Most organizations understand the importance of employee recognition, but certain forms of recognition are more impactful than others when it comes to driving lasting change in the business. So why is a peer-to-peer reward and recognition program so powerful? Used intentionally and strategically, it can improve your culture, increase employee loyalty and build company-wide connections – all of which fuel productivity, growth and innovation!
Here’s how:
| 1. One act of recognition creates three times the goodness |
| 2. Being recognized builds company-wide confidence |
| 3. Your company learns to live and breathe your values |
| 4. It gives everyone a productivity boost |
| 5. Every employee becomes responsible for your culture |
| 6. Social recognition promotes transparency, connection and collaboration |
1. One act of recognition creates three times the goodness
When an employee is recognized, they are 3x more likely to recognize someone else, creating a ripple or domino effect of good being shared across your business. People who feel recognized and appreciated are more likely to recognize the good work of others. This is a fact of human nature (what social scientists call "positive reciprocity"). Recognition makes you feel good, both when you receive recognition and when you acknowledge someone else.
As more people get on board with making recognition a habit, the ripple effect spreads throughout the organization until it becomes ingrained in your work culture.
2. Being recognized builds company-wide confidence
Having progress and contribution publicly recognized and rewarded helps boost inner confidence as well as team-wide trust in the capabilities and competence of their peers. Public strategic recognition is especially effective in building trust and confidence across the organization because it connects the action being recognized back to the business.
Strategic recognition is when you show appreciation for a success that helped improve the employee or customer experience and can be tied to your company’s values, purpose or objectives. So when employees are using strategic recognition and this recognition is displayed for others to see, everyone can understand how the company's mission is being lived and feel confident that their peers are working towards the same goal.
3. Your company learns to live and breathe your values
Promoting company values through your peer-to-peer recognition program helps build understanding and awareness of what they look like in action, and the behavior associated with success.
ORBIS is a great example of an organization that uses its employee recognition program to communicate its company values to its 2,900+ employees. After a company-wide survey revealed that employees felt that they weren’t recognized enough for their efforts and the company values weren’t prominent enough across the organization, ORBIS looked for a new recognition strategy.
The organization partnered with Reward Gateway to launch its employee engagement platform, "The Loop," with a focus on peer-to-peer recognition through values-based eCards.
Sheri Treu, Director of Organizational Development at ORBIS Corporation says,
“We had a paper process before, so our reward and recognition programs were very manual and hard to track. Our people were demonstrating the LEAF behaviors, but there wasn’t a way to publicize it before so we needed to modernize our approach to employee recognition.
When employees send eCards, they can choose from specific values and behaviors they've seen someone else demonstrate, and are instantly reminded of what the organization's values are and how they're guiding great work at ORBIS. The social recognition wall on The Loop displays values-based eCards so other employees are reminded of them as they read through the recognition feed. Since the program was launched, employees have sent more than 5,447 eCards.
4. It gives everyone a productivity boost
77% of employees say they would work harder if they felt better recognized. The simple solution to this is to recognize more, but the type of recognition still matters as employees don't always notice recognition when it happens. Reward Gateway has found that 80% of senior leaders believe recognition happens regularly, but only 17% of employees feel they work in a recognition-rich environment.
In order for employees to feel the recognition, it needs to be meaningful and specific. Instead of a simple "Thank you," try saying "Thank you for helping me with ____, it really helped me to achieve ____ and I appreciate how you always ____." Employees will not only understand what they are being recognized for, but also the impact their work had on a project.
We know what gets recognized gets repeated, so keep recognizing progress as it happens and you’ll see it skyrocket as a result!
5. Every employee becomes responsible for your culture
Instead of relying on a top-down, manager-only approach, encouraging employees to recognize coworkers makes individuals accountable for sharing the wins and telling the stories that eventually become legend. While eCards are a great, simple way for colleagues to say "thank you," "congratulations," "well done" and much more, you can make your peer-to-peer recognition program culture-driven by creating eCards for each of your company values.
When employees send values-based recognition, it allows other employees to see company values in action and helps everyone to understand why the values are important and what it means to live them at the company.
6. Social recognition promotes transparency, connection and collaboration
One glance at your recognition program trends gives you visibility of key contributors, whether (or which) teams are collaborating and sharing success together, who’s getting left behind, and opportunities to strengthen culture. At Reward Gateway, senior leaders and employees alike frequently visit our "Wow Wall" – a social recognition feed that displays all eCards sent at RG – to see wins happening across the business. Through comments, reactions and likes, employees are able to engage with other employees' moments of recognition.
This not only amplifies the moment of recognition to drive a greater feeling of appreciation, but also helps boost connections across teams and departments and allows everyone to see the great work that is happening across the business.
Interested in learning more about how a peer-to-peer recognition program can support your business goals? Get in touch with us, and a member of our team will walk you through how you can tailor a recognition program to meet your company's needs.
