An employee recognition ceremony can be a big, elaborate gala or a small company picnic. An employee recognition ceremony can even be a surprise team meeting where the team leader is recognized by the team and his or her supervisor. It’s not really the employee recognition ceremony that counts, it’s the fact that the employee is being recognized that matters the most.
When planning an employee recognition ceremony the first thing you should do is look at your budget. How much do you have to spend on this ceremony and how many people do you need to accommodate? Your budget will have the biggest impact on the venue and theme of your employee recognition ceremony.
When looking at your budget, you will need to know how many employees are being recognized. Are you planning an employee recognition ceremony for the CEO of the company to be recognized by all of his employees, or is the employee recognition ceremony for a group of employees to be recognized by the CEO?
What kind of gifts will you hand out at the employee recognition ceremony? Expensive gifts will reduce your venue budget. Do you think the employees being recognized will appreciate a gala event with smaller gifts or will they get more satisfaction from a company picnic with more expensive gifts? These decisions are probably going to be determined by the size and type of company you have.
Some of the things that can be recognized at an employee recognition ceremony are outstanding performance, excellent evaluation, high safety standards, meeting productivity goals, and much more. Sometimes an employee recognition ceremony will be held just for the purpose of improving the attitude of the employees when they seem to begin to go sour.
A fun attitude improving employee recognition ceremony is an employee roast. Find some funny gifts or recognition certificates that are meant to tease the employees for things like: the messiest desk or most likely to marry a co-worker or the employee who needs the most frequent evaluations. You get the idea. This kind of employee recognition ceremony will lift the spirits of employees in a rut and improve morale. Be sure to roast someone in upper management in order for the employees to have the most fun.
For the most part, an employee recognition ceremony is one of the best ways to hand out recognition awards and gifts to deserving employees. There are times when an employee recognition ceremony is inappropriate, too. You probably won’t want to host an employee recognition ceremony when handing out compensation awards. An employee’s compensation, even bonus amounts, are a very private matter and should not be discussed or displayed among their peers.
Other than that, the benefits of planning and hosting an employee recognition ceremony are improved morale, an invigorated team, higher creativity, better attendance, and better retention of good employees. Heck, even the bad employees will want to stay around longer in hopes of earning recognition at your next employee recognition ceremony. The ceremony might just be enough to turn your bad employees into good ones.
Patricia Stevens owns and operates employeerecognitionpoint.com Employee Recognition