Employee recognition works because it consistently increases productivity up to 12%, makes employees happier and more engaged, reduces turnover by as much as 60%.
In years past, employers took a relatively simplistic view of employee retention. Pay them more and they’ll stay. That works in some instances, but study after study has shown that the needs of today’s workforce are very different than the needs of generations that came before. Money is only an effective incentive to a point. Beyond that, today’s employees are looking for more. That “more” invariably takes two forms: awards and autonomy.
When you think about it, that makes a certain amount of intuitive sense. After all, one of the reasons you probably started your own business is the fact that you, yourself, wanted greater autonomy. The freedom and flexibility to structure your day the way you wanted, and recognition from friends, family and peers for successfully growing a thriving business. Your employees aren’t so different.
Moving beyond the simple question of why recognition is important and why it works, there’s the question of how well it actually works. Here, there’s no need to guess because the data is clear. Employee recognition works because:
- It consistently increases productivity up to 12%.
- It makes employees happier and more engaged. In addition to being more productive, engaged employees are just a joy to be around because they love what they do and they are committed to the mission of your company.
- Happier employees aren’t just happier at work, they’re happier at home too, which means your workforce will be less stressed, resulting in an average of 15% fewer sick days used, to say nothing of their more harmonious home life.
- It reduces turnover by as much as 60%. That’s huge, because the national average cost of a new hire is more than four thousand dollars. Not having to spend that money is a big win for you and everybody at your firm.
The only other question then, is this: If you don’t yet have an employee recognition program up and running at your company, why not? What are you waiting for? The benefits are tremendous, and the costs are nominal.
If you’re interested in setting up a program for your company, but you’re not sure where to begin, an excellent approach, and one often by business owners around the country is to form an employee-based committee and let them steer the process of setting it up.
This accomplishes two important goals: First, it gets the new program off the ground and keeps it from becoming a time sink. Second, it guarantees that your employees get the program they want and need, which means that it’s all but assured to be more effective than it would have been without their input.
Are you ready to take your company to the next level? If so, then establishing an employee recognition program is a critical first step in that direction.
When it’s up and running, and you’re ready to start buying employee gifts and awards to hand out to worthy employees, we can help with that. Just spend some time browsing our extensive and constantly growing collection of gifts and awards and you’re sure to find exactly what you’re looking for. Best of luck and here’s to your success!