Shining Stars: Creating an Effective Employee Recognition Program

Hey there Crewhu-ers!

Ashley here with this week's installment of Ask Ashley! This week we are going to look at building your employee recognition program and the importance of including your crew in the process. 

Here is my experience with building the program! 

ONE: Crewhu 

In my previous role as a Service Manager for a mid-size MSP, one of my initiatives was implementing a CSAT program in our environment. We looked at multiple companies, but when Crewhu was presented, we knew we had found the right match.

Not only did Crewhu provide the CSAT component, BUT also gave us something we did not realize we were missing UNTIL we stumbled upon Crewhu: Employee Recognition. Not only was I excited about the prospect of rewarding my crew, but so was the Leadership Team. Once I had presented the options and my recommendations to the Leadership Team, we all agreed Crewhu was the best option to accomplish our goals: providing “White Glove” service and rewarding our employees for their hard work. 

TWO: Planning & Implementation 

Once we signed on with Crewhu, we put together a small team of employees to help build the product's recognition component. The team included our President, myself, and two employees from the Help Desk crew. We were all really excited to come together to create Badges and build out the prize store. The dynamic was essential; we, of course, needed to make sure we stayed on budget but also had buy-in from the staff. Having two staff members not associated with leadership showed the rest of the company that it was about THEM. Which helped build excitement.

We started with building the badges. In the onboarding process, Crewhu discusses at length the importance of using your Core Values as the foundation for recognizing and rewarding your employees. So, we started with our Core Values!

Then we took a deep dive into our goals and initiatives that we were working on as a company and created the badges around them. One of my favorites was the DISC badge we created. The company had embarked on this 2 - 3 month training program rooted around DISC and communication. We wanted to keep that initiative fresh in our staff’s mind, so that badge was essential and reminded them to thank each other for communicating in their DISC style.

We knew we needed to balance the badges well; we had five core values, five core tenets, and another five behavioral badges we implemented at first. We did not want to overwhelm the staff, but we wanted to give enough options to categorize the type of recognition that would be effective and drive employee engagement.

We also had different tiers of badges; Executive Leadership, Manager, & Peer-To-Peer. We wanted to ensure Leadership participated in the program and paid attention to what was happening within their company and the employees. 

Building out our prize store was the real buy-in from the staff. We sent out a survey to see what people wanted to “cash-in” on. It was great to see their ideas and then know I had the opportunity to bring them to life.

THREE: The Launch 

The time had officially arrived to launch Crewhu to the entire company. I was so excited! In the first two weeks of Crewhu being launched, I personally sent out over 100 badges to the entire staff. I wanted people to see how easy it was. Also, our staff got excited about the prize store and saw the rewards they wanted available to redeem! Before we knew it, people saw how this program could be beneficial and wanted to participate. The synergy was natural! 

Not only did we see a change in how our employees interacted with each other, but our CSAT score was better than we could have imagined. We were seeing and experiencing a shift in our culture that was something we dreamed of but didn’t think was possible. 

Overall, what really solidified Crewhu being a permanent fixture in our culture was the buy-in from the employees when they were part of the decision. It gave them a sense of belonging and ownership.

For me, Crehwu was my buy-in. I was given the opportunity to build something from the ground up and make something that would make everyone happy and feel valued. I’m happy to report that even though I am no longer at the company, they are still thriving and using Crewhu to keep their clients and employees happy.

There you have it, Crewhu-ers. Involve your staff in the process; you will see the magic happen. For more tips, and a guideline for how to do this for your crew, check out our workbook: Happy Employee = Happy Customer!

Until Next Time, 

Ask Ashley