Employee recognition has long been an epicenter of effective employee management and retention. But keeping in mind the recent escalation in the competition for talent, and just like other organizations, insurance agencies are looking for ways to value their agents more than ever before.
In this matter, employee recognition and appreciation undeniably help your insurance agency to elevate your corporate culture. The primary outcomes of appreciation result in building healthy relationships with peers, assisting employees in connecting to purpose, and creating joyous moments.
Consequently, this all adds up to building a company culture that inspires employees and helps them thrive throughout their job.
Are you looking for effective ways to use recognition and appreciation for practices in your insurance agency and create a positive workplace culture? Read on to find out!
How Recognition and Appreciation Help in Elevating Organizational Culture?
We often hear that employee recognition and appreciation are crucial for building a thriving work environment. But why is it so? The answer is quite simple: when you show gratitude, you boost the 6 most important factors of a positive organizational culture.
Global research describes the six most critical factors of a company culture that affect an employee’s decision to join, engage and remain at an organization are:
Also, these are major components used to measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for company culture. Moreover, it also reported that when employees are appreciated and recognized for their contributions and efforts, it actually elevates all the six KPIs of company culture.
An employee survey conducted by O.C. Tanner included a question, “What is the essential thing that your manager or company is doing to encourage employees to produce great work?
The responses of the surveys clearly demonstrate that 37% of respondents feel that personal recognition would encourage them to produce outstanding results. The study’s overall results showed that affirmation, feedback, and reward are the most effective motivators for employees. Here you can see the complete results in the chart below:
By studying another employee engagement survey by Great Place to Work, we are able to understand how recognition practices impact workplace culture. Here are some crucial pointers analyzed from a 1.7 million employee survey gathered from 2018 to 2020 from various small, mid-sized, and large companies.
Comparing both the sides of those who do not consistently feel recognized at work and those who do feel recognized at work, here are the results:
- 2.6 times more likely to think promotions are fair.
- 2.2 times more likely to say their creativity and efforts are embraced.
- 2.0 times more likely, employees are willing to go above and beyond.
Moreover, here are some more interesting facts about the importance of employee engagement and recognition in the workplace, like insurance agencies:
- According to the Workplace Research Foundation, increasing employee engagement investments by 10% can increase your agency profits by $2400 per employee per year.
- Agencies with more robust engagement programs report an average of 2.69 sick days taken annually per employee, whereas those with weak engagement strategies report an average of 6.19 sick days per year. (Source: Workplace Survey – Gensler)
- According to Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 41% of customers are loyal as they enjoy good agent response and attitude.
What are the Benefits of Employee Recognition and Appreciation?
Besides making your agents feel valued, effective recognition programs can also help your business thrive. The agents who are valued and appreciated regularly usually have a better view of their organization which often leads to:
5 Essential Criteria for Employee Recognition and Appreciation Program
In order to run a successful employee recognition program in your Insurance Agency, you need to consider the following criteria.
1. Organizational Commitment
The higher department, including managers and directors, should show their commitment to exchanging appreciation and rewards. They can ensure consistent use of the selected employee engagement software by actively participating in recognizing the efforts of their team members and sharing points to make them feel more valued.
2. Alignment with Organizational Goals
An employee recognition program should purely focus on agency goals and values. Agents should understand core values and factors critical for an agency’s growth. For instance, if your employee recognition program isn’t aligned with the core mission and values, it will fall flat.
3. Appropriateness
The organizational rewards given to agents to recognize their target achievements should reflect their hard work. If your reward for agents is meaningful, then only there are chances for more new talent to be motivated and engaged in performing well. So, always choose a rewarding system where you can customize the reward shop according to your agency’s nature.
4. Well-timed
Your employee recognition program will be effective only when agents are rewarded in real-time. Implementing an instant recognition strategy in your insurance agency is relatively easy in this age with the help of the latest technology software like BRAVO.
It is best for agencies with specified phases for agent increments and incentives. These agencies can instantly distribute small rewards to their agents by sharing points and enabling them to redeem them anytime.
5. Regular Evaluation
Gathering feedback from your team leads and managers can significantly improve one’s performance and help align objectives. Moreover, some latest software like BRAVO enables agents to request feedback from peers and managers. Thus in this way, recognition and appreciation activities can remain relevant and meaningful to agency elements.
8 Best Employee Recognition Practices for Your Insurance Agency
The ultimate benefits and importance of employee recognition and appreciation must surely convince you to adapt an effective employee recognition program like BRAVO for your insurance company. Now, let’s look at top practices for launching and maintaining your employee appreciation program.
1. Evaluate Merits of Recognition and Appreciation
Just as you have introduced your team to a recognition program, you should also demonstrate the merits of recognition as well. These merits can be saving the company money, creating new innovations, hitting goals, referring new businesses or agents, filling out more forms, creating new insurance policies, etc.
2. Be More Explicit and Oriented
It will help everyone to understand the reason for recognizing an exact deserving agent. However, every agent is not motivated by the same things, so managers should try to comprehend the nature of their team members and then acknowledge them accordingly.
3. Never Make Hardline Policies
For instance, some agencies follow the “Agent of the Month” strategy based on month targets, which can be too vague and time-consuming to recognize someone’s efforts and accomplishments. Use an efficient recognition software like BRAVO that allows you to randomly and instantly react and reward someone.
4. Consider Peer-to-Peer Feedback and Recognition
Colleagues are in trenches with each other as they work together on the same desk the whole day. They will be assisting each other in multiple tasks, so they can better pinpoint their team members. Also, every individual in the organization should be able to request feedback from team members and managers.
5. Share Bonus Points Instead of Monetary Rewards
Technology has made it really easy for insurance and other corporate organizations to implement an interesting recognition program. You don’t need to have money in your pocket to reward your agents or colleagues. You can simply share bonus points from your BRAVO account to recognize and appreciate people who go above and beyond. And these points can be redeemed from a reward shop with plenty of options for everyone.
6. Promote Agency Values Through Rewards
The reward item employees win, should genuinely associate with the company and its positive behavior. So, choosing the reward items in the reward shop should be carefully selected. Every item should make their agents remember the positive nature of their workplace.
7. Spread Word of Recognition in the Workplace
Always build a rhythm around communicating with the top agents that provide value to your insurance team meetings. In this way, you can motivate new hires to set new targets and achieve just like other agents have done.
8. Celebrate Occasions Together
Bringing up everyone together for lunch or breakfast is just as important as having daily standup meetings. If you are not able to bring up all your agents to the same table, you can also add on lunch or dinner coupons from local restaurants nearby in the reward shop to delight them.
Does Your Team Deserve Some Employee Recognition?
Obviously! We all know that acknowledging every small effort makes the team feel good and motivated. But recognition efforts publicly and rewarding goes far beyond giving one-off compliments.
Adapting suitable recognition methods can make your team stronger and your agency a better place to work, as well as augment your bottom line staff. Building a positive workplace culture isn’t very complicated these days. You can recognize, manage and reward your employees with just a few clicks.
If you are focusing on raising salaries, rearranging your office plan, or even putting a beer tap in the break room, nothing can make up for toxic workplace culture.
Get Started with BRAVO – Customizable Employee Recognition Platform
Is your current employee recognition software just not cutting it? Or are you still relying on outdated annual reports and appraisals? Whatever is the case, you are seriously missing out on recognition software that can equip your business with factors of effective, impactful programs that makes your company a great place to work.
At BRAVO, our employee recognition and reward software offer a wide range of features, including:
- Customization: Our software is built uniquely to fit your requirements, from branded user experience to custom communication and notifications.
- Engagement Driver: Benefits include dynamic leaderboards, commenting with interesting stickers & GIFs, and celebrating various events like work anniversaries, birthdays, etc.
- Custom Reward Shop: Optimize your reward shop according to your budget and company nature. You can reward your employees with merchandise, coupons, e-gifts, swag kits, and lots more according to your choice.
To learn more about BRAVO and how it can help boost your insurance agency’s workplace culture through employee recognition and rewards, book a free demo with our product expert here: https://getbravo.io/book-a-demo/.
