Employee Recognition Awards Create Progress 

In difficult situations, when companies are in crisis and can only be saved by major effort, group morale often rises to far higher levels than before. Individual objections and objectives are bypassed in the collective drive to do what must be done. This is where recognition awards take importance. High group morale can enrich individual motivation and performance remarkably! These are two types of awards: planned and unplanned.

Planned Awards:

1. Recognition Awards

On its basic concept, recognition awards are effective ways of increasing and boosting people’s morale. It encourages them to be accepting of and have a desire for change at all times. The change they will make is not entirely for the advantage of the company, but to their own personal achievement as well. Basically, the common recognition awards given to employees are based on the three categories of recognition. These can be planned, immediate, or formal. If a recognition award is set on a formal approach, the award should focus more on the employee’s exceptional contribution to the organization for a given year. Some examples of formal recognition awards are:

a. Employee Service Award

This may refer to the remarkable service extended by an employee. This means that he or she had taken responsibility of not only doing his or her assigned task, but were able to complete other work that the entire organization benefited from.

b. Customer Relations Employee Awards

This award is to recognize people who constantly make an effort to reach out to the company’s most important asset–the customers–and by providing them with exceptional customer service, they have created loyal customers.

c. Retiree Recognition Award

This award goes out to employees who gave almost half of their life serving the company, providing exceptional service, and undivided loyalty throughout their employment. These kinds of recognition awards are pre-set and the frequency of conducting them is on a routine basis, and should be focused on recognizing an employee’s simple, yet notable achievements,

d. Employee of the Month

This award is given to employees who where noted to have done outstanding performance in a given month. This type of recognition award usually boosts the person’s morale in terms of emotional satisfaction and personal fulfillment. This in turn, encourages and motivates other employees. If their colleague was able to achieve it, so can they.

e. Best in Attendance

This type of recognition award should be given in order to motivate people to come to work on time and avoid habitual absences. This in turn, reflects the company’s value for the employee’s presence, that a day or even a fraction of missed work is detrimental to the entire organization’s development.

f. Best in Customer Service

This type of recognition award is given to those who have exceptionally provided customer service to their clients, thereby, motivating more people to opt for their services because of the kind of satisfaction they will get from the organization’s staff. In many cases, it is usually the customer service that keeps people from coming back to the company. And so, if carried out well by an employee, it is important to acknowledge it. And last, if the recognition is based on immediate recognition, the recognition awards should reflect the urgent need to take note of a person’s commendable completion of a given task, in which, when done by anyone else may not have resulted as well.

Unplanned Awards:

a. Teamwork Effor

This type of recognition award is given to a group whose outstanding performance had contributed to the company’s growth.

b. A Special Project Award

This refers to the immediate completion of a special project which reaped improved results. This recognition award is effective in motivating people that the earlier they complete their work and at the same time maintain the quality of output, they will be rewarded.

c. A Simple Employee Appreciation

This type of recognition award is a simple way of uplifting the confidence and drive of the employee to continue good work. The bottom line is that, if a company knows how to take care of its people by giving recognition awards, the employees will take good care of the company in return.

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, and youth leadership. For more information visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.622