Employee service recognition it’s not too late

Recognise employees for their length of service before time runs out

Before we were launched into the millennium century, it was commonplace for employees to provide long service to one single company.  Common as it were, these employees were often awarded with tokens of recognition for their service loyalty as an employee service recognition – usually a watch or a gold plated carriage clock – inscribed if you were lucky!

Nowadays, retaining employees for longer periods of time is threatened by competitive recruitment and retention strategies, which entice staff to change or remain in their roles, by offering lucrative incentives and reward recognition schemes.  The necessity to attract and retain staff is more competitive than ever and providing tokens of recognition every now and then, is now neither practical nor sustainable in maintaining strengthened and loyal employee relationships.  Instead ‘in the moment’ recognition efforts for appreciation, offer singular bouts of credibility which can decipher if an employee decides to leave or stay with any given company.

However, long service awards are still valued and highly credited if smaller recognition schemes run parallel and throughout the course of employment. Short term yet regular credibility awards remind staff of what is achievable, what is appreciated and valued by their employer and what contributes to the company culture. It is also key driver which enhances engagement and reinforces the overall buy-in ability of a credible and favourable employer.

After all, acknowledging the services provided by your staff on a regular basis, who are fundamentally, your brand ambassadors of the company, is key in achieving strong and valued impressions from external and internal audiences.

Recognition schemes, reward and award processes can also have a positive impact in reducing staff turnover and maintaining employee engagement.  Long service awards (or even just service anniversary awards, however long) that credit staff for their dedication, contribution and loyalty to the company reinforce the credibility of that business and how they value their staff.

Today, long service awards need to create an impact and must represent real appreciation of an employee’s length of stay.  Luxury items which are usually considered out of budget for that individual are ideal rewards for those who have served a period of time; these can represent what the company feels about the individual, how the company appreciates their years of dedicated service and symbolises their time spent at the company, instead of an instantly spent monetary reward.  Increasing the value of the reward can also entice the employee to stay longer – an instant incentive to increase longer bouts of servitude within the company.

Ideally, employee service recognition, award schemes and recognition processes should be promoted and socialised as part of your talent attraction and EVP (Employer Value Proposition) and discussed at interview stage, to highlight its importance toward shaping the company culture and the value the company places on its employees. As the recruitment process is expensive and often lengthy, having incentives to recognise those who stay for prolonged periods of time within that company, fosters the right trust and credibility to any potential employee.  In effect, gaining a guarantee that new recruits are signing up for the long haul instead of a using your company as a job stop.

It is worth remembering that all reward schemes and not just employee service recognition ones are only effective if they are realistically attainable and worth having. Likewise, with long service awards specifically,, incorporate them into the culture of your company, integrating them alongside regular reward and recognition schemes and always credit staff for good practice and service through reachable length of service milestones.  This will have a positive impact on employee engagement, productivity and will reduce staff turnover dramatically.

Time to shelve that clock or equivalent retirement service award and give your employees the recognition they have and continue to work hard for throughout their length of service with your company!

Simple, inspiring and effective service anniversary tips and tasters:

• Make it memorable and emotive

• Make it relevant and appropriate

• Make it sharing, caring and socialised

• Make it timely and in the moment

• Make it collaborative and creative

• Make it sincere and authentic

• Make in significant and inclusive

• Make it count

We’ve gathered together just a small collection of examples of organisations who integrate employee reward schemes successfully and ingeniously. Some are courtesy of SnackNation:

Two River Marketing

This agency revamped anniversary celebrations and gave gifts which appealed to their creative sides.  They give their employees personal caricatures when they’ve been at the company for a year. A personal yet appreciated token of servitude.

New Belgium Brewing Scheme

‘New Belgium Brewing’ started after the founder’s 1989 bike trip through Belgium. His journey through the beer- loving European villages inspired him so much, he decided to make sure New Belgium Brewing employees could share the experience with him.

When brewery employees make it to year five, they get a paid trip to Belgium.

Lloyds Banking Group

Whilst it would appear that LBG don’t regard ‘long service’ to be until year 20, according to their Long Service Award policy they seem to be quite generous with their gift values, awarding £10 for every year of work up to £400 for 40 years of continued service.

Staten Island University

The transport staff at the Staten Island University Hospital Radiology Lab had the tough and tiring job of wheeling patients around for testing. When they were falling short of their goal number of moves per hour, the recognition experts at Michael C. Fina came up with an employee service recognition and appreciation idea that got the hospital results: The Go the Extra Mile or GEM program.

When an employee witnessed another going the extra mile, they would nominate them for a GEM certificate. A simple yet highly effective motivational scheme for staff.

Here’s some alternative facts and suggestions you might find useful around ideas for employee service awards from the journalists at Employee Benefits and some new thinking about staff health and wellbeing recognition from inside Misys.

We’ve still to decide what service anniversary awards and gestures we think will be appropriate for Engage & Prosperers when celebrating their milestone time with the team. However here at E&P we know it will be memorable, fun and sincere, just like all of the employees themselves. we’d love to know what employee service recognition you do at your organisation so feel free to drop us a line with photos or images. We love seeing good work done well.

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 goals please call +44 (0) 330 223 0464 or find out more at www.engageandprosper.com