What is peer recognition?
A great workplace must include employee recognition. How can your company foster an engaging, collaborative work environment by recognizing and rewarding workers for their efforts?
Employees engage in peer recognition—also called peer-to-peer recognition—when they openly acknowledge one another’s assistance, contributions, abilities, talent, or excellent work.
There is an almost endless variety of formats for peer-to-peer acknowledgment, including but not limited to: in-person or online meetings, emails, feedback tools, micro bonuses, LinkedIn endorsements, and so on.
Many different kinds of employee recognition exist. Interactions between coworkers, between managers and their teams, and between employers and their staff members are the three most typical types. It is common for a mix of things to make up an employee recognition program.
The Impact of a Post-It Note
Now, let’s examine a real-world scenario before we go into the details of peer recognition.
The German energy provider E.On launched a recognition program that promoted individualised appreciation through the use of both electronic and snail mail thank you letters.
Everyone at E.On was able to send a thank-you message to any other employee, regardless of their “position,” because the company valued its employees regardless of hierarchy.
This led to nearly a thousand employees receiving thank-you messages from upper management. Some of the outcomes are as follows:
There was an increase from 61% to 69% in E.On’s employee motivation score.
Valuable employee feedback increased from 39% to 52%.
A whopping 75% of E.On’s employees now grasp the company’s long-term goals.
Quite remarkable, isn’t it? And a lovely illustration of how a little gesture of appreciation, like writing a thank you note, may have a huge effect on the company’s bottom line.
The importance of peer recognition
Making it a habit for employees to both give and receive praise from their coworkers is crucial for a myriad of reasons. These are just a handful:
- Strengthening of relationships among employees. A simple one to begin with. Inspiring a culture of open gratitude and public recognition unites individuals, boosts collaboration, and motivates them to consistently go above and beyond.
- Promoting workplace equality. Recognition between peers isn’t just for peers anymore. As we saw with E.On, it should allow workers to provide feedback not only to their supervisors but also to other members of the company. Peer recognition contributes to an inclusive and equitable work environment by highlighting the contributions of all employees.
- Promoting company principles. Aside from general praise, specific forms of acknowledgment can be effective in fostering actions that are in line with your company’s principles.
- Every day, workers do their best to help the company achieve its objectives. An effective method of linking the day-to-day efforts of your employees with the overall objectives of your company is to show them how much you appreciate them. Down below, we’ll show you a couple of scenarios.
- Promoting long-term involvement of staff members. One way to boost engagement in the workplace is through the use of peer-to-peer recognition. In reality, employees tend to respond more positively to constructive criticism from their peers than they would to flattery from a superior.One explanation for this is that a peer has first-hand experience with the work, so they can relate to the difficulties and obstacles encountered and the extent to which certain objectives can be overly ambitious. Therefore, it can be more meaningful and satisfying to receive a compliment from a coworker. Consequently, this increases engagement and, by implication, employee happiness on the job. This was also true at E.On, where the company’s thank-you note program made employees feel (much) more appreciated and encouraged.
- Boosting efficiency, effectiveness, and confidence. Well, it’s no secret that engaged workers produce greater results. Praise for one another’s efforts, achievements, and character goes a long way in mending fences in the workplace.
This is just the beginning…
Peer recognition has other commonly mentioned advantages, such as:
- Staff morale and self-confidence boosted
- Improved teamwork
- Greater openness
- Boosted morale among workers
- Less staff turnover and an excellent sense of friendship and teamwork.
Implementing a successful program for peer recognition
- Begin to create a culture of thanks
This calls for its own piece because it is both easier said than done. But there are a few things to remember in this case:
- From the very bottom to the very top of the company, everyone should accept recognition.
- Demonstrate how your workplace branding and recruiting process value recognition.
- Come up with a scheme to reward employees and put it into action.
- Get the word out about your employee recognition program by communicating it clearly and often within the firm.
- State your goal(s)
Performance, engagement, output, and retention are just a few areas that can benefit from peer recognition, as we saw before. Your company’s financial line will benefit from an improvement in these indicators.
So, what are your objectives, and how do they relate to the overall business strategy of your company? Are you interested in boosting staff retention? Alternatively, how invested are you? If not, then what?
Give this some thought, along with your goals for the project and how you will measure success.
An easy case in point. In order to increase employee engagement by 3% in just three months, you may decide to launch a peer recognition program. Use a staff survey and a focus group to find out how it went.
The SMART principle—an acronym for “specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely”—is a simple framework for goal setting.
- Remember proper recognition protocol
Yes, there is a specific “craft” for publicly praising someone. For effective peer recognition, it must be detailed, sincere, timely, and consistent. What this means is that it’s best to be more precise while praising someone.
Take ownership as an example. When you want to commend an employee for demonstrating this value, it’s not enough to just say, “Millie, you showed wonderful ownership last week, well done.”
Substitute something like, “Millie, you saw that our web page was down over the weekend. Instead of putting it off until Monday, you stepped up to the plate, contacted our hosting provider, and resolved the issue, minimizing the impact on our clients. You did an excellent job taking responsibility for it.”
Additionally, the timing is key; nobody wants to hear that they accomplished something outstanding three months ago. Make it possible for people to quickly recognize their peers from any location at any time by creating a tool that does just that.
As expected, there is also a tool that allows your employees to quickly recognize their teammates. For instance, as a Slack connection, HeyTaco allows users to deliver tacos to coworkers as a gesture of gratitude (Slack is a communication platform).
- Give some examples
Show your staff what kind of actions you expect from them so they can make an effort to emulate them.
Additionally, you can (and ideally should) inquire as to how your employees believe their coworkers have exemplified the company’s principles.
There is a limitless number of ways to show appreciation. For instance, Snacknation bring up some great examples, including a DIY awards ceremony honoring those who make going to work each day so enjoyable, and a Coworker Appreciation Day, wherein employees plan and participate in events just for one another.
- Have fun with it
The term “gamification” immediately springs to mind in this context. In order to gently encourage people to take part in your peer recognition program, you might offer them points, badges, or presents.
Sure, there’s specialized software for this (more on that below), but there’s also the tried-and-true method of using a giant scoreboard that everyone can view and edit.
Additional methods exist for enhancing the enjoyment of peer-to-peer recognition. Consider the following scenario: a coworker is the target of pleasant jokes while receiving compliments, constructive criticism, and sincere appreciation.
- Think about incorporating technology
Recognizing peers is merely one kind of employee appreciation. Using technology might be a good idea, especially if you’re going all out in this area, provided you have the funds to do so.
A number of employee recognition platforms exist on the market; some, like Assembly and Nectar, are better suited to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), while others are better suited to bigger companies.
Software that emphasizes verbal acknowledgment and kindness, peer recognition tools that strive to improve workplace culture and establish meaningful relationships, solutions that assist firms in rewarding great actions for long-term growth, and many more options are available.
So, as you might expect, the decision between the two tools is heavily based on your unique business and circumstances. Important factors to consider are:
- The scope of your business
- Amount of funds that are accessible
- The objectives (or desired outcomes) of your peer recognition program
- Think of things to be happy about
We already established that consistency is key to the success of peer recognition programs. Identifying causes to celebrate is a useful strategy for ensuring acknowledgment is consistent.
Consider not only people’s birthdays and workversaries, but also team and individual milestones and accomplishments. Some examples will do.
By the end of the next quarter, your social media team hopes to have gained 5,000 LinkedIn followers monthly. You celebrate every time they reach that monthly goal.
Just one more example. Your customer success manager has set a goal for the first quarter of the year to increase your net promoter score (NPS) by 0.9 points. You are going to celebrate when he or she accomplishes that.
An effective strategy for coordinating company objectives with employee appreciation is to associate the reasons to celebrate with the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the individuals involved.
Kazoo lets businesses link continuous performance management with employee recognition and awards.
- Make use of monetary and social rewards
The focus here has been on social acknowledgement thus far. Your peer recognition program may be more effective if you include monetary rewards as well.
In what way?
As an example, microbonuses. A micro bonus is just a tiny version of a standard bonus. If coworkers can send each other little bonuses of a few bucks, it could result in:
- Having less “sorry” feelings when they bug coworkers with questions
- Devoted to going the extra mile for their coworkers
- Achievement in “the simple things,” such as devoting fifteen minutes to assisting a coworker
Having coffee instead of a mini bonus is a great idea. For those who prefer coffee with a side of kindness, Nack is the perfect app. People can show their appreciation for one another by sending and receiving coffee cups.
- Encourage upper-level management to set an example
The leaders of your organization continue to play a vital role in ensuring that employees routinely engage in peer recognition. It is their responsibility to provide an example of the kind of peer recognition they like to see in the workplace.
Some examples could be quite basic. For example, during a company-wide business update, managers can pause to acknowledge the work or achievements of their partner.
- Track progress
You can evaluate the efficacy of your peer recognition program according to the goals you set for it.
Crucial to the success of any peer recognition program or initiatives is the input of your employees. You can refine your approach based on their comments.
For instance, if a modest effort yields positive results in terms of engagement, you may find that you need to invest in a platform, or at least be able to persuade upper management to allocate funds for it.
To wrap things up
Building a strong company culture begins with setting a good example and encouraging your staff to do the same.
A full-fledged peer recognition program may be out of reach financially, but there are still steps you can take today to establish a culture of appreciation.
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