What makes a recognition portal so valuable to employee recognition planners? The list is long and hits on a wide range of benefits; from cost efficiency for HR managers with tight budgets to enhanced motivational impact for employees along with better compliance and control tools for financial sponsors who need to manage the investment closely.
But for me the biggest benefit is in the way the portal turns what can be a complicated maze into a simple and straightforward process.
For starters a properly designed portal is supported by a data-driven decision engine which determines who can earn what and under what circumstances. And it calculates decisions with complete accuracy, often across a variety of rule structures; some of them program specific, others dictated by corporate policy. So what’s the net effect? Employees see personalized content (in the form of offers, results and updates) delivered to their pages throughout the program, while recognition managers can be assured that the right employee audiences are getting the right messages at the right times. Try managing that on your own.
Portals even make complicated analysis easier. At any time someone with a vested interest in the program (or the outcomes it’s designed to improve) will want to know what’s happening and will want access to the data that gets to the heart of that question. They will demand information that is timely, detailed and actionable.
But what makes data thorough for some occasions makes it mere clutter for others. Portal-driven dashboards can make the presentation (and comparison) of information more streamlined and more to the point. Authorized users can start at a high level and rapidly zoom down to get a very granular view. That access gives users the power to examine specific actions and outcomes with ease.
Doing more with less has become a universal corporate mandate. And sometimes that means doing more with fewer complications. That’s exactly what a properly designed portal allows you to do.
Companies have a lot riding on employee engagement. It can be a catalyst that elevates just about every business measure.
But in a business environment that encourages caution, many business leaders struggle to determine the best path forward. They grapple with both the soundness of their strategy and the construct of their programs; and they debate the sequence each should follow.
While a phased-in implementation may be seen by some as easier to roll out and manage, the reality is it will be missing critical components at various stages of your employees’ lifecycle. And those limitations will constrict your organization’s ability to encourage certain segments of your worker population toward better outcomes.
This Thursday, April 4th, at 2:00PM EST, I will make the case for what I am calling the “Total Recognition Solution” —a more balanced and complete approach that’s offers a comprehensive answer to enterprise-wide recognition.
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the most productive workers belonged to close-knit teams and that they spoke and interacted frequently with each other. It used a study of office housed workers to come to that conclusion.
But what about virtual workers—a segment that’s growing larger by the day? Employees who are often isolated and alone while they work? What about their need to develop relationships with coworkers; to develop trust, commonality and context with their colleagues?
As their numbers expand, HR leaders everywhere should be looking at ways to develop these same “close knit connections” that include them. In other words, if you want all of your workers—including virtual ones—to work together you need to find ways to get them to come together.
Peer-to-peer recognition components are always a good way to break down the emotional barriers to trust that permeate some work settings. Peer -to -peer closes the appreciation gap, speeds up the cadence of recognition and links praise to the voice of co-workers. Theses acknowledgements help to create the connection that today’s cultures need.
But virtual workers need more, and social networking type tools (built behind the firewall and featured within recognition platforms) can certainly play a big role. Virtual workers rely on technological interactions more so than personal ones and as a result exchanges are often void of social context. Social recognition helps to build and sustain connections that have common points of interest. It helps to close the psychical and psychological divide.
Social networking type tools are an integral part of the recognition platforms development by Madison. They help virtual employees stay involved with the work lives of coworkers against the backdrop of other shared experiences. They help connect all employees.
Today is Employee Appreciation Day! It’s a once a year opportunity to recognize employees for what they do— to point out their contributions to the organization and to acknowledge them for their dedication & commitment. It’s the day to recognize them for a job well done!
Good idea. On one level anyway. So what’s the problem?
Employees who feel appreciated for what they do are more productive, more innovative and more customer-focused than those who don’t. Companies should say “thank you” on a regular basis. That’s really what drives employee loyalty and dedication.
Yes, employee recognition is good for business, which is exactly the point I want to make. If it helps companies gain a competitive advantage why aren’t they doing it every day?
The Gallup Organization states that the most productive and engaged employees tend to be recognized about once a week. Companies should make a commitment to acknowledging employees more, and they can start by building a system that supports recognition activity through a variety of formats; everything from tangible awards (like merchandise, gift cards, debit cards and group & individual travel) to cost-free gestures like electronic emails and e-messages. Social media type tools that help employees acknowledge the efforts of co-workers across virtual work teams should also be part of the mix.
So go ahead and show your employee’s the appreciation they crave! But don’t stop there…to keep your employees happy, loyal and engaged, you need to show your appreciation more often. A properly designed recognition program can help you do just that!
Microtargeting. It’s more than a buzzword. It a proven method that direct marketing professionals use to frame conversation within clusters of potential customers.
Marketers use this technique to enhance the impact of their efforts. They lower the net cost of each message (since it’s delivered with more precision) and increase the return on the effort (since it has more impact when it’s received).
Madison has been helping businesses microtarget their messages for years. Except we don’t do it on the consumer side, we do it with employees.
I have always believed that planners of employee recognition programs should think and act like their marketing counterparts; that they should take a direct marketing approach to crafting and delivering program announcements and offerings.
Employee audiences within individual business units and geographic locations have varying growth opportunities, market forces and other competitive threats to deal with. They need motivational messages and objectives tailored to the realities of what they do and where they do it. Layer on the individual variables within any work group (like age related attitudes and various degrees of past success) and you see how even an initially customized message requires additional nuance to ring true and pique the interest of “the segment within the segment”.
That’s where a recognition portal (or more specifically the data-driven rules engine within) comes into play. Using these tools, recognition planners can dispense messages electronically increasing “relevant touches” while easing administration. What’s more, communications can be sequenced to other workflow systems so messages can be generated when key milestones are achieved.
Microtargeting. It’s an effective approach for employees too – once you have the right system in place.
