4 Ways to Personalize Your Employee Recognition Programs

Posted by Stephen on Mar 20, 2015

What's in a name? Well, everything! It's the first thing you ask someone, what you type into LinkedIn to find someone's profile and even on every piece of mail you receive. So why wouldn't your employees recognition program 'Personalize' your rewards? Here are 4 examples of how you can 'Personalize' your employee incentive programs today to make sure your employees hit their smart goals and you deliver a high ROI. Check out our SMART goals template here to learn more.

Personalize With Their Name

The first rule is simple----put their name on it! Whether you reward them through e-mail, an employee recognition software, social media or even in person it is key to make sure you name them out loud. Let others see you do it! Make a point to enunciate their names and let everybody know you're making a big deal. At first you may get some weird looks but our names are the lynchpin of our identity. Associating positive recognition with someone's name allows everybody to take notice, get engaged and focus on the next thing you are about to say!

Personalize to Specific Task

Recognition awards are given for a reason! It is important that you get extremely specific with why you are issuing a reward. The reason should be a behavior that you are trying to reinforce continuosly which drives your weekly, monthly or quarterly SMART Goals! (for more information download our SMART goals template)

Tell your employee WHY they are getting the recognition/reward. Be specific so they know to repeat the desired action or behavior. Using spot recognition such as CrewHu Badges you can make sure that your employee is rewarded in a personal way--and also in a way that makes it Public and Prompt! (check out What are the 4Ps? blog for more on that)

Bonus: Smart Goals Examples

So you've decided that you will dedicate $500 to your recognition awards this month by creating a contest to boost sales for your 5 person sales team! You've set two SMART goals:

"Increase Sales Rep Average Monthly Sales by 10%"

"Increase sales rep average weekly sales by 2.5%"

You have then decided to reward anyone who reaches their weekly SMART goal and an extra bonus for the person who has the highest Sales increase at the end of the month. This is what the rewarding will look like:

$15 Reward for anybody hitting 2.5% Sales Increase by End of Week 1
$15 Reward for anybody hitting 5.0% Sales Increase by End of Week 2
$15 Reward for anybody hitting 7.5% Sales Increase by End of Week 3
$15 Reward for anybody hitting 10 % Sales Increase by End of Week 4
$100 Reward for Employee with Highest Sales Increase at End of Month

Based on this calculation you will spend at most $400 in Rewards leaving you with $100 left in your budget to allocate to CrewHu badges that you will create worth $5 each to be given out spontaneously! A 10% increase in your Sales would be equivalent to $3000 additional monthly profit which cost you $500 in rewards yielding a 500% ROI, Woohoo!

Personalize to Interest

You must reward your employees with something that matters. Don't give someone a Starbucks gift card who doesn't drink coffee. Make them feel special by letting them know that you know them and you care. But personalizing a reward can be difficult and even very expensive when you think about it. Modern online employee recognition software have built in reward stores that allow your employees to redeem earned points (CrewHu bucks) for the rewards they actually want. This is key because it helps in 2 ways:

Employees get what they really want.
Employees get it when they want it.
Saves you Time! ("The Big One")

crewhu_employee_recognition_store

Personalize to Remember

Not all recognition awards are created equally! While digital gift cards are easy and manageable, something that they could touch goes a long way! A personalized plaque or trophy will help your employees remember the positive experience and gives them something tangible to feel proud about or show off to the rest of their team. A good example of this is with employee ofthe month programs. By having an Employee of the Month wall with trophies you can reinforce that good behavior and make sure all of your employees are engaged in your business.

employee-of-the-month

Conclusion

No matter what reward, prize or statement you make during your contest, make sure you go out of your way to recognize the person by their name, for their achievement, and reward them with something valuable and memorable. But it doesn't stop there! Remember that effective employee engagement contains all 4Ps - Personal, Proportionate, Prompt and Public! You can read more about the other Ps by clicking on the links or jump into creating employee incentive programs that delivers high ROI by downloading the FREE employee recognition template below.

Topics: employee recognition, smart goals, 4Ps, employee of the month

Blog