Monday, November 12, 2007

10 Reasons to Recognize Employees

This Week with Sara Fitts suggests 10 reasons to recognize your employees. With Thanksgiving fast approaching, this is always a good time to think about how you thank, reward, and recognize those employees who work so hard for you and your business.

There are many reasons for employee recognition, and these are only 10 of them. Use this as a starting point and add to this list as it applies to your specific business. [Please let me know what you add - I'd love to know!]

Recognize and reward employees who:
  1. Learn something new. New skills are always worthy of praise and recognition.
  2. Mediate conflicts within their team. Conflict resolution means more time on task and less time away from the project at hand.
  3. Mentor new employees - even without being asked. Teamwork is taken to new levels immediately.
  4. Seek new solutions to old problems. Focusing on solutions instead of problems creates new energy.
  5. Help other employees. Pitching in when it counts helps the entire organization - and makes the point that "all for one and one for all" is still alive and well.
  6. Willingly accept change. Sometimes difficult changes need to be made and are not so easily accepted. When someone willingly embraces change, make a point of acknowledging it.
  7. Give extra customer service. Especially if extra time and extra effort are involved.
  8. Volunteer for work that no one wants to do. Whether it's staying late, covering phones, making a delivery, or cleaning up someone else's mess - the person who volunteers to take this on needs to be recognized.
  9. Maintain perfect attendance. This definitely needs to recognized.
  10. Go the extra mile - no matter what. When employees go above and beyond the standard and the expected - recognize their efforts.

The benefit of this kind of recognition and reward is two-fold: the recognized employee is acknowledged and the rest of the staff is motivated by the fact that the boss is paying attention and is appreciative of the efforts.

I've always believed that everyone will do more than is expected when management acknowledges and appreciates their efforts and their work. Reward and recognition will raise morale quicker than pay raises.

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