Key #1: If you don’t at least put some careful consideration as to a strategy when tackling the issue of creating a culture of recognition through an employee program in your company, you might as well be playing darts at the local bar.

I’ve spoken with so many companies in the past year who are looking to create an employee program for their company of which many of them really have a keen understanding of what employee programs are all about.

In summing up some ‘best practices’ gathered from scores of client programs from the past ten years, almost all the employee programs implemented started with some commonality:

-  Defined Objectives: clients know what the problems are in their company and have clearly pin-pointed each issue to set qualitative and quantitative results.  Knowing clearly what you are looking to accomplish greatly helps in determining the right scope, design, implementation, and yes cost, of the employee program in the first place.

-  Defined Rules: establishing a set of rules around your employee program will help in setting boundaries for your workforce to work with.  They will have a clear understanding of what’s expected of them and how they will be rewarded when they perform certain tasks or complete activities.

-  Good Set of Rewards: make sure the rewards are appropriate for the audience it’s intended for as well as it matches the behavior.  Don’t be giving keychains as a reward for 20 years of committed service.  At the same time, however, perhaps offering an HD-LCTV for just showing up to work on time, might be a little overboard as well (plus, will kill your budget pretty quickly).

Whatever form your employee program may take, just planting one for this next year will reap benefits for your company and yield a positive impact on your workforce.  A well-thought and strategically implemented employee program will definitely keep you on the right path to increased employee engagement and measurable results from your return on investment.

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I recently finished reading Malcom Gladwell’s book, ‘The Tipping Point’ and discovered how top human resources executives at corporations around the country could benefit from it’s teachings.  ’The Tipping Point’, proposed by Gladwell, is “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.”  In today’s society, ideas, messages, and behaviors, are spread similar to a virus - very quickly and over mass quantities of individuals.  The reason Gladwell’s ideas are relevant to human resources is once you can harness the power of influence, you can greatly affect the success of your company’s employee program.

To keep with the analogy of a virus, you must first create an ‘epidemic’ within your workforce to get everyone excited about the employee program and its benefits.  Gladwell describes that there are three distinct groups critical in the success of creating an ‘epidemic’.

There are Connectors - connectors are individuals who seem to know everyone.  Don’t ask how they know everyone, just accept the fact that they do.  Connectors are critical in the process of creating an epidemic because they “have the ability to span many different worlds”

The second group are what Gladwell likes to term, ‘Mavens’.  These individuals are ‘information specialists’.  There are employees within your organization that have that talent of knowing everyone’s name, what department they’re in, their roles / functions, a perhaps, personal information.  As Gladwell states, “Maven are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know.”

The last group are the ‘Salesman’ (a.k.a. ‘persuaders’).  These are your rockstars - employees that everyone looks up to, model themselves after, of have great working relationships with.  These individuals are your key group to go out and ’sell’ the ideals of the employee program to the masses using their keen ability to influence.

The take-a-way from all of this is better understanding your employees in what specific roles they may play in creating an ‘epidemic’ will yield massive results in the success of promoting your employee program to the organization.

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At the beginning of 2011, a mid-sized company in the health-industry here in the mid-west, decided to take the plunge and implement an employee program to reward for employees’ committed years of service, outstanding performance, dedication, attention to detail, finding cost saving measures, and continued teamwork.  Now that it’s been almost 1 year since the employee program’s launch, it’s amazing to sit back and look at all the benefits that it has brought not only to the corporate culture, but also in maximizing the returns on investment as well.

The company had never done a formal employee program before, so they wanted to start small at first.  They worked smarter in making sure all employees’ views and ideas were heard FIRST, before sitting down to design what would ultimately become a widely successful employee recognition initiative.  Keeping top-of-mind, budgets were a little tight, employees were surveyed and asked what they thought would motivate them the most.  And a mutual understanding between upper management and direct reporting employes on goal expectations was accomplished.

When the rewards program was launched the first week of 2011, the employees were not only already aware of the new recognition initiative was in place, but everyone was already on board and excited of the arrival because they themselves had a say in how the rules were to be written.

Since then, the company is reaping the benefits of a successful employee program for year 1 and looking into ideas of expansion for year 2.  More interactive elements will be added into the employee program’s online application along with more sophisticated communication elements and exciting functionality.  The rewards offered are also being increased into higher valued merchandise. allowing employees a wider array of choices.

The take-away from this case study is two fold in the fact that you should always involve the audience whom the employee program is for before you start building one, along with the notion that it’s ok to start off small - you can grow over time.

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It’s true.  I don’t think there is a single employee out on the workforce today that would say, ” don’t need to be extended appreciated to feel valued” or “You know, offering rewards is just not going to motivate me to perform better at my job.”  The fact of the matter is, is that EVERY employee needs to be recognized and rewarded if the organization is to thrive in the workforce marketplace of today.

But you as the company don’t have to reward all of your employees with trips to Tahiti either.  Employee programs offering recognition and rewards can be extremely effective if you consider the following points:

Set Goals - what is it you want to reinforce?  Make a list of the various activities, behaviors, values, or performance measurements you would like to include within the employee program.  Once you have a good list of variables, decide what the importance of each of them are.  As an added note, the only way you’ll get everyone to participate in the employee program is if they ‘buy in’ or believe in the program in the first place.  Gather feedback from your workforce as to the values they feel they should be rewarded for.

Offering The Right Type of Reward - this can be a little tougher of a task as there are seemingly an endless supply of options now-a-days to include as reward in employee programs of recognition.  The key message is not to decide for the employee how they would like to be rewarded.  Remember, much like the talent that each employee brings to your company, so too is the diversity amongst what motivates each individual.  It’s ok to set some cost boundaries so that your employee program’s reward budget does not get out of hand, but at the same time, does not pigeon hole the recipient into choosing something they don’t like in the first place.

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Today, employee programs of recognition comes in many forms.  You can design anything from an employee anniversary celebration program to kudos appreciation, to employee peer recognition, and even manager on-the-spot awards.  There seems to be an endless amount of employee program types these days offering up a limitless set of combinations than ever before due to the exponential innovation within online solutions.

What does it all mean though?  So the company next door has an employee program of recognition implemented, but so what?  Perhaps turning to some cold hard facts and numbers will help shed some light on why.

In January of this year, non-profit global human resources research organization WorldatWork conducted a survey with 5,600 members involving employee programs of recognition.  From a response pool of 677 members, the following are some of the results:

1.  86% of respondents reported that their company had implemented an employee program of recognition within the past year (up from 80% between 2009 to the end of 2010).

2.  In measuring the effectiveness of the employee programs of recognition, over 50% of respondents agreed that their programs adds a positive impact in employee satisfaction, motivation, and engagement.

3.  Furthermore, respondents reported that the median budget for their employee program of recognition was about 1% of total payroll.

So, extrapolating the above facts out (especially the last point), that just having some sort of employee program of recognition will positively impact your employees and won’t cost you a lot of money (in the long term) to do it?  Why wouldn’t you?

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Earlier this year, the non-profit organization Incentive Research Foundation (IRF) published a white paper entitled, “Critical Findings For Recognition Travel Programs”.  In the white paper, IRF details a case study of a company who currently has an employee program of recognition which incentivizes their sales force for achieving their targets.

Jeff Broudy, chairman of the IRF board of trustees commented, “One of the most interesting discoveries was the power of the nomination process itself”.  ”Even though”, said Broudy, “the program was designed to reward only 2 percent to 3 percent of the employees, nearly half of the potential winners indicated that they were motivated by it”

The key is to focus on implementing an employee program that best fits the overall culture of the organization - something that makes sense based on the employees who will be receiving the recognition.  For the case of this particular study, offering travel as a reward was the best motivator for the company’s sales force to exceed expectations.

As noted by IRF’s President Melissa Van Dyke, “Aligning a program’s parameters to the organization’s mission and culture is as critical as making it possible for all eligible employees to participate.”

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It happens to every company, regardless of size, there can be easy communication breakdown between employer to employee when it comes to expectations versus empowerment.

As the business world spins even faster, innovative solutions can be used to properly facilitate the gap between what you as the company expects in terms of performance against employee motivation and engagement.

This gap can be bridged by implementing a simple employee program - a solution that communications to your employees that they are appreciated and their hard work matters to the organization as a whole.

The right program should allow your employees the ability to give / receive recognition not only from the top, but also from their peers.  Employee programs can be customized to meet a company’s specific objectives, culture, and budget constraints.  It is also important to design your rewards program with the employees in mind.  Make sure you understand what will motivate them the most before you go and start spending capital on such a big project.

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Before implementing any type of employee rewards program into your company’s culture, you need to first consider a few important factors.

Just as investing in asset management, technology upgrades, corporate security, product development, and marketing are all important areas of running a successful business, so too is the investment in creating and fostering the right corporate culture which motivates your employees.  Without a solid corporate culture, which engages your employees, may critically cripple your goals as a company.

Among the most valuable benefits to implementing employee recognition programs into your corporate culture include:
-  Drive employee engagement
-  Decrease attrition
-  Strengthen manager-to-employee relationships
-  Improved peer morale
-  Empower employees to choose their own reward
-  Reinforces existing corporate culture and company values
-  Encourages goal setting and rewards achievements

Establishing an employee recognition program cannot only improve employee engagement and retention, but foster innovation, which will lend itself to improving the bottom line.

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In today’s world, the companies who are staying ahead of the curve are moving a greater amount of resources and budget to bolstering the engagement of their employees through innovative rewards program solutions.    Properly designed employee rewards programs wrapped around existing business objectives can serve as a useful tool in inspiring your employees.

Recognize Your Employees - showing appreciation for employees who excel in their performance or stand out in the crowd can yield dramatic returns.  When the appropriate recognition is extended, such as direct from a manager, the employees feel the value they bring to the table, while inspiring those around the employee to perform at their best as well.

Offer The Right Reward - who are we to determine what is best to give someone who performs at their best as a reward.  Make sure you give them the option to choose for themselves.  Perhaps give them something to work for.  For example, perhaps a particular employee would like to get a certain handbag they have been eying in the department store for quite some time.  Each time they achieve their goals in the office, reward them points.  The employee is more likely to repeat the positive behavior to accumulate more points to eventually redeem for that handbag.

The key to retaining your valuable employees is in showing proper appreciation.  When employees feel valued, they are more likely to outperform even themselves.

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How much does it cost to say ‘thank you’?  Not much.

How much is the return after saying ‘thank you’?  Infinite.

Top companies from around the world are discovering the dramatic returns on the integration of a ‘thank you’ or ‘kudos’ culture into their workforce.  Recently, global giant Hewlett Packard initiated a pilot program within their workforce.  For HP employees who volunteer within their community each month receive recognition in gift cards as a way of saying, ‘thank you’.

The program has received such notoriety that the Harvard Business School studied the program and noted, “when organizations give employees the opportunity to spend money on others – whether their co-workers or those in need – both the employees and the company benefit, with increased happiness and job satisfaction, and even improved team performance.”

When developing an employee recognition program into your own company culture, it’s important to keep a couple of points in mind:
1.  Pay close attention - to the ebb-and-flow of your corporate culture and what the motivational drivers are with your employees
2.  Don’t underestimate the power of simple ‘kudos’.  They don’t cost much, and go a long way towards appreciation.

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