4 Pieces of the Employee Recognition Puzzle: 1- Award Loyalty

There are typically four pieces of recognition that fully encompass a strong employee engagement program. Over the next four posts, we want to discuss those four pieces, and make the case for putting this puzzle together in your business.

The first piece of the Employee Recognition Puzzle is:

Employee Loyalty is the easiest form of engaging and recognizing employees. Due to the ease in tracking this about your employees (know their start date- know their anniversary), it's a way to recognize them, their work, and their loyalty to your company every year. Make a bigger gesture on their milestone anniversaries, 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, so on.

Employee Loyalty is something that does not have to be a thing of the past. Thirty years ago, leaving a job was nearly unthinkable. With all of the tools at everyone's fingertips now, Monster.com, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, it's almost impossible to not be in the know about outside job opportunities. When a person stays with you for a length of time, it means they are denying their outside curiosity. Hopefully, it's because you are doing a good job of showing them you appreciate them, you engage with them, and respect their work and their loyalty. Make them think twice about opening up that "LinkedIn jobs you may be interested in", because they know what they have now is more interesting, engaging, and appreciative than what else lies out there in the unknown.

Small gestures on their anniversary- Balloons, a cupcake, or even a simple card are a great and simple way to let them know you are thankful.

Take the opportunity on a milestone anniversary to give them a gift. Give them some control over their reward and they will appreciate it. Let them choose a gift that maybe they would not get for themselves otherwise; or maybe they'll even choose an every day item they need. Either way, every time they see or use your gift, they will know they have it because of your show of appreciation and their loyalty.

To read more about recognizing years of service or the importance of recognition as the economy comes out of the recession view our white papers.