Easy Ways to Give Employee or Co-Worker Recognition

Interesting article on how to motivate employees. Employee recognition. Sounds simple, but to motivate staff, employee recognition has to be consistent. You can't have an employee of the month award and then fail to take down the last photograph (believe me I've seen it done)... so ensure if you are going to give employee recognition as a way to engage and motivate employees the program is one that you can follow through with.

Seeds of SUCCESS - The FREE weekly newsletter for ideas, inspiration, insight and growing achievement.

Employees' happiness is often the most important non-financial vital sign for a small business to monitor, says Jennifer Openshaw, author of The Millionaire Zone and other books for entrepreneurs and investors. "If they're not happy, it's going to impact your bottom line."

While conducting formal employee surveys is one way to measure employee morale, less-formal surveillance can produce useful results. "Just look on their faces and body language."

To infuse more life into your company, here are some unique ways to give employee recognition:

• Use the corporate intranet as a way to spread praise.

• A low-tech way to reward others is writing on whiteboards with dry erase markers. Author Tim Sanders points to a "Recognition Whiteboard" he observed at the British Columbia Lottery System. Anyone could scribble notes of recognition for other team members. Introverted types found the whiteboard a great way to thank each other for contributions to a project's success.

• Recognize employees' work anniversaries as a way to let them know how they've made a difference in the company.

• When inquiring about completed projects, managers should ask their project managers, "Who else helped you accomplish this?" It's a great way to broaden praise beyond the "face" of the project.