Rewards and Recognition: Meeting the Demands of a Diverse and Inclusive Workforce
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategies are no longer something that’s a nice-to-have, but an essential component of any successful, modern-day business.
While most companies are ramping up their diversity and inclusion schemes, one area that’s often overlooked is the significant role rewards and recognition can play.
Currently, 47% of employees claim their company tends to recognise certain groups of employees over others. This has to change, as employee benefits must appeal and be relevant to everybody.
To avoid members of your team getting left behind, we explore how rewards and recognition can meet the demands of a diverse and inclusive workforce.
Why does it matter?
Only 39% of employees believe the reward and recognition scheme at their organisation is fair. We’re on a mission to change this! Let’s get into why.
All employees want to feel seen, valued and heard, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability or socioeconomic background. Here are some of the key benefits for employees when a rewards and recognition scheme incorporates DEI:
- Creates a sense of belonging.
- Improves workplace conditions.
- Boosts morale and engagement.
- Enhances productivity.
- Opens up career development opportunities.
And as always, a happy workforce has some significant advantages for employers, including:
- Improves attraction and retention rates.
- Develops team morale and trust.
- Enhances innovation and decision making.
- Fosters organisational agility.
- Boosts business performance.
Rewards and recognition as drivers of inclusion
As rewards and recognition programmes play such a critical role in shaping company culture, it makes sense that they also impact employees’ identities, contributions and experiences.
No business should enforce a one-size-fits-all approach to recognising staff achievements, and should instead adopt a more inclusive approach that celebrates everybody equally and personalises rewards.
We embrace the increasing diversity within the workforce, and aim to make it easy for employers to offer inclusive rewards that benefit people financially, physically and emotionally. This means being flexible and adaptable enough to appeal to all demographics.
For example, a Gen Z fresh out of university may prefer rewards that benefit them financially, while an employee with children might appreciate flexible working arrangements.
Tailoring your wider benefits for real equity
For employee benefits to really hit the spot, they should be fair and impartial, covering the different needs and values of a diverse workforce. We need benefits that put a spring in the step of your staff, with a tailored approach to suit their unique circumstances.
To achieve equity with your schemes, here are some key considerations:
- Consider parents and schemes to improve family life, such as flexible working.
- Health and wellbeing benefits that address physical and mental health.
- Offer financial support, reflecting the different life stages people are at.
- Accommodate cultural and religious holidays.
- Ensure everyone has access to professional development opportunities.
Recognition that reflects everyone’s value
Recognition shouldn’t only be reserved for high performers or those who are loud contributors. Other groups, such as shy staff, junior employees and remote workers, also need to feel the love!
Peer-to-peer recognition can play a big role in achieving this. It’s a great way to inspire everyday gratitude in your team, allowing anybody to nominate their colleague regardless of their position in the organisation. It gives everyone the power to recognise successes, no matter how big or small they are.
Facilitating anonymous rewards through a nomination-based programme, for example, is another way of promoting fairness, encouraging those who feel nervous about taking part to get involved. Plus, with a reliable benefits platform that uses data to track who is eligible for milestone rewards, you can ensure everybody gets recognised for their contributions.
Ensuring employees understand what’s on offer
A practical part of making your rewards and recognition schemes inclusive is to ensure everyone has access to your employee benefits platform and knows how to use it.
Most organisations face challenges in employee take-up of their rewards and recognition schemes. This is because some employees aren’t aware of the programmes, and, therefore, the same people get nominated all the time.
This is where a good communications strategy comes in handy, helping to address the problem with valuable messages, updates and reminders. You need to ensure your people can make the most of your rewards and recognition schemes, delivering the right information to them at the right time.
Find out more about how Boostworks’ on-demand toolkit can boost your comms.
How Boostworks can help drive diversity and inclusion
If you’re not developing rewards and recognition schemes with diversity and inclusion in mind, you really are missing a trick. It’s a quick fix for ensuring all of your staff feel valued and like they’re treated equally, while also meeting your wider DEI objectives.
If you need help in making your employee benefits programme more diverse and inclusive, Boostworks is here to support you. We’re a people-focused company that uses a tailored approach to deliver meaningful employee benefits that bring your whole business together.
With our expertise, nobody at your organisation will be forgotten or feel neglected.
For more information about how our services can support DEI in your workplace, get in touch with our customer support team today.
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