All you need to know about corporate award programs

A corporate award program is a great way to encourage a culture of self-improvement.

October 3, 2023

A corporate award program is a great way to encourage a culture of self-improvement. Making sure your employees feel appreciated is an important part of leadership. Implementing a program dedicated to recognizing their efforts will add the value of tradition. With more value, your awards will bring your company better results.

Happier employees will perform better, motivation is the key to productivity. Your team will have an easier time achieving performance goals if they are focused. It’s simple if they like their job they will work harder. Sure, there are many factors why a person likes or dislikes their job. However, feeling respect from their colleagues and superiors certainly helps a lot. A corporate award program will encourage that feeling.

Another great perk of showing how much you appreciate your employees is improving retention. One of the main reasons people voluntarily leave their jobs is not feeling appreciated. If an employee thinks what their doing is not important, they won’t just do a worse job, they will have a very important reason to look for another position. A corporate award program will work as a constant reminder of how important their work is.

Why do corporate award programs fail?

Now that we’ve covered the importance of corporate award programs. It’s important to point out that they need to be organized properly. Your corporate award might not give you the results you’re looking for. Even worse, it might affect your work environment in a negative way. Here are some things you want to avoid.

One-sided awards

Corporate recognition usually goes from top to bottom. This might seem like common sense, the boss should be the one awarding the workers, right? Well, there is a very real chance of this backfiring, especially when using subjective criteria. If your employees don’t agree with the decision, it might create a bridge between them and their superior, not to mention the award recipient. Asking your team for their input will eliminate those risks. It will also increase the social value of the award.

Too focused on the company

Making the company look good is important, but in this case, your employees are more important. Making the awards about the company will hinder their value, the whole point is to recognize your employees, make it about them.

Recognition as an organizational function

Don’t let your corporate awards program become another company process. They won’t be effective if receiving them feels like work. Try to host your award ceremonies outside the office. It might be a formal occasion, that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.

How to implement a corporate awards program

With the pitfalls taken care of, let’s review the steps to start your corporate award program.

Set the goals

Your awards program should have clear intentions. Encouraging company values, customer services, general performance, or any other goal you can think of.

Define who can get the award

Are all your employees eligible? You can restrict participants based on seniority, maybe not include interns, don’t award the same employee twice, or any other qualifications you can think of, you want to establish those before announcing the award.

Winning criteria

You need to define how the winner will be chosen. This should be in line with the goals we set earlier. It’s crucial that the criteria are crystal clear, you don’t want misunderstandings on this point.

Choose the right award

The memento you give to the winners is a critical part of any successful corporate award program. It needs to be impressive, modern, and reflect the theme of the award and your company culture. Take our virtual tour, you can get the full experience of our gallery without leaving the comfort of your office.

After that, you’re ready to announce your award. Everything should run smoothly, now that you know what and what not to do. Start showing your team how important they are for the company.

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