Team recognition, an impactful one, has quickly become one of the needs of any organization since, without one, not only the performance of employees individually and as a team is affected, but it also leads to other unwanted consequences.
Not only does effective employee recognition help avoid unpleasant results it also leads to better outcomes such as employee retention. Apart from retaining your talented employees, it also ensures that your employees keep working with higher morale so that their engagement level and, subsequently, their performance improves.
Ways managers can make team recognition impactful
Learning the preferred way of your team
One of the ways to make the team recognition more impactful is to perform the employee recognition as desired and liked by the employees.
It is mostly seen that companies appreciate their employees in a way that is convenient for them and not the way that is more welcomed by the employees.
One of the reasons why, at times, recognizing the workforce fails to make an impact is that it is mostly based on the ‘ease for the company’ policy. Sometimes managers neglect the fact that their acknowledgment is to make and keep the teams working harder and that, after all, the efforts being made are for employee satisfaction and the subsequently improved productivity. Thus, without the employees being happier, your appreciation is less likely to bring about the desired results.
Being specific in your recognition
A reason for performing team recognition is to make every member know that their respective managers and the company values their hard work and performance. However, a very common mistake that is often made in this regard is that the team often remains unaware of the work that made them earn recognition.
Since employees are recognized for the performance that is desired by the company, acknowledging it helps employees in repeating it in the future. So, with worthwhile behavior and results time and again, the company benefits hugely. Therefore, a recognition that is not precise or the one that provides no help for employees in understanding why they are being appreciated, the chances of the good work being repeated are less likely.
When a manager or a leader fails to convey what led their team to receive appreciation, for the team members to stay on an ideal course of action becomes difficult, which affects their team performance in particular and overall performance in general. It also leads to other undesired effects such as reduced employee retention, increased employee turnover, etc.
Lastly, clearly defined praise helps keep the essence of recognition, which is to keep employees working hard for the company.
Implementing what the team appreciates
As discussed earlier, your team recognition is going to make its best impact when the team members are appreciated the way that they like. In addition to this, if the team members are allowed and prompted to share what they think, it could be the best approach in regard to their appreciation. Also, it will tend to make the team recognition more constructive and valuable.
Managers should be listening to the ideas that each team member has in their mind and also what their team as a whole has their say in this regard. Doing so helps achieve desirable outcomes through employee appreciation. Besides, it is a form of appreciation in itself.
Encouraging employees to share their thoughts with respect to employee appreciation goes on to show that employees are being valued and appreciated for being a part of the company and for what they do for it. While implementing the very suggestions is a later concern, only listening to the members of the team will build the foundation of an impactful team recognition.
Arranging recognition lunches
A company-sponsored lunch helps make recognition, but the one that is arranged with the team’s respective manager or leader can prove extremely helpful with respect to the team recognition.
A recognition lunch with a manager goes beyond employee appreciation. Besides helping in acknowledging the team members for achieving a goal, it also helps both the manager and their team to know each other better at a personalized level. Since such an event is rather informal, it leads to a more casual and natural interaction, which helps develop a stronger bond between the team and its manager.
Bravo, in one of its employee rewards, offers recognition lunches to hardworking employees. The employees are only required to earn a specific number of points, precisely the Bravo points, for a lunch/dinner with their mentor.
Offering mentorship
One of the best approaches to performing an impactful team recognition is to trust the leadership capabilities of the employees. With the employees entrusted with leading the new recruits, it shows that the company believes in their competency and skills.
We understand that a company can assign its dedicated employees to leadership roles as a recognition for their hard work. Similarly, managers can also assign the team members the role of mentoring the newer employees as part of their team recognition.
There remains a difference between mentorship and leadership, which is essential to be cleared.
The simplest difference between a leader and a mentor is that the former, who’s an experienced employee of the company, leads a group of the employees, making decisions and giving them directions for achieving a specific or general company goal, while the latter only guides, shares, and enlightens other employees, more specifically the newer ones, with its knowledge, skills, and experience.
In conclusion, managers can assign the team or the team members only the mentorship role in acknowledgment of their worthy performance. However, leadership is what the managers do themselves, and it can’t be given to someone less experienced.
Read: How Employee Teamwork Is Most Important For A Workplace?
Writing the thank you notes
Now, this is one of the simplest yet effective ways that enable managers to perform more valuable and fruitful team recognition.
A note that is written by a manager involves a touch of personalization. More importantly, it includes a sense of sincerity, which makes employees perceive the recognition as more genuine. Thus, it leads to a more powerful and productive employee appreciation.
As opposed to the handwritten notes, the fancier and market-bought thank you notes are not as impactful. How would they be when there is no effort involved in such a recognition except for the money spent on buying it, of course.
Writing the thankyou notes involves no expense for the company. As for the managers, it costs them no significant time. But the results that it brings are very much ideal.
Persistent team recognition
Whatever method you choose for recognizing your team, appreciation should be frequent. Whether you opt for the monetary-based recognition or non-monetary, or a mix of the two, the team members should be reminded constantly that their work holds value for the company and is appreciated wholeheartedly.
Again, whatever the method for team recognition a manager chooses, appreciating the employees should be persistent. It helps keep employees engaged and connected with their respective jobs and can also help them develop passion for their roles.
Lastly, being regular in appreciating the employees (team members in this instance ) can be very successful in keeping employees motivated, which greatly helps in keeping them on track as desired by the company.
Using Employee rewards and recognition platform
One of the best ways, if not the best way, to achieve better and more influential team recognition is using a tool for this purpose, which is an employee recognition platform typically. Such a platform serves the purpose of recognizing and rewarding employees and can be very helpful in appreciating the employees as a team or individuals.
A rewards/ appreciation platform comes with built-in functionality that makes it possible for your employee recognition to pay off better eventually.
One of the platforms that you can use for acknowledging your employees is Bravo. A multifeatured employee appreciation platform, Bravo, is suitable to recognize all employees. However, using its customized features, managers can also best recognize their teams comprising the newer generation of employees.
It is worth a mention that Bravo not only provides help in regard to crediting the teams and their members for their good work, but it also helps in improving an organization altogether. It also comes with features such as Voice, Peer Feedback, and Focus, which leads to developing a workforce that is connected, empowered, and result-oriented.
What’s the bottom line?
For managers to make team recognition, there are plenty of methods. But, for such a recognition that appears heartfelt and that makes an impact on the one being appreciated, it requires a smarter way of applause.
If managers want to perform team recognition that hits the right spots and proves to be result-driven, they need to ensure that:
- They are learning and implementing the employee-preferred way of appreciation
- They are performing a more personalized team recognition
- They are arranging recognition lunches and offering mentorship to the deserving team members
- They are being precise in their praise
- They are regularly crediting employees
- They are making use of a relevant tool/ platform
