Staff appreciation ideas during COVID hold immense importance for the businesses and organizations that value their hardworking employees.
And there are two reasons for it: to perform the usual employee recognition that is part of a long-term strategy and to keep the employees retained and performing well in the uncertain Covid-19 situation.
While the pandemic’s situation seems to have improved, however, we can’t take it for granted since every now and then, a variant of the covid-19 develops and spreads.
That being the reason, the usual workplace practices that include necessarily working from the office, no social distancing, etc., can still not be implemented.
Relevantly, also, the widespread use of remote work or semi-permanent work from home is becoming more common.
For instance, both Hewlett-Packard and Twitter have allowed semi-permanent work and remote work, respectively.
Moreover, while recognizing and rewarding employees is inevitable, companies are finding it hard to come up with staff appreciation ideas during COVID so as to keep employees motivated while observing the covid-restrictions.
We bring you the staff appreciation ideas during covid to help you effectively recognize employees regardless if they are working completely or partially from home or whether they are coming to the office while observing strict covid-19 protocols.
Staff Appreciation Ideas during COVID to keep your employees performing well
1. Provide Home Office Equipment
Giving remote workers the right office equipment is one of the crucial staff appreciation ideas during COVID. Not only that it helps you acknowledge your employees’ hard work, but it also makes their work-from-home easier and, subsequently, better.
What’s more, working from home leads the remote workers to develop an increased risk of back and neck pain due to poor posture, which all undermine the employee’s health over time.
To battle these health difficulties, your organization can provide a catalog of ergonomic office equipment that mitigates the stressful issues your staff may face.
Lastly and importantly, it not only increases employee satisfaction but also reduces future health care costs for your organization.
2. Give a long weekend
A pleasant surprise at the end of the week is always welcoming.
Consider enabling the Fridays off for your employees working from home so to break up the boring cycle of remote work.
To thank them for their hard work, offer them extra time to be with family, let off steam, and de-stress before the upcoming week of work.
The same can also be done for the office staff as an act of appreciation during these hard times of the pandemic.
3. Make Food Delivery and Takeout More Affordable by Offering Discounts
Making food delivery and takeout more affordable for the employees by offering discounts is an ingenious way of appreciating your staff during Covid.
Besides motivating your employees, it will also help the local eateries to survive in times when businesses are facing unprecedented restrictions.
4. Frequently Use Employee Recognition Platforms
Sending positive messages daily as a part of your online recognition programs can help motivate employees.
However, to recognize your employees better, you can also use an employee recognition platform, such as BRAVO! It will help you recognize people’s efforts and excellent behaviors efficiently.
Furthermore, BRAVO! is a comprehensive platform that, besides helping in employee recognition and rewards, also helps improve the engagement levels of employees. So, using it brings manifold benefits for you.
Read More: 6 Reasons Why We All Are Addicted To Employee Rewards
5. Organize Virtual Award Events
Work from home may make it difficult to give out prizes such as “Employee of the Month” because communication between organizations is nearly nonexistent.
The fact that employee of the Month (and awards like it) can still be recognized with a remote workforce may surprise you.
All you need is a platform for rewarding and recognizing your employees’ efforts.
Even though more and more employees are working from home, award ceremonies can still be organized, again, using a relevant platform. BRAVO! can help you greatly in this regard as it comes with a built-functionality to award employees virtually with rewards specific to their performance.
6. Include Staff in the Decision-Making
When it comes to staff appreciation ideas during COVID, including them in the decision-making process is a terrific idea to implement.
Consider their opinions, for example, while making decisions such as implementing new technologies or launching a specific project.
As a result, they will feel more like a part of your company and less like a hired hand.
7. Help employees in professional development
It’s not uncommon for employees who work remotely to feel lost when it comes to their professional development.
Moreover, there are fewer social benefits to working from home every day than working in an office.
However, some employees are questioning what the next step is in their careers as in-person interactions with management decrease with new remote work schedules.
Encouraging your staff to take online learning and development courses is one of the excellent staff appreciation ideas during COVID.
Moreover, such online courses can also help to address issues such as decreasing employee interaction due to remote working conditions.
8. Workplace Snacks
From large organizations to small and medium-sized companies, employers with their ‘snack time’ strategy have multiple benefits: It increases employee performance by providing a constructive break, which leads them to earn appreciation, eventually.
Along with that, snack breaks can also be leveraged to present a company’s culture as ‘ideal’ to attract and convince talented individuals to work for it.
But what if the employees are working from home? Well, you can surprise them with a snack box in that case and see their motivation reach new heights.
9. Handwrite a Short Note of Gratitude
We have become more reliant on technology than ever, and Covid-19 just added to it. And it is also true for company-to-employee communications, which now mostly happen via technology.
That being the case, a simple thank you over a message loses its charm. However, a simple, old-fashioned, handwritten thank you note is guaranteed to do the job!
10. Provide recognition with a permanent value
An employee’s ultimate reward may be a job promotion.
Recognition during projects and day-to-day work, however, may not make employees strive for more. They will expect something more that is permanent in the future.
The converse of this is that if recognition with a short-live value is not helping you have the desired engagement levels, then you may need to provide your employees with rewards that are permanent in their value, such as salary raise, promotion, better designation, and similar.
Final Thoughts
These staff appreciation ideas during COVID are surely going to motivate your employees.
Start your employee appreciation process by giving a few of these ideas a try.
Nevertheless, once you make a decision about implementing an idea, make sure that you incorporate awards and recognition using related software, such as BRAVO!
It is for this reason that such a tool will help you in better recognition. Along with that, you will have the ability to virtually reward your employees for their notable work.
Make yourself better familiar with BRAVO by signing up for a free demo.
