In recent times, organizations have woken up to the long-term benefits of value-based recognition rather than just focusing entirely on the performance, achievements, or tenure of the employees when it comes to employee recognition.
Value-based recognition can simply be defined as a recognition strategy in which employees are rewarded and recognized for any exemplary behavior that reflects the core values of the organization.
These recognition programs are focused on reinforcing and driving business goals, empowering employees, and creating a positive employer brand.
Millennials today form a major percentage of the global workforce and the trend will continue in the future.
This has changed the expectations of employees from their workplace, with most of them seeking a sense of greater meaning and purpose.
This is as opposed to just better perks and benefits sought by earlier generations.
Value-based recognition offers this sense of meaning and purpose to the employees and this, in turn, strengthens their sense of belonging and engagement.
Value-based employee recognition focuses more on the process than the results.
When employees focus on honoring the core values of the organization, it naturally results in the achievement of the desired results.
This type of recognition also tends to have a positive impact on the relationship between managers and employees.
It makes the employees feel happier and more satisfied with their contribution to the overall mission of their organization.
The primary objective of value-based recognition programs is to create a culture of respect, recognition, and appreciation for employees across all levels.
Organizations can consider the following best practices while implementing such recognition programs for their workforce:
1. Communicate Core Values to Employees
2. Define Desirable Behaviors linked to the Core Values
3. Create Policies that Reward/ Recognize such Behaviors
4. Set Process Flow
5. Choose the Right Platform
6. Ensure Social Visibility within the Organization
7. Link Value-Based and Performance-Based Recognition
8. Track Progress and Make Changes as necessary
Every organization operates with a certain set of values that it expects its employees to follow and adapt.
To fulfill this objective, organizations need to ensure that their employees are well aware of these core values that are key to their mission and culture.
Recognizing employees for their contributions towards promoting these core values makes them feel empowered.
While communicating core organizational values to the employees is the first step, the next step is to define the desirable behaviors linked to them.
This helps in removing any ambiguity concerning how the employees are expected to behave to uphold these values.
Such clarity is important for creating a culture of mutual understanding, respect, and dedication.
Organizations need to devise the right policies to reward and recognize the desirable behaviors defined earlier.
Rewarding behaviors associated with core values immediately is more important than how the employees are rewarded.
As important as it is to reward the employees for desirable behaviors, defining the right process flow is equally important.
This essentially means determining who can nominate the recipients, who can offer the rewards, what type of recognition can be offered, and other such aspects besides promoting peer-to-peer as well as top-down recognition.
Investing in the right employee recognition platform is essential for executing the value-based recognition program successfully.
Such platforms offer the right features and functionality to tie the core organization values with desirable behaviors.
They also incorporate the best ways of recognizing such behaviors.
Most importantly, such platforms help maintain the transparency and integrity of the rewards program.
Organizations should ensure that every time an employee receives value-based recognition, the other members of the workforce are made aware of the same.
Publishing such recognition on internal communication and collaboration platforms such as the Intranet, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, and Slack is a great way to do so.
It can help motivate and inspire other employees to emulate the actions of the recipients.
While promoting value-based recognition is important, it should not be done at the cost of ignoring performance-based recognition.
Organizations need to create a balance between both these types of recognition to create a healthy and balanced organizational culture where their employees can thrive.
Finally, it is important to track the progress of the value-based recognition program from time to time and make any necessary changes to it.
This is essential to stay updated with the changing needs and expectations of the workforce as per the changing market trends.
Developing an effective value-based recognition program helps in clarifying, aligning, and reinforcing the organization’s vision and its expectations from its employees; keeping them motivated and focused.
Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of experience in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. In the past, Sagar has worked with companies such as Genpact, Infosys, and ICICI Bank, in leadership roles. He has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. Connect on LinkedIn
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