hours not really seem like a perk that would be valued.
If flexible hours seems worth exploring, make sure essential work can still be completed in a timely fashion. You don’t want someone’s late arrival or early departure to create chaos for others.
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