What can managers do to facilitate a culture of peer recognition?

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Employee culture and company values are influenced by recognition in the workplace. Recognizing your team’s efforts as a manager is key to building employee engagement and trust. However, it’s also important that peers recognize each other. The perspectives of peers are different when it comes to knowing about each other’s strengths and what each employee brings to the team.

Peer-to-peer recognition helps create a positive work environment, which in turn strengthens team motivation and relationships. A peer recognition program can have a huge impact on the self-esteem of the team as well as each individual.

However, most companies tend to focus more on manager and leadership feedback and neglect peer-to-peer recognition. Surprisingly enough, in a recent study, only 36% of employees reported that their organization has some sort of recognition system in place.

Companies forget that peer recognition has the power to not only boost team morale but also increase engagement, improve productivity and customer service, and reduce absenteeism. All of these factors have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line.

As a manager, you might feel unsure whether your team knows they’re valued contributors. Continue to read for suggestions and best practices for facilitating a culture of peer recognition.

Peer recognition has a positive impact on employee engagement, retention, productivity, and performance. Improving these metrics will boost your company’s bottom line.

But what are your company’s goals and objectives? Are you looking to increase employee retention? Or do you perhaps want to boost employee morale?

Consider how you will define and measure success. The SMART method is a simple way to set goals. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely and can help you clarify your ideas and focus your efforts. In turn, this can help you track your progress and accomplish all of your goals.

Gamification is the word that immediately comes to mind when talking about peer recognition. You can use badges, points, or employee appreciation gifts to encourage people to take part in your peer recognition program.

You can choose to use a software tool to help you with this, but you could also do it traditionally by hanging a large scoreboard on the wall that everyone can see and edit.

Other ways can be found to make peer recognition fun. Roasts are a humorous way to poke fun at friends and coworkers. If you don’t have much experience with roasts, consider ideas where genuine praise, compliments, and positive feedback are mixed in with some jokes about the coworker being roasted.

Employees should be able to give and receive recognition. Companies with inclusive recognition programs perform better than those without. To help employees develop trust and a sense of belonging, companies should create an inclusive culture. Allowing peer-to-peer recognition encourages employees to find a group or community within your organization where they feel valued and comfortable.

Participation should not be compulsory, despite the importance of inclusive recognition. Employees may feel cheated by mandatory recognition. Sincere peer-to-peer praise should come from the heart.

You will see that even small acts of appreciation create a ripple effect and motivate more employees to recognize and uplift each other.

Be sure to use a platform that enables recognition, such as a newsfeed for the entire company. Public recognition shines a spotlight on employees in a way that private recognition cannot. Peers can stay up-to-date on all recognitions sent in real-time through a company newsfeed. 

Peers can show their support by adding a “like” or comment to each recognition. Publicly recognizing people provides recipients with a sense of encouragement, as does anyone else who sees the recognition and emulates good behavior.

The encouragement of leadership to act as role models for peer-to-peer recognition can be an effective way to create a culture that values and recognizes employees. Leaders who model this behavior send a powerful message to employees about the importance of recognition. This can help create a positive, inclusive workplace where employees feel valued by their co-workers.

You can encourage leaders to give and receive peer recognition by highlighting the benefits, including improved morale and engagement. Also, provide guidance and support so that they understand how to do it effectively. Consider implementing formal recognition programs or systems that make it easier for employees to receive and give recognition from their colleagues.

Peer recognition is a powerful tool that can improve employee productivity and engagement. The daily activities that keep a company running are often overlooked. This imbalance can be corrected by using the above simple tips that can facilitate a culture of peer recognition and inspire others to do the same.

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