Professional workshops bridge the gap between retreats, training, and conference. They give professionals a chance to focus on specific skills and personal growth to further their careers outside of the workplace setting. Many people looking to unlock their potential or overcome a plateau seek out professional workshops to achieve their goals. Let's create a meaningful workshop experience with annual awards.
To fulfill this need, workshops aim to teach new professional skills and instill in their participants the confidence and self-development opportunities that go above and beyond textbook learning. Handing out certificates is an essential part of the process at the end. This is not just a piece of credentialing paper to hang on the wall but also to instill a real sense of accomplishment for those who gave their all during the program. One of the best ways to make your workshop more impactful and meaningful for your clients is through select awards. In addition to giving each graduate the same certificate, annual awards allow you to provide personalized recognition of progress, effort, potential, and accomplishments during the workshop program.
Give Out Several Unique Awards
Awards are more meaningful when they don't seem routine. Awards should recognize unique accomplishments and moments your workshop clients can feel genuinely proud of. So build your award structure based on rewarding those memorable moments. Consider the achievements you are trying to create with your workshop and shape your award structure off of this.
Here are a few compelling examples that should spark your inspiration based on the themes and goals of your workshop:
- Motivated Mentor: Someone who took a shy/inexperienced/first-timer colleague under their wing
- Natural Leader: Someone who routinely takes the lead on group activities, and everyone enjoys their leadership
- Problem Solver: Someone who dealt with an unexpected setback in a productive way
Network Builder: Someone who's been encouraging everyone to swap contact info and stay in touch.
Accept Nominations
Accepting nominations is one of the best ways to connect your participants to the awards. Each award is somewhat given. If you give prizes for supportive and friendly interactions, it's only natural that team members and fellow participants nominate one another. Keep a closed ballot box for anonymous nominations. Anyone can submit a nomination throughout the workshop for someone who impressed them with their leadership, friendship, skills, or problem-solving during their shared experiences.
You can even create new awards on the spot if you receive an inspiringly unique nomination from the box.
Give Different Awards Every Year
Don't always give the same awards. This risks creating a predictable structure instead of a rewarding experience to look forward to. The outcome is foreseeable if the person with the most outstanding math skills always receives the math award. However, your awards are creative and uniquely recognize the personal accomplishments of each class of attendees. In that case, the whole group will feel more connected. Each prize will feel like a recognition, not just a formality.
Create Team Projects and Annual Team Awards
Annual team awards are an excellent way to ensure everyone gets recognized and encourage your clients to develop their team-building skills. Separate your workshop attendees into groups, and give them group projects. Also, provide a variety of group-specific awards where every group member gets a small token to take home.
Here are a few examples of annual group awards that will inspire and delight your workshop clients:
- Best Collaborators: The team that showed the most significant level of teamwork
- Exemplary Inclusivity: A team that went above and beyond to be inclusive
- Most Creative Solution: The team that surprised everyone with their project result/process
- Most Impressive Presentation: The team that made the biggest final show
Use Awards to Recognize Personal Growth
Recognizing when someone has come leaps and bounds throughout your workshop is essential. While a participant might not be the best at something, they will feel the impact of their personal growth if they recognize how far they have come. Take a page from sports awards and recognize your most-improved players and those who accomplished a degree of personal growth that was their stated goal.
- Unlocked Leadership Potential: Someone who became a significantly better leader
- Pole-Vaulter: Someone who overcame a personal challenge to achieve their goals
- Social Butterfly: Someone who came out of their shell to make friends
Give Unique Awards Designs Each Year
In addition to changing up the specific awards you give each year, you can also make each year a different design theme. You might provide star-shaped awards one year and flame-shaped awards another. You might change the underlying color that tints your crystal awards or the metal finish of the base. Change the font and the color of the writing, or use a different engraved symbol for each year and season. Make every year of your workshop a unique experience, like a special seasonal t-shirt, but also reflected in the awards you give. This way, if you have regulars who come back every year, their shelf will become a beautiful display of unique awards instead of carbon copies with different words printed in the crystal.
Include Awards On the Certificates
You can also incorporate your workshop rewards into your printed certificates. A single line mentioning the awards won during the workshop can personalize and add gravitas to each certificate so that no two certificates are precisely the same. Add a small symbol that coincides with the award or even a short recognition list for those who receive more than one.
Give Each Professional Workshop Meaning with Unique Annual Awards
Professionals attend workshops to grow their careers and inner potential. Personalized annual awards that recognize growth can make the experience all the more meaningful. At DIY Awards, we make it easy to design beautiful and unique awards for every season of workshops you run. You can become an unforgettable learning experience and provide professionals with elegant proof of their professional credentials that go above and beyond what can be found in other seminars, workshops, and professional retreats. Contact us today to begin customizing your own unique workshop award structure.
