Pay Attention Before You Lose Them

Philip Altschuler, Senior Vice President, Human Resources Training & Development, Gables Residential

My dentist used to tell me to brush the teeth I want to keep. The same applies to employees. Rewards and recognition are a critical part of the employee experience. Everybody wants to feel appreciated for their efforts and a paycheck isn’t always enough.

The challenge for most supervisors is that giving rewards, recognition, or some combination of the two can be a challenge in their organization and ensuring it’s done fairly and has meaning to the recipient can be even more difficult.

Since most traditional recognition programs had little or no criteria behind who was selected as the Employee of the Month/Quarter/Year, they became popularity based, not performance based. This left our employees with no way to know which behaviors are rewarded and even worse, became disincentives and problematic when popular employees were selected over harder working colleagues.

One solution gaining prevalence is online recognition systems that provide an easy way to deliver recognition as well as allow other employees to see, comment, and like posts, as they do on Facebook or Instagram. While social recognition is appreciated, employees generally like something extra along with that recognition. To address this, most recognition systems allow the distribution and awarding of points which can be saved and redeemed for gift cards or merchandise. We added time off with pay and find new hires prefer that over anything else. Whatever you choose, select options that appeal to a generationally diverse group.

Moving your existing program online (known as a lift and shift) is usually a recipe for disaster. While it may honor your organization’s traditions, it may also cause more problems than it solves, since online programs are more transparent. Instead, use this opportunity to update your programs and add in the company values you want your employees to follow and showcase. We have ten values, some of which include Brand Ambassador, Sales and Service Excellence, Sustainability, and Innovation. When tagged along with a short narrative (required) of what the employee did, others learn about what behaviors are recognized.

“The solution gaining prevalence is online recognition systems that provide an easy way to deliver recognition as well as allow other employees to see, comment, and like posts, as they do on Facebook or Instagram”

Once you have that part figured out, then you must find a way to fund it, get managers and employees to use it, manage it, and make it meaningful.

As far as budget is concerned, while every company is different, there is probably an existing budget for rewards and recognition, although it may be spread over several cost codes and accounts. You may even realize you have more money to spend than you thought. Either way, your new online recognition system should allow you to set a budget and manage to it using their system tools.

Once you have it funded, it’s important to think through how you’ll manage the distributable points. For us, awardable points are distributed to all supervisors based on their number of direct reports (points are calculated per employee per month). You can set this up any way you wish, but keep in mind that the more people you have awarding points, the more likely the system will get used and become a part of your culture.

Finally, you want to make it meaningful. And this seems easier than it is. Once you gain momentum, the system will practically manage itself, but in the beginning, you are fighting for screen time against other apps like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Be prepared to market the system frequently, run promotions and find ways to get employees to keep visiting your recognition site. Add birthdays and anniversaries since it gives employees a reason to visit daily. Also, integrate any sales contests, wellness incentives or anything else that creates competition and a reason to keep visiting. We have a quarterly sales contest with an integrated leader board so employees can see how they are doing each day.

It’s important to get leadership involved and using the system. Our employees routinely screen shot recognition from officers and share it on their social platforms, which is great advertising as well.

Ultimately, just be sure to get a system that offers the flexibility you want and need. While many of these systems offer a basic approach where you can only change the logo, we use a system that follows the credo, “if you can dream it, we can build it”