Employee Recognition
There are many ways to recognise and celebrate the achievements and successes of your staff from award ceremonies, organisation-wide presentations and annual bonuses. Other programs can be more casual in nature, but no less valid, providing extra leave days for periods of hard work, team lunches and congratulatory emails. Strong reward and recognition programs will build a strong team culture and a positive work environment.
Whether your organisation offers formal or informal recognition, it usually comes in two forms:
- Monetary
This includes bonuses, annualised salary increases and gifts. For example, an organisation might award annualised salary increases or bonuses at beginning of a new financial year. A team lunch or a gift might be provided to celebrate a big piece of work completed by an individual or team.
- Non-monetary
This form of recognition includes rewarding employees with non-tangible items such as verbal thanks, extra leave days or organisation wide congratulatory emails acknowledging the great work of individuals or teams.
The key with employee recognition is to ensure it's authentic and timely. Reward for genuine, excellent work when it happens will make employees and teams believe that their work is really valued. If employee awards are doled out all the time for average work, it probably won't resonate with employees or have the desired effect of making them feel positive.
Performance reviews
About 6 weeks after an employee has commenced employment (and then annually), the manager and employee should meet and discuss the employee's current responsibilities and identify the critical goals and key performance indicators (KPI's) for the next 12 months.
Managers and staff should meet to discuss performance at least once, ideally twice per year. These performance meetings enable employees to receive feedback - on contributions to date or suggestions for improvement. These meetings also provide the opportunity for employees to discuss issues that have impacted their ability to successfully achieve goals or deliver outcomes.
While there may be a formal performance management cycle, managers and employees should meet frequently throughout the year to keep the communication lines open and so that nothing in the formal performance review meeting will come as a complete surprise.
The performance review plan and KPI's shouldn't sit in the bottom drawer and only bought out at performance management time. Throughout the year both managers and employees should keep notes about issues and successes. This enables the employee to contribute, during the formal review process, by way of self-assessment - how well they think have gone over the past twelve months or identify issues that have created challenges for them throughout the year.
This process can also be helpful in identifying issues in the workplace that a manager may not be aware of or highlight the need for staff training in certain areas.
During the performance review, typical points to address should include:
- Quality of work and KPI's
- Dependability and punctuality
- Leadership, communication and team skills
- Progress made towards personal career goals
- Innovation and problem-solving skills
Importantly, set another time with the employee to establish new goals, career aspirations and learning and development opportunities for the next twelve months.
This lets your employees know that your organisation is invested in their personal career growth.
Click the button below for the Performance Review and Development Template