10 Fun Ways to Recognize and Appreciate Your Employees
The Power of Creating a High-Recognition Culture
As I write in my pine-scented books Small Moments, Big Outcomes and The Humor Advantage, high-performing teams and workplace cultures are fueled by employee appreciation and recognition, and workplaces that have employee recognition and appreciation baked into them lead to better outcomes when it comes to:
- Employee feeling happier and more engaged
- Productivity at work
- Greater creativity and innovation
- Improved collaboration
- Less burnout and greater resiliency
On this last note, research by the O.C. Tanner Institute found that a reduction in giving and receiving recognition in the workplace leads to increased odds of burnout by 45% and 48%, respectively. Moreover, when there is no consistent recognition strategy in place, the odds of burnout increases by 29%.
So clearly, improving your recognition and employee appreciation efforts can have a huge impact on your workplace culture. They not only help build a better workplace culture, they reflect a healthier, happier, more humane, and more collaborative workplace culture.
(To make your employee recognition more meaningful, check out these questions: 6 Questions to Ask to make Your Recognition as Meaningful as Possible
10 Offbeat, Fun Ways to Recognize and Reward Your Employees
As I list in The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses are Laughing All the Way to the Bank, here are 10 fun, creative ways to recognize and appreciate employees:
1.To help employees celebrate their birthdays, create a policy where they are allowed to leave work two hours early on their birthday and/or arrive two hours late the day after their birthday (when in fact, it may be even more appreciated).
2. Hold a Limo Lottery, where the winning draw gets dropped off to work and picked up again by a limo.
3. Wilson Learning Corporation gives new employees a Mickey Mouse watch at the three month mark to remind them to keep having fun at work; after 10 years they get a gold Mickey Mouse watch.
4. Zappos has a program to recognize their workplace heroes. Each employee is given a $50.00 monthly allowance to award a colleague as a bonus as part of its monthly Hero Award program. The executive team then picks an overall hero from all the candidates. The winning workplace hero is announced with a mini-parade while the song “I Need a Hero” plays on the office sound system. The hero of the month gets a covered parking space for a month, a $150 Zappos gift card and, as befitting any true hero, a cape.
5. Rogers Insurance in Calgary, Alberta rewards employees through their “Dream Program” which allows all employees to register their dream wishes. Then, each year, four employees (one selected anonymously by a staff vote, one anonymously by management, and two by random draws) receive $10,000 towards achieving their dream. The company also adds $100 a year into each employee’s “Dream Account,” which they can withdraw money from at any time to put towards their dreams, and gives an additional 1,000 dream dollars to one randomly-selected employee.
6. Cable & Wireless Optus in Sydney, Australia held a lottery to name floors in their building after employees. The winning employee gets the floor officially named for them, complete with a plaque and photo on the floor wall.
7. Hold a Ferris Bueller’s Day off contest, wherein employees submit their ideas for what they’d do for the day if they could play hooky. The winner (either through a draw or a vote for the most creative) gets the chance to live their dream hooky day.
8. A Wells Fargo office in California has a list of 101 awards and prizes, including some rather off beat ones such as: hot air ballooning, getting your house cleaned, music lessons for your child and a complete personal makeover.
9. Have a “celebratory for the day” contest where the winner gets the full celeb treatment, complete with limo, paparazzi and glamour photos shots.
10. Make a donation to the employee’s charity of choice to celebrate their birthday.
For more ideas, hop over to 18 Fun and Funny Employee Recognition Awards.
Questions? Comments? What ideas do you have for creative and fun ways to recognize your employees? Please let us know below!
Known as “The Workplace Energizer!” Michael Kerr is a Canadian Hall of Fame keynote speaker on workplace culture, workplace culture leadership, and humor in the workplace. Michael Kerr is the author of nine books, including Small Moments, Big Outcomes: How Leaders Create Cultures That Fuel Extraordinary Results. Michael is known as one of the most entertaining, humorous, and insightful keynote speakers on workplace culture and leadership in Canada.
“That was the best presentation I’ve seen in my 40 years in business.” Rodney meadows, Director, East Alabama Home Medical
