When it comes to recognizing and rewarding their employees, organizations follow their own unique systems and processes. This is due to the differences in the work culture and operational models of organizations. Increasingly, peer to peer recognition is emerging as a popular and effective way of employee engagement and motivation. In fact, experts consider it to be an important contributor towards building an excellent company culture, which in turn impacts employee satisfaction and retention. When implemented and managed in a proper manner, peer to peer recognition can offer a wide range of benefits for the organization.
Benefits of peer to peer recognition
In recent years, peer to peer recognition has emerged as a powerful technique for organizations to drive employee motivation. Being recognized and appreciated by their peers tends to make employees get a greater sense of satisfaction, self-worth, acknowledgment, and achievement. The important benefits are as follows:
- It helps in creating a great culture at the workplace
Peer to peer recognition empowers employees with the necessary tools to praise others, appreciate their accomplishments and provide positive feedback. This makes them feel truly engaged and helps build a great team. Moreover, it provides employees with an opportunity to share their views and opinions beyond their own assignments and responsibilities. This helps to create a more friendly and atmosphere at the workplace and promotes the development of strong interpersonal bonds between employees. This ultimately contributes towards creating a positive work culture.
- It helps develop a sense of collaboration among employees
A recognition culture that involves peers helps in fostering a deep sense of collaboration and camaraderie between members of the workforce. Whether it is finding the best employee recognition quotes or choosing the most appropriate way to appreciate their colleagues’ contributions and achievements, it improves team spirit and interdependency between team members.
- It helps in the empowerment of employees
The ability to recognize and reward the efforts and achievements of co-workers tends to give employees positive energy and happiness. They are also likely to experience a greater sense of satisfaction about the entire process of recognition as they are in control of what is happening. This creates a greater sense of empowerment and hence ensures greater level of participation. This, in turn, has a positive impact on employee efficiency and productivity.
- It helps in promoting transparency and openness
Most organizations strive to create a transparent and open work culture; implementing peer to peer recognition systems helps in enhancing the level of trust and camaraderie between employees. The employees feel free to share their opinions and express their views in a free and frank manner. As the employees become more open with each other and their seniors, the work environment becomes increasingly transparent.
- Changing role of managers and senior leadership
It is a common perception that the growing popularity of peer to peer recognition may make managers and leaders irrelevant in the whole process. However, this is not true; as the planning and implementation of peer to peer recognition will still remain the responsibility of the managers. Also, despite the effectiveness of this type of recognition, employees would still want to be appreciated for their achievements by their superiors. In fact, most employees are likely to consider a simple appreciation from their managers as valuable (if not more than) as the recognition and appreciation they receive from their peers. Hence, it would be safe to say that the managers and senior leadership still have an important role to play in employee recognition.
Peer recognition has become an important part of the workplace today and has been helpful for organizations to improve employee satisfaction and well-being, which directly impacts organizational performance and retention.
