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Why Timely Employee Recognition Is So Important?

While most organizations today realize the significance of recognizing their employees, many of them underestimate the importance of the timeliness of recognition. Offering timely employee recognition is critical to the success, impact, and significance of recognition in organizations.

Top Management Role in Employee Rewards and Recognition

When combined with other best practices such as regularity and specificity, timely appreciation and praise can go a long way in boosting employee morale and engagement.

Timely recognition ensures an increase in employee productivity and performance as compared to delayed recognition.

Employee Appreciation

That is why organizations need to adopt an employee recognition program that focuses on acknowledging and rewarding employees for their efforts and achievements on time.

It also helps to create a culture of recognition within the workplace and motivates employees in more than one way.

Best Practices of Employee Rewards and Recognition

According to Bamboo HR, 75% of employees receiving recognition at least once a month are satisfied with their job.

Gallup, the renowned analytic and advisory company recommends that organizations should recognize an employee every seven days.

What Are The Benefits Of Timely Recognition?

Offering timely recognition to employees ensures various benefits for an organization.

The most important of these benefits include the following:

1. Establishes Immediate Connection Between Action and Appreciation

Integrating Employee Recognition with the Organizational Culture

Recognizing employees for their efforts and achievements while the memories of the same are still fresh in their minds helps to validate their actions immediately.

When employees are appreciated without delay motivates the employees, and it assures them of being on the right path.

It fills them with a sense of purpose and self-worthiness.

2. Validates the Progress of Employees In Doing Meaningful Work

Goals

Timely employee recognition is a way of acknowledging their progress in terms of doing meaningful work.

The employees feel inspired to improve their performance and their efficiency so that they can complete the assigned tasks faster.

The sooner the employees are appreciated for their good work the more inclined they feel to improve their productivity.

3. Motivates Employees to Repeat Desired Performance and Behavior

Committed Employees

Timely recognition goes a long way in reinforcing desirable behaviors and repeating the same.

Employee understand their role and importance to their organization when they are appreciated for their work without delay.

This makes it easier for them to adopt such behaviors into their everyday work. It also motivates their coworkers to do the same.

4. Enhances the Impact and Duration of the Afterglow Effect

Clean Slate

One of the biggest benefits of timely recognition is that it enhances the impact and duration of the afterglow effect quite significantly.

Employees receive a boost of motivation every time they remember being recognized for their specific actions or behaviors almost immediately by their peers or superiors.

It inspires them to continue doing good work and keep up their record of superior performance and even surpass it.

5. Improves Trust and Transparency Between Employees And Employers

5 Best Ways to Recognize Top Performers

Timely recognition goes a long way in enhancing the level of trust and transparency between employers and their employees.

Employees get a positive message that their good work and behavior are being noticed and appreciated. 

It also helps to eliminate any sense chances of bias and favoritism in recognizing employees and makes the process more authentic and impactful.

What Are The Best Practices For Implementing Timely Employee Recognition?

Organizations need to understand the best ways of offering timely recognition. 

This ensures that they can maximize the benefits and the overall impact of the recognition process.

Here are a few best practices that organizations can implement to offer timely recognition:

1. Implement a Spot Recognition Policy

2. Promote Peer-to-Peer Recognition

3. Use Employee Recognition Software For Immediate Recognition

4. Use Reward Points For Instant Recognition

5. Send Digital Thank You Notes and Appreciation Cards

Best Practices Of Timely Recognition

1. Implement a Spot Recognition Policy

Manage Spot Awards Using Employee Recognition Software

The most effective way to ensure timely recognition is by having a spot recognition policy in place.

Spot recognition by supervisors boosts the sense of achievement of the employees and motivates them to repeat their good work and actions.

Employees feel assured that their actions are acknowledged and appreciated by the people who matter the most.

2. Promote Peer-to-Peer Recognition

Peer-to-Peer Recognition – Understanding the Nuts and Bolts

Peer-to-peer recognition is another effective way of promoting the concept of appreciating employees in time.

It can act as a major morale booster for employees if recognized by their co-workers.

It assures them of their love and support. In addition to keeping the employees motivated, peer-to-peer recognition also helps to build a culture of appreciation.

3. Use Employee Recognition Software For Immediate Recognition

Social-Visibility

Using digital tools such as employee recognition apps and other online platforms can make it easier to recognize employees in time.

These tools provide employees and managers the convenience of appreciating their coworkers and subordinates at any time and from any location. 

They can thus help in avoiding delays in recognizing the good work of employees due to administrative processes and other such reasons.

4. Use Reward Points For Instant Recognition

Gamification

One way of implementing timely recognition effortlessly in the workplace is by offering reward points to deserving employees.

Organizations should empower managers as well as employees to give reward points to other employees for their good work and exceptional behavior.

Reward points help enhance the flexibility and impact of recognition and make the process more authentic and streamlined.

5. Send Digital Thank You Notes and Appreciation Cards

Thank You

Using an employee recognition platform to send digital ‘thank you’ notes and appreciation cards is another best practice that organizations should consider. It is quite effective in terms of offering timely recognition.

Employee morale is boosted in a big way when they are praised and appreciated for their good work and behavior through a personalized note.

Bottom-line

Employee recognition needs to be timely and in the right way to get the desired results in terms of improved performance and higher engagement levels, which is why organizations need to adopt a policy of more effective and spontaneous recognition.

Sagar Chaudhuri

Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of corporate and entrepreneurship experience. 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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HiFives is a global employee rewards, recognition and engagement SaaS platform that enables organizations to digitize, automate and transform their employee experience. It is used by 100+ large enterprises, small businesses and startups in manufacturing, retail, technology, financial services and media, across 25+ countries.