Employee recognition programs have become one of the most effective means for motivation and engagement of the workforce. Measuring the success of employee recognition programs is essential for justifying the investment of time, effort, and money in them.
There is an old saying that something that cannot be measured cannot be managed. This sums up the need to measure the performance of employee recognition programs.
When done in the right manner, an employee recognition program can ensure a wide range of benefits for an organization.
These benefits include improvement in employee productivity and their commitment and dedication to the organization.
However, to derive these benefits, organizations need to ensure that the program is performing as expected.
Organizations fail to measure the success of employee recognition programs because they are unsure of how to go about it.
So, let’s take a look at the most effective ways to measure the performance and success of these programs.
1. Seek Direct Feedback from Employees
2. Measure Employee Satisfaction
3. Analyze Change in Retention Rates
4. Assess Behavioral Changes
This is perhaps one of the simplest yet most effective ways to measure the performance of employee recognition.
Feedback from employees can help organizations gain better insights into their perception of the employee rewards and recognition program.
It also helps the organization to understand what they are doing right and what they need to improve.
The organization can get this feedback through employee surveys.
Another way of measuring the performance of recognition programs is to measure the before and after employee satisfaction levels.
This can happen through employee surveys.
An increase in employee satisfaction levels may indicate that the employee recognition program is doing well.
However, a dip or no change in satisfaction levels might reflect that the program might need changes.
Even specific questions related to employee recognition in an employee satisfaction survey can help pinpoint the areas of improvement.
These inputs can be valuable in making modifications to the program design and implementation to make it more effective.
A major benefit of a successful employee recognition program is that it helps organizations improve their talent retention rates.
Thus, analyzing the changes in retention rates can also help organizations measure the success of their recognition program.
Organizations understand that there are many other factors at play when it comes to employee retention.
However, the organization needs to corroborate this data with inputs from exit interviews and other data sources.
Although an intangible way of measuring the performance of an employee recognition program, it is no less effective.
Careful assessment of behavioral changes can help organizations better understand the effectiveness of their recognition programs than most surveys.
If employees are more satisfied and happier at the workplace, it can be indicative of the success of recognition programs.
If the changes are negative, this should prompt the management to take timely action to modify the program to get better results.
Measuring the success of employee recognition programs is critical to assess the return on investment in them made by organizations. It also helps in taking timely action to maximize the benefits of such programs.
Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of experience in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. In the past, Sagar has worked with companies such as Genpact, Infosys, and ICICI Bank, in leadership roles. He has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. Connect on LinkedIn
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