TeamBuilding uses a Slack channel called #you-are-awesome where team members can share peer to peer praise. At any time, any employee can post a shout out to any other coworker, and team members can echo the sentiment with comments and emojis. This channel spreads a daily dose of positivity throughout our organization and gives employees more visibility and recognition than if compliments were streamlined through management.
The most impactful recognition actions are those that pair gratification with a merit-based review. Only when we are praised for something that is genuinely credited and hard-earned success, we take pride in it. Being precise about how and in what way someone achieved a goal can go a long way and be much more than just an empty complement from a business leader. Also, making it public strengthens the message and earns a person a position of an expert in the group.
Invite your team to nominate their coworkers for a monthly social media shoutout on your business Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social pages. You’ll allow your team to recognize their coworkers and help give social followers a peek into your company culture. You can name the award based on the individual achievement - perhaps they’re an excellent teammate, problem solver, or go above and beyond for clients. If the recognized employee feels comfortable with it, post their photo along with the big thank you!
LinkedIn endorsements for skills is a modern peer-to-peer recognition strategy that can help employees feel appreciated. For instance, being acknowledged for capabilities like leadership and management, marketing and promotion, or finance makes working professionals feel happier and more fulfilled at work. As they earn extra credibility and visibility online, other professional connections can read about their expertise. When this happens, it’s easy for individuals to get discovered or relied on for project collaborations and partnerships. Providing LinkedIn endorsements produces a positive impact on engagement. It is a mutually beneficial way of appreciating each one’s skills, improving reputations, and building stronger connections in a digitally advancing workplace.
If you're a small business, after-work barbeques or an extended Friday lunch hour ordering in from a local takeaway joint can be inexpensive but important team-recognition events. Sharing a meal and a laugh. literally breaking bread with your work circle disrupts the high-pressure psychology of the workweek and recognizes your employees as human beings. Niggling work issues can also be brought up in this casual environment where employees may feel more comfortable, outside the office or warehouse to voice any concerns...or may even have a great idea for the organization.
It's all in the timing. Timing is vital for peer recognition; it's most impactful when it's done at the right moment. No one wants to get recognized two weeks after completing a challenging task, which can build up negative energy toward the workplace. Your employees are less motivated to work if they don't feel appreciated in a timely manner. It's crucial to recognize the employee immediately after an important achievement and encourage your employees to congratulate their peers. When workers see this type of behavior coming from the top, they are more likely to emulate it. When your employees appreciate each other for their hard work at the right time, it will boost their overall morale. When employees are celebrated immediately for their success, you will see more enthusiasm in all your workers, and their efficiency will improve on future projects.
Build a peer recognition team. Employees can share their appreciation one-on-one, but it’s also helpful to have a group that keeps track of the team’s accomplishments. This team can collaborate on ways to publicly recognize their peers as important professional and personal milestones pass. They are recognition warriors holding the company accountable for showing their appreciation for one another.
A point system is a great way to demonstrate that you value your employees. By permitting workers to choose incentives that are meaningful to them, you can create a points system, which will increase enthusiasm as points accumulate. Employees can then get the gift that they like using their points. The points are awarded by co-workers and this can have a really positive affect on morale. Knowing your peers appreciate your hard work can go a long way.
Allowing peers to submit recognition awards and tokens of appreciation can boost morale and increase employees to be more team spirited. Employers can institute an anonymous drop-box or create a digital options for submissions. Once a week HR could collect the entries and place the announcements on a digital board, newsletter, or weekly email distributed to staff. The key is to give employees the path to recognize their peers. It promotes teamwork, collaborations, and a more positive work culture.
One part of my employee engagement strategy is to always make a splash on birthdays. Whether it's one employee per month or 10, we always recognize birthdays and take the opportunity to let them know how much they are valued. We are a remote team, but we still make it a point to send virtual birthday cards that contain a gift card to a hand-chosen place they like. We then create a google doc for everyone to write a nice message in, and we package it all together in a custom digital card that our graphic designer creates as a day task.
One peer-to-peer recognition strategy that can help employees feel appreciated is voting on an employee of the (semi)-month. Now in our experience employee of the week is a little too often, while an employee of the month is a tad too infrequent, and thus we've arrived at the aforementioned compromise. It's important to make the process as organic and grassroots as possible. Thus the nominations should come from the bottom-up, and anonymous voting should occur a couple of days before the 15th and 30th of the month. When announcing the winner it's key to recognize the accomplishments and how they've gone beyond the call of duty so that the recognition doesn't just become a popularity contest. This approach has quickly become an all-time favorite at our company and we highly recommend this strategy to any organization out there.
There definitely isn't a one-size-fits-all peer recognition strategy that suits all employees and personality types. It's extremely important to be mindful of the fact that each individual colleague will have a preferred form of recognition, whether that be public or private. I highly recommend quizzing new hires during the onboarding process to determine their preference, before then using that information to inform future recognition. More reserved colleagues might benefit greatly from a thoughtful hand-written note outlining your appreciation for their work, whilst an outgoing colleague could potentially appreciate public praise in front of the rest of the office. Ensuring that your peer-to-peer recognition is personalized to be inclusive of all employees is vital to long term success and company culture.
We celebrate the new millstones of every employee as we all are one big family. Encouraging and empowering employees to celebrate each others’ everyday wins and major milestones is a great way to forge a sense of camaraderie. Whether a time achievement or a team target win, positive feedback from peers can be just as powerful as from the boss!
At WebEnertia, we know that recognition is important, but we also really believe in praising loudly and for all to hear. Receiving positive feedback and recognition for 'wins' and 'exceeding expectations' is an empowering element for all team members. It celebrates hard work and grit and encourages people to pursue the same work ethic and qualities. We use a public (company-wide) forum to recognize these 'shout-outs' for all to hear. People can view and comment, making it even more engaging for peers.
Employees are the most motivated not when they receive gift cards and such kind of material perks, but rather when they assume business leader roles prescribed by their peers. At LuckLuckGo, we've been creative, open-minded and experimental in our employee appreciation program research and development. Peer-to-peer recognition has been a great success at our company with an average 15% productivity and output improvement since rolling out. Our system works by gifting the employee with a gift package to celebrate their exemplary work and then an honorary stint leading the rest of the team. This cycle happens weekly ensuring that we have an employee incentive program that encourages peer recognition while at the same time rewarding employees and imparting valuable leadership skills.
Rather than giving out your own rewards and perks to high-performers, give each teammate award certificates or money to give to deserving coworkers. That way, deserving teammates will still earn financial benefits through their performance, but it will mean even more coming from their peers over their managers. You can keep the system as open or controlled as you like, stipulating that employees must gift their coworkers courses or items over cash and gift cards or leaving them free to give a reward of their own choosing. Either way, it promotes a culture of peer recognition and giving to each other.
SVP of Sales and Marketing at 1-800-PackRat
Answered 4 years ago
One very simple but effective peer-to-peer recognition strategy that can help employees feel appreciated is to get them consistent thank you cards or gift cards! Any time you feel that your peer in your workplace has been extremely helpful, nice, polite, etc. and deserves some sort of recognition, go out and get a thank you card or gift card for them. While this may seem like a simple and cheap way to give praise, it actually shows just how much you care about the person because you took the time and money to go get them this gift for simply being a great employee. You can also spice this method up by getting specific food, restaurant, store, or money cards for places they like to go to regularly or making your own thank you card from scratch!
One peer-to-peer recognition strategy that can really help develop a strong workplace culture is the implementation of a peer-to-peer recognition team. This puts the responsibility in the hands of your employees, and creates more employee engagement outside of workplace operations. A peer-to-peer recognition team can be tasked with choosing one employee to highlight per month, and to put together a small workplace gathering (or zoom gathering for remote teams). This not only ensures everyone in the office is included, but helps build employee relationships, which is crucial for productivity and positivity in the workplace.
Creating an opportunity for employees to cultivate their professional development will allow them to sharpen their skillsets and have more interactions with other professionals. This can help them build their network and learn more from other people. You can also foster a positive workplace relationship among the employees by implementing a mentorship program. This will allow your outperforming employees to build their leadership skills and enhance their coaching skills. The employees being mentored will likewise benefit in knowledge and experience in this collaborative learning effort.
Recognition in the workplace can cause employees to build an emotional connection to the business. An awesome office is one that prevents employee turnover by recognizing each win, big and small, and rewarding them accordingly. Maybe you host a mini-celebration or give small gifts to employees who have reached milestones or hit goals. Maybe your HR Department has developed a recognition program for those moments. However you decide to recognize your employees, it's how you do so that is your greatest employee engagement strategy.