The Cultural Impact of Employee Rewards and Recognition
Your approach to rewards and recognition in the workplace plays a huge part in shaping your company culture. It can be the difference between a disengaged, unhappy team and a motivated, committed team. Even recognition alone can significantly benefit your people and your business, with 51% of employees stating that it positively impacts their morale and engagement!
That said, it’s all about personalisation. Recognising your employees’ achievements and rewarding their efforts in meaningful ways is the key to cultivating a thriving culture where people can reach their full potential. To do this, you need to tailor your benefits scheme to suit your team.
So, keep reading and let us help you unlock the power of personalised rewards and recognition. We’ll walk you through how to cultivate culture, tailor your benefits and help your people flourish. Enjoy!
What is company culture?
Workplace culture is essentially your company’s personality. It’s a combination of values, beliefs, behaviours, practices and connections shared between your team. Those characteristics collectively define your company identity and how it’s perceived both internally and externally. This perception can have a huge impact on business performance, employee engagement, productivity and a whole bunch of other factors.
For example, if your culture is built on a foundation of trust and openness which encourages people from all departments to collaborate and share their thoughts in a safe space, you’ll naturally engage your team and improve motivation. On the other hand, a toxic company culture fuelled by leadership bias and a lack of appreciation will typically cause high employee turnover and burnout.
These scenarios perfectly illustrate the importance of positive connections, equality, recognition, trust and open communication in the workplace. All of which can be achieved by a tailored employee reward and recognition programme.
How to tailor rewards and recognition to reflect your workplace culture
Rewards and recognition need to resonate with your people to be truly beneficial. By aligning them with your company culture, you’ll reinforce the values and behaviours that are important to your business and team, ultimately encouraging people to work towards a shared goal. To help you achieve this, we’ve highlighted a few top ways to tailor your rewards and recognition to your workplace culture. Take a look!
Understand your workplace culture
Before you do any benefits boosting, you need to take time to understand the core values, behaviours and practices of your team, so you can identify what they want and need from their reward and recognition scheme. Start by observing how your team works day-to-day and the interactions between people to get an idea of your culture. You can then involve your employees by asking them to share their thoughts on reward and recognition in the workplace via surveys or feedback forms. These insights will highlight areas for improvement and give you a clearer focus.
Make recognition purposeful and meaningful
Not even half (46%) of employees feel their company’s benefits, reward and recognition programme aligns with their personal values and aspirations. This may result in employees becoming disengaged and demotivated as they assume their company doesn’t value their efforts or development. To avoid this happening, you need to flip the narrative!
Show your people you care about their aspirations and appreciate their hard work by encouraging them to work toward common goals, then actively recognising and rewarding individuals when they achieve targets or embrace company values. Make sure that rewards are given fairly and they’re personal to the recipient. This will ensure your team feel valued and they’re motivated to work hard, knowing have equal opportunities to be rewarded in ways that count.
Align rewards and recognition with cultural values
As we touched upon a second ago, company values play an important role in reward and recognition programmes. Having a clearly defined set of values which resonate with your people and encourage positive behaviours is key to cultivating culture and giving your team plenty of opportunities to get rewarded. Whenever a team member exhibits behaviours or actions that align with your values, give them some well-deserved recognition and maybe even a reward. This will reinforce cultural values and encourage people to work in ways that suit them and the business.
Diversify reward types
Make rewards truly meaningful by offering a range of reward types, such as non-monetary, monetary, experiential and points-based. This will help you accommodate your team’s preferences and give them recognition in ways they’ll genuinely appreciate. By offering choice and flexibility, you’ll also demonstrate that you understand your employees and their individuality which will go a long way to ensuring they feel seen and valued.
Use technology to enhance recognition
Using a reward and recognition platform with smart technology will help you manage your programme and ensure you don’t miss important employee milestones or achievements. Not only can you set up rewards like vouchers and reward points to be automatically delivered to your team members, but you can also make rewards more accessible to your whole team. With features like peer-to-peer recognition and an employee benefits app, you’ll enable your team to appreciate each other and enjoy their rewards wherever they are – super important if your company has a lot of remote or hybrid workers!
Ask for feedback
Continuously seeking feedback from your employees on the rewards and recognition programmes you have in place can help to ensure they remain relevant and resonate with people, even as your company culture evolves. Doing so will help you stay ahead of the curve and consistently give your team a reason to be motivated and productive.
The impact of rewards and recognition on company culture
There are plenty of benefits to having a tailored reward and recognition programme. Take a look at just some of the ways it can positively impact your company culture and lift up your people:
People who feel recognised for their achievements at work are more motivated and committed to their jobs as they experience a sense of satisfaction when their hard work is noticed. Consistent recognition and rewards help keep job satisfaction high, ultimately encouraging employees to engage with their companies and reap the benefits of appreciation.
Enhanced employee engagement
We know there’s a strong correlation between recognition and productivity, but it actually goes much deeper. Employee engagement, productivity, and performance are 14% higher in organisations with recognition programmes than those without. Why? Because recognition fosters a sense of positivity, cultivating an uplifting culture where people want to go above and beyond to help each other hit targets.
Improved morale and productivity
70% of employees highlight the importance of emotional connections at work. A reward and recognition scheme can help meet people’s emotional needs, while also helping to improve collaboration. In particular, peer-to-peer appreciation can give people a platform to celebrate their teammates’ achievements and interact with individuals from all departments. This inclusivity helps to break down cross-departmental barriers and bring employees together, creating a better sense of unity and team spirit.
Better team spirit
A healthy workplace culture where rewards and recognition are embraced is incredibly attractive to people. Companies that actively appreciate and reward their employees will not only reduce turnover, but they’ll also attract top talent, even in a competitive market. In fact, 38% of employees say the benefits, reward and recognition scheme outlined was crucial to them accepting a job offer. Maintaining a supportive culture will help ensure employees are happy and, therefore, want to stay!
Attraction and retention of top talent
Taking the time to highlight people’s achievements and congratulate them with a meaningful reward is a great way to reinforce the message that they’re doing well. This positive reinforcement can help employees feel safe yet confident to take ownership of their roles. Finding a balance between job security and empowerment will often create a culture where people experiment and innovate, driving business performance like never before.
Empowered and more confident employees
Most people naturally seek validation from more experienced, senior team members. So, when managers recognise employees, it strengthens their credibility, builds trust and sets an example for recognising others. By setting a precedent, leaders can cause a ripple effect where appreciation flows throughout the company, again bringing people together and ensuring they feel seen.
Leadership credibility
Feeling undervalued at work can cause people significant stress which impacts their wellbeing. On the flip side, a reward and recognition scheme that enables people to enjoy things like appreciation from peers, meaningful rewards or milestone celebrations will help ensure they feel seen and valued for their efforts. By prioritising recognition, you’ll boost employee wellbeing and create a supportive culture that benefits everyone.
Improved mental health and wellbeing
Companies develop over time, inevitably experiencing shifts in behaviours and attitudes along the way. A recognition programme can help employees adapt to these changes by reinforcing new values, goals and strategies. Rewards and recognition schemes can act as a guide for employees, even accelerating the evolution of the company culture. This is hugely beneficial as it helps people grow with the business and feel part of the process while still encouraging them to strive toward goals.
Cultural evolution
Enhance your company culture with Boostworks
As you can see, there’s a close correlation between company culture and rewards and recognition. When businesses lift their people up with tailored rewards that shine a spotlight on achievements, they’ll nurture a supportive culture where employees can reach their full potential.
The key to unlocking the many benefits of a rewards and recognition scheme is to align it with the needs of your people and ensure it’s meaningful. Now we understand that’s often easier said than done! But don’t worry, we’re here to help you get there. Whether you’ve already got a scheme in place or you’re starting from scratch, we’ve got the expertise and the solutions that’ll help you revolutionise your company culture with a tailored benefits package.
Get in touch today and let’s deliver the boosts that will make your people thrive.
