Employee Recognition

Geno · January 2005

Help! I need some ideas from anyone who has an employee recognition program in place that works well for them. We have one in place now that could best be described as a tried and true, plain vanilla, no frills, employee-of-the-quarter type of thing. The problem is that it received a fair amount of criticism in a recent employee survey – with the biggest complaint being that it has essentially become a popularity contest. Oh, did I forget to tell you that this is a collective bargaining situation – which in and of itself makes it tough to recognize individuals. Also, and I’ll be honest with you, absent subjective selection criteria, I’m personally not a big proponent of culling out one single employee for recognition – but the boss insist that we have something in place. To add to the challenge, the company is diverse both functionally and geographically (multiple work-sites within a thirty-mile area). I would love to hear from other HR professionals who might throw some ideas my way that might help. Thanks in advance.

Geno

sonny · January 2005

Find the complainers and put together a time limited committee to come up with something. They'll have some ownership and you will have less work to do. x:D

deniseE · January 2005

I won't say ours is GREAT but it's not bad. The foundation is that you must be nominated from outside your immediate work area. This was created to get the ee's to work and play well with each other. In addition to nominating an individual, a team may also be nominated.

The categories involve "best service" "exceeding standards"...and we have one for "above and beyond". I nominated our print shop for this one a few times!!!

Each year we roll out a new theme and come up with corney awards based upon it...one year was the academy awards, another year the olympics.

The prizes are nominal, since anything over 15.00 we have to report as income. So we tend to stick to having lunch brought in or letting them take a paid afternoon off...

Rural HR · June 2005

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-09-05 AT 11:09AM (CST)[/font][br][br]Denise,

I know it has been awhile since you posted this but we are trying to better identify our criteria for recognition. Do you have specific criteria for each of the categories you can share with me? Also, any other research or resources you suggest I try would also be very helpful. On the face, these are our categories.

Exceptional customer service
Meeting or exceeding goals or responsibilties
assigned
Willingness to take on additional responsibilties
Fostering increased productivity or increased
efficiency
Cost reduction
Outstanding service, assistance or support to
others

Thanks

HRinGA · January 2005

We have an Employee of the Month celebration (each month obviously).
Anyone can nominate a coworker for this award and the department heads (about 15 of us) vote for the winner. The winner receives $50, an additional day off and a cool jacket.
We serve cake and soft drinks at the ceremony. Works well for us. We have multiple sites so we try to rotate the party. We also use this time to recognize employees who have service anniversaries that month. It starts at 5yrs, and goes up in 5 yr increments. They too, receive a kit where they can order a gift.

Parabeaglex2 · January 2005

We have a program to recognize employees who go above and beyond expectations that is held quarterly. In order to be nominated, an employee must have performed some task to help his/her coworkers or customers that is completely above and beyond the call of duty - normal, or even exceptional, performance of regularly assigned job duties does not qualify. Any employee can nominate anyone they feel is deserving, and must write a few paragraphs describing what the employee did that was so spectacular. The narratives submitted by the nominating employees are then featured in our newsletter along with a ballot. All employees can vote for whomever they wish (identities are not featured in the narratives). The employee getting the highest number of votes wins a certificate, a plaque and a $500 award. It's proven to be a very popular program at our company, and I've noticed employees don't submit "mediocre" nominations.

E Wart · June 2005

Geno, I am with you.... I am and have always been a sick in the mud on these types of activities. I don't know how they can be anything but subjective. I guess part of my problem is that I don't like "public praise" and praise isn't what makes me do a good job.
Anyway, we do give anniversary gifts (very nice ones from O. C. Tanner) for 5 year anniversaries. Each of our plants do different things. One gives a jacket (with name on it) for person voted on by supervisors and manager, one gives a catered luncheon to all employees each quarter if they don't have any recordable accidents, one puts the names of all employees who have "perfect attendance" (Not late and time off has to be "prescheduled" vacation). in a hat and draws one out each month. This person gets an additional 1/2 day off with pay.
Where I used to work the senior management team voted each year on the "most valuable" employee. They were given a very nice glass plaque (if you like plaques) and were commended in front of the entire company at the annual meeting. (I think they were given a cash award as well.)
Another one that I have been involved in was where each employee was given something like 10 "thank you bucks" which they in turn would give to employees who went over and beyond their job (whether it was helping them or someone else.) They would write on the "buck' why the employee was receiving it and who it was from. The receiving employees could hold these and once a month or quarter (I forgot) they could cash these in for not too expensive gifts from a catelog. (This started great guns and then ended up being if you give me some of yours and I'll give you some of mine.)

E Wart

lynn2008 · June 2005

I agree that doing this in a Union facility is a hardship - my sympathies.

We do anniverary awards:

1 year, logo mug
5 years, engraved pen/pencil set or LOGO belt buckle
10 $100 gift certificate, plus recog party
15 $175 plus recog party
20 $250, plus one bonus vacation week plus $1,000, name on founders plaque plus recog party
25 $350 plus party

Pocket praise program (same problems as the rest of you with concerns over fairness, etc.) but each is worth 3 dollar "Whip Bucks" which can be turned in for company logo hats, jackets, etc or $20 gift cards. Monthly Employee of Month w/ certificate and $20 Whip Bucks.

During Company Quartely Meetings, the President recognizes the Emp of MOnth on Power Point presentation using photo.

You will always have complainers; a few always gets their satisfaction and reward from "within" but most people do like to be thanked and appreciate the public praise; don't expect this to make the less than desirable employee that much better, but it will have a positive effect on that group of employees who do perform well and would like to be differentiated from those that "get by".

My company is non-union, but I have worked a recog program in a UAW plant - really tough sell. Good luck.

Employee Recognition

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