A positive work culture is one of the most important competitive advantages a company can develop. Recognition in the workplace is a key means of creating the type of work environment that produces employee engagement and long-term loyalty. Mukesh Gupta, a customer advocate for software giant SAP, recently shared these tips for effective employee recognition programs on CustomerThink.com:
1. Recognize publicly. Praising people in public shows everyone that good behavior is rewarded and creates a positive spiral of impact, building good habits among teams.
2. Adopt peer recognition. Recognition from peers gives an entirely different feeling of satisfaction than recognition from managers.
3. Make it immediate. Recognizing top performers soon after they have excelled shows them their managers are engaged in their performance.
4. Personalize. When recognizing with non-cash rewards, understand your employees and what is important to them. Gifts that are personalized based on individual tastes tell recipients that a lot of thought went into deciding the recognition.
