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Employee awards each day keeps the doctor at bay

Employee awards each day keeps the doctor at bay

Employee Focus Group welcoming employee with his hand out to greet people

Employee awards each day keeps the doctor at bay

(or at least a bit of daily recognition does)

 

Do you have an employee awards programme? If not read on.

Employees are and will forever more, be your company’s most single biggest competitive advantage (they are and never will be an asset as some individuals or consultancies might refer to them as), as you don’t own them, you and they are free to leave when they choose, with contracted notice of course. So you best be treating them right, especially the ones you really want to keep.  When treated with consistent genuine appreciation and recognition for good work and living the company values, together with a supportive and positive leadership and corporate culture, they will soon evolve to become your biggest and most active employer brand promoters and advocates. We’re not suggesting everyone receives employee awards ever day but fostering and embedding a recognition and awarding culture is definitely what we are.

There are two main aspects which encourage and cement the importance of growing and ascertaining a recognition culture within any organisation.  Firstly, the employee’s overall wellbeing and secondly the level of trust culture the organisation has created and how it is lived and demonstrated every day through the company values, behaviours and actions of all employees and particularly the leadership.

Doing either of these aspects badly has untold impact on your employer brand, in particularly to attracting talent and key candidates as well as keeping new recruits. Doing it well, has measurable positive benefits to the bottom line.

Can wellbeing and a productive culture be linked?

Traditionally, until now, health and safety protocols have predominantly focused on protecting and ensuring that employees are physically safe in their working environments.

However, with rising awareness in general metal and emotional heath, coming from leaders in healthcare such as the NHS and Mind the mental health charity, there is a growing appreciation in recognising the value of an employee’s state of mind, physical and emotional wellbeing and the effect it can have on the overall company’s productivity. Association organisations such as the CIPD unveiled the exponential costs that decreasing mental health generates each year in the UK alone, placing it over £100 billion, with sickness absence, presentism and regrettable labour turnover costing over £27 billion.

Employee health and well-being tipsAccording to some international experts in employee engagement, CIPD’s 2016 report entitled ‘Growing the health and well-being agenda: from first steps to full potential’, reveals that nearly 40% of all incapacity benefit at work is due to depression, anxiety and stress.

By having a more motivated and sustainable work force, was proven to have a positive impact on the working environment, creating links between having a strong team ethos, great colleague relationships and a value based culture with a positive mental capacity.  In 2013, just three years before CIPD’s published report, Gallup discovered that engaged employees were actually, in better health than those who were actively disengaged or not engaged at all:

They [the employees] have lower incidences of chronic health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity, diagnosed depression, and heart attacks. They also eat healthier, exercise more frequently, and consume more fruits and vegetables than their, not engaged or actively disengaged, counterparts. Further, engaged employees are more likely to be involved in employer-sponsored wellness programs. (http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/164420/lower-health-costs-boosting-performance.aspx)

Brunetto et al further elaborates how work engagement is associated with higher levels of psychological wellbeing and Aon Hewitt’s 2012 ‘Trends in Global Employee Engagement’ research found 28% of employees experienced a high level of job related stress in high engagement companies compared to 39% of employees in low engagement companies.

By creating an organisational or company culture which encourages positive working relationships and environments not only reduces the expenditure resulting from absenteeism, and the additional resource, time and management that issue brings, but encourages a workforce that is sustainable, maintainable and expandable.  As a result, the company becomes attractive both to new recruits as well as becoming a more attractive career choice for current employees to remain and develop their roles, careers and grow within the company. Irresistible and attractive organisations are genuinely hard to resist.

Reward and recognition of employees not only boosts engagement but sustains a positive and productive state of mind both to the recipient and those who are providing the recognition in the first place.  To praise and generate constructive if not positive feedback on an ongoing basis, highlights the areas an employee is thriving, as well as showing where training and support may be needed, without being negative and detrimental to their state of mind which could also have a degenerative impact on their overall performance in their role. There are many ways to create an employee awards programme so don’t let fear of cost be the reason for not implementing one at your business.

 

But why the attractiveness?

Having a fully engaged workforce, who feel supported and encouraged to go beyond their job description shows new recruits and customers that a company cares and recognises the value of their staff.

A recognition culture, albeit cannot be a quick fix to a disengaged workforce, is about ascertaining what the company represents, their visions and ethos of the company and consistently integrating them into the working environment, generating a more positive, inclusive and interactive atmosphere and culture.  By encouraging staff (and leaders) to communicate openly and regularly, as well as supporting the wellbeing of their state of mind mentally and physically, gives company a lustrous status quo and having leaders who can demonstrate humility, even philanthropic and altruistic characteristics counter for a more engaged team and subsequently, increase overall productivity.

Employee Recognition gold star awardThe ongoing intrinsic motivation from giving recognition or employees rewards of some kind is changing the way we perceive employee motivation, what you “get” is being balanced by what you “give”. The emotional and professional satisfaction from giving, be it kind words, gestures or small rewards, is an extremely popular employee activity. It’s also a growing employer one too. (http://www.workstars.com/recognition-and-engagement-blog/2016/05/03/company-culture-social-recognition/)

A positive working culture which recognises employee’s performance levels, credits employees for ideas, completed projects or even recognises their overall value, results in tangible benefits which can contribute towards a company’s growth, the customers’ experience, generate positive engagement feedback scores and can lower absenteeism, regrettable staff attrition and improve retention rates.

Recognition platforms and appreciation led cultures are to encourage positive working behaviours and not about rewarding staff on a whim and just because.  Instead, it should be the backbone of credible employee engagement – creating a sustainable strategy and methodology which strengthens relationships between a company and their workforce, management with employees, employees with managers and all employees with each other and as a result their customers.

Instead of just creating an impression, or making a promise, define, implement and nurture a positive working lifestyle, with purpose and a healthy supportive culture that everyone wants to be a part of.

 

 

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Engage & Prosper is a UK based privately owned Employee Engagement Consultancy and Social Enterprise, on a mission to help organisations develop a highly productive and fulfilling workplace culture, with their people, through enhanced employee engagement strategies, fabulous and effective internal communications platforms and tailored reward and recognition programmes.

For more information on Engage & Prosper or to discover how we can help you achieve your organisational and people goals please call +44 (0) 330 223 0464 or find out more at www.engageandprosper.com