Did you know employee recognition and rewards plays a crucial psychological role? Experts believe that rewarding employees and recognizing their efforts boosts their productivity and engagement.
In fact, timely recognition helps retain hardworking employees and keeps them motivated throughout. In essence, employee recognition is the act of acknowledging an employee’s performance, achievement, or teamwork.
Unfortunately, most employers do not leverage the benefit of employee recognition to its full potential and miss out on several perks.
Read along to find out the need to implement employee recognition and rewards and associated benefits.
Importance Of Employee Recognition
Employee recognition is the key to effective engagement. Talented employees will not stick around if they do not feel valued or appreciated at work. Conversely, lack of recognition often tends to stagnate employee morale and hamper their productivity.
The best way to avoid such an unpleasant situation is to implement positive reinforcement. And one of the most cost-effective means to do this is through timely appreciation of employees and acknowledging their hard work openly.
Impact of employee recognition in the workplace
Most research shows that businesses that keep their employees engaged are likely to churn out 5x more share returns within 5 years. Reports also suggest that such companies tend to outperform firms with a low employee engagement rate by a whopping 202%.
Statistics suggest that nearly 81% of employees put more effort into work when their bosses appreciate them. Similarly, 50% of employees tend to stay longer if they feel more appreciated.
Here are the key ways in which employee recognition can help businesses:
👉 Boosts employee engagement
Successful business owners believe that acknowledging hard work is one of the top drivers of employee engagement. Open appreciation makes employees feel that they are a valuable asset in the company. In turn, it keeps the workforce engaged and more interested in performing better for the company.
As per research conducted by Quantum Workforce, employees in a company are 2.7x more likely to feel engaged if they feel their efforts are being recognized. In addition, positive feedback from team leaders plays a vital role in boosting employee engagement and morale.
👉 Boosts Team Performance
Employees who feel appreciated are more engaged and focused. Their enhanced focus and amplified motivation reflects on their performance and helps them generate better results. To break it down, engaged workforces see a reduction in absenteeism and a sharp increase in productivity.
Moreover, those who enjoy working in a nurturing environment are less likely to quit. This helps businesses leverage the expertise of their hardworking employees, who are eager to help companies reach their zenith in quality and revenue.
👉 BuildsTrust in Your Workforce
Recognizing employees’ efforts can help build trust and improve the working environment significantly. In a workspace where individuals trust one another to make the correct decisions, one can expect a quality outcome and seamless time management.
The latest Harvard Business Review suggests that employees working in companies with healthy workplace culture are:
✔️ 74% less stressed
✔️ 106% more energetic
✔️ 50% more productive
✔️ 13% less likely to take sick leave
✔️ 76% more engaged and focused
✔️ 29% more satisfaction with their work-life
✔️ 40% less burnt out
Needless to say, these perks help a business meet its full potential and boost revenue generation.
👉 Improves sales function
It is quite rare to find a company that is entirely satisfied with its sales team’s performance. Every company wishes to widen its prospects, boost its leads, and bag more deals.
Now there are several ways to improve the performance of company sales. For instance, running training programs optimizes processing and purchasing sales software. However, none of these measures could ever prove as powerful or cost-effective as employee engagement and motivating the company’s sales function.
As per findings from Gallup’s meta-analysis, the behavior of engaged entities prompt nearly 21% more profitability. Typically, a company whose sales representative feels motivated and focused are likely to hit targets and boost sales. However, while financial incentives are a popular means of motivating sales teams, research suggests that it is not the only way to motivate employees.
👉 Promotes Employee Wellness
Since the pandemic, companies have been striving to prioritize and promote employee wellness. Pandemic-induced challenges have prompted issues such as mental health distress, fatigue, and burn out have coaxed businesses to roll out a unique corporate wellness program. It goes without saying, but employee recognition and rewards initiatives are an integral part of wellness. Indeed, recognition cannot help resolve mental health challenges. However, timely support and motivating words can help employees feel more connected with their peers and help them feel better.
👉 Promotes a culture of self-improvement
Having a recognition program positively affects a company’s retention rate. However, while employees are willing to stay at their job because of its healthy work environment, the stagnant scope of growth in terms of remuneration or learning can emerge as a roadblock.
Offering employees the scope to develop new skills and improve existing knowledge will keep them engaged and alert. Indeed, an employee training solution is an excellent way of boosting upskill opportunities and instill a sense of self-improvement across the workforce.
Needless to say, highly skilled employees directly help boost the company’s output and performance. However, employers must highlight the benefits of getting enrolled in such training programs so that employees can feel encouraged about the same.
Tips to Improve Employee Recognition in the Workplace
Entrepreneurs can boost the effectiveness of employee recognition by simply putting these into practice:
✔️ Implement and execute peer to peer recognition program
✔️ Offer holiday rewards and give frequent bonuses
✔️ Recognize passion and skills of employees
✔️ Leverage social media for publicizing employee accomplishments
✔️ Recognize accomplishments that are not limited to work
✔️ Provide opportunities to grow as an employee and as a team
Organizations with low engagement levels and negative work cultures will always struggle to hold on to their valued employees. As a result, such companies will always fall short of reaching their full potential. This is why a company needs to adopt a wholesome recognition program to keep the team motivated, boost productivity, and help retain talent for better earnings.
Make the most of your workforce’s talent pool by appointing Ovation’s traditional reward and modern recognition program. In addition, Ovation’s qualitative engagement program can keep your team motivated, customers impressed, and numbers happy.
Contact Ovation to learn more about creating an effective employee engagement strategy and enroll in an advanced recognition and rewards program.
