Most organizations today understand the importance of creating an effective rewards and recognition program that aligns with the organization’s business goals and cultural values. However, organizations need to build traction for employee recognition programs among their employees to make them successful and produce the desired results.
An employee recognition program can be implemented and executed successfully only if the members of the workforce find it interesting and engaging enough to participate in it with a high level of enthusiasm.
A well-designed program may fail without proper participation from the employees.
Hence, promoting the recognition program helps maximize workforce participation and paves the way for its success.
Moreover, it sends out a positive message to the workforce that their employer is seriously looking to appreciate their efforts and contribution to the business growth.
Developing an effective recognition program requires a significant investment of funds, time, and effort from the organization.
Therefore, to maximize the returns of this investment, the organization needs to promote the program to its workforce.
They also need to motivate them to participate in it regularly.
Here are a few effective ways to promote employee rewards and recognition programs among the workforce:
1. Build a Strong Program Brand
2. Involve Employees from Initial Stage
3. Communicate Extensively
4. Plan and Prepare for a Grand Launch
5. Get Leaders and Managers to Champion the Program
6. Continue Communication Post-Launch
7. Focus on Continuous Feedback and Improvement
Organizations need to work towards creating an employee recognition brand that their employees can connect with.
Designing the program to meet the expectations of the workforce is important.
Branding can be achieved through the program name, logo, theme colors, award names, and even the language and tone of the write-ups associated with the program.
All these elements combine to inject a unique brand personality into the program making it more interesting for the employees.
Importantly, the earlier in the program development and implementation cycle that employees can get involved, the greater would be their level of interest and participation once the program is launched.
Hence, organizations can seek inputs and ideas from employees about naming the program, the best ways to launch it, the type of rewards, and even how they are presented, etc.
Such a level of involvement can help boost employee motivation and inspire them to take part in the program from day one.
One of the most effective ways for organizations to create a buzz around their employee recognition programs is to communicate extensively about the same to their employees.
They should make use of every opportunity to reiterate the various features and benefits of the program.
The communication should intensify closer to the launch date and aim to build interest and excitement among the employees.
Organizations should conduct town halls, open houses, and team meetings and develop online and offline materials about the program such as FAQs.
They should leverage different modes of communication to disseminate information about the program, such as email, the Intranet, or platforms such as Teams or Slack.
The launch of the program should be well-planned and a grand affair.
Apart from extensive communication in the run-up to the launch, the launch itself should be planned and managed as an event of importance.
The launch could be done in a large-scale online or offline forum.
The scale of the event and the presence of the senior leaders can help maximize the visibility of the program.
It is extremely important to involve the senior leaders in the process of promoting the recognition program.
The leaders should be part of the communication and the forums related to the program. This can help build higher credibility for the program.
Involving line managers and supervisors in the program development and rollout is also very important.
This makes it easier for them to spread the word about the program. They can also answer any questions or queries that their team members might have about the same.
It is not enough to communicate extensively about the program before the launch or to have a grand launch event.
It is equally important to continue the communication even after the launch.
Post-launch, open house sessions, follow-up communication about the program features and benefits, and sharing early success stories can be useful.
Moreover, this can help the organization to maintain the momentum built up through the pre-launch and post-launch phases.
Additionally, one of the critical but often overlooked ways to drive traction for employee recognition programs is the feedback process.
So, the organization should create proper mechanisms to gather regular feedback about the program from the employees such as satisfaction surveys and focus discussions.
Hence, organizations should utilize such feedback for modifying or enhancing the program.
Therefore, this needs to be a continuous process and might be one of the most important factors for the success of the program.
Organizations need to create traction for employee recognition programs among their workforce to derive the expected benefits. It is as important as designing and developing the program itself.
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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