When a company gives awards, those awards stay with their employees for the rest of their careers. A hard-earned crystal sculpture or plaque becomes a landmark placed alongside diplomas and framed articles marking the achievements of a lifetime. The award you give an intern for successfully handling their first client might be as meaningful as the award you give a high-flyer who beats their first company record, or the award you give a retiring pro after years of loyal service.
Employee of the Month Award
Employee Recognition Award Plaque
Employee of the Year AwardThe key to making your awards into a meaningful tradition that your entire staff looks forward to every year is in how you build it. A fair, well-implemented system gets everyone excited, and can even inspire your ambitious team members to strive for certain award-worthy goals like a landmark number of sales or - in a truly complete award system - a landmark number of database entries.
Let's take a look at building a complete awards system for your employees
The 5 Types of Company Awards
- Employee Landmarks
- High-Flyer Achievements
- Team Performance
- Unique Contributions
- Employee's Choice
Which awards should you give to your employees? Company awards fall into roughly five categories: landmarks, achievements, teamwork, unique contributions, and employee's choice. These awards cover time spend with the company, the results of talent and hard work, and special recognition when success comes from synergy.
The final category, employee's choice, is also vital. Inviting employees to vote on a few smaller awards for team members they work with can make the entire system more personable - and give you a great test strip on the attitudes and inside jokes of your workforce.
Stay Meaningful: Even Distribution and Fair Assessment
Company awards can be deeply meaningful as long as you maintain the integrity and inclusiveness of the tradition. You want to make sure different people are winning awards, that each department has a similar chance of award-winning members, and that award judgment is incorruptible. If you achieve this, the awards you give will represent real achievement. They may eventually be listed on resumes or become a recognized standard of professional excellence.
Which awards should you give employees? Let's take a closer look at each of the five categories and how to build a company awards system that suits your internal structure and company culture.
1) Awarding Landmark Moments
Landmark awards are those that anyone can get with enough time. Traditionally, landmark awards happen at special years, but you can also count up landmark achievements. Both a number of years served and a number of sales made can celebrate an employee's time on the team to show that their dedication has been noticed and appreciated.
Employee Anniversary Awards
Every employee should receive some small token or recognition on the anniversary of their employment, or the month therein. A card, gift card, or even just a warm email is enough to say "Hey, we're glad you're still here."
But on landmark years, something special is in order. Staying five years in a job is more remarkable than it used to be. Staying eight or ten years is even more impressive. Longer than that, and you are the honored host of one of the last truly long-term employees.
Landmark Achievement Awards
You can also count up landmark achievements. A number of routes completed, sales made, accounts handled, complaints resolved - these are landmarks without a clock attached that you can celebrate when each employee reaches their number. Immortalize the tradition of sharing a drink or buying a card with employees who reach these landmarks with the company with an award. It's a warm, inclusive tradition to start or continue.
Retirement Awards
When someone takes their official retirement from your employ, tradition says to throw them a party. This is also your last chance to celebrate their number of years with the company. Retiring employees who have been with you a long time deserve a way to remember all the respect they built up as a co-worker and reliable pro in their field. An award for years of service or just for being cool during their last years of professional work can make a meaningful goodbye.
2) Awarding High Flyers
It's always a good idea to reward the people who work the hardest and achieve the most. Those who do great work for the company, who strive to beat their own best, or who come through when it really matters should all be recognized for their hard work. This can also show your high-flyers that co-workers can step up if and when they step back to avoid burnout.
A good high-flyer award system includes awards for every department, and with several different personality types and talents to achieve them. Get specific. Consult with your department heads and team leaders on the high-flyer achievements and behaviors they most want to reward and then build a fair assessment system for each. This way, every department has a chance for both high-flyers and expedient bursts of achievement to be awarded across the board.
High Score Awards
High score awards are the most flexible, and should be adapted to whatever can be scored highly on each team. While counting sales is a popular example, consider high-score awards for any task that employees do and you'd like them to do well, quickly, or with greater enthusiasm.
You can also create a self-high-score category and reward anyone who beats their own high score in a given month.
Above and Beyond Awards
Sometimes, an employee does something spectacular. They work all weekend to meet a deadline, or they go all-out to delight a client. Maybe they brought in their own supplies, or rallied the team, or introduced and trained everyone on a new technology. When someone goes above and beyond, honor their exemplary service with respect and recognition.
Safety Recognition Awards
Some members of the team are inherently dedicated to safety, and some take a single action that may have saved lives. When this happens, having an award ready is the best way to thank them and reinforce company-wide safety protocols. Safety recognition awards allow you to recognize the employee who is always tucking away power cables and offering to hold ladders, the one who reports the wobbly handrail on the back stair, and the one who catches a box before it falls on a coworker.
3) Awarding Performance as a Team
Leadership Awards
Leadership awards recognize people who have stepped up and performed a valuable leadership service to their teams. Great leadership award programs promote supporting skills like orchestration, workload management, and communication corroborated by reports of those who have worked with and under them.
Teamwork Awards
When a team pulls together to achieve something great, the entire team deserves an award. Teamwork awards can be given in fun sets where each member gets a unique title or matching sets that name each member who receives it.
Mentorship Awards
If someone has nurtured others through new roles or challenges, they may be recognized for a mentorship role. Some employees mentor dozens in their careers, some take just one or two under their wing and dedicate themselves to promoting their success. These traits are an honor to have on your team and are worthy of honors in return.
Graduation Awards
If you have students and technicians who may graduate while in your employ, this is always worth celebrating. You might be congratulating interns or celebrating completed certification programs. Graduation awards can make your company culture more uplifting and clearly supportive of professional development at every level.
4) Awarding Unique Contributions
Not every achievement is something you can predict. Unique contribution awards lead a category that allows you to routinely award people who move the company forward or come through in a crisis in a way that has yet to be categorized and likely cannot occur every year.
Innovation and Growth Awards
For people who introduce new tools, train their team on new techniques, and help the company evolve beyond the status quo, give an award for innovation and growth.
Driving Success Award
Employees who do something spectacular that drives forward the success of the entire company deserve an award, and perhaps a few stock shares. Those who win a large client or pull off an incredible project can be honored with an award that recognizes the true scope of their achievement.
5) Employee's Choice Awards
Last but never least, invite your employees to award each other with a few pre-designed or nominated and voted-on awards. Let your teams nominate their co-workers for special awards or vote on who has most earned certain office titles. Take suggestions for new or one-time awards every year - your teams will show you what has been overlooked by the top-down award perspective.
Employee's choice awards might range from the person who starts a new pot of coffee to the person who has helped the most co-workers out of a crisis. Some will become annual awards and some will be very special, just for one person who deserves unique recognition. With oversight, this can become a warm, fun tradition that keeps your awards system truly connected to the staff's values and experiences.
Crafting the Plaques and Award Gifts You Give
Once you have designed all your awards, you can use sizing and design standards to create a full array of plaques, certificates, and crystal sculptures that represent the great meaning you wish to instill in every award.
From your intern's very first awards of achievement and recognition to awards recognizing years of excellent performance, a meaningful awards system will create pride, motivation, ambition, and unforgettable memories.
