The survey highlighted that recognition schemes are typically used as a way of encouraging employees to go the extra mile and also to boost engagement, which is a major challenge for Human Resource teams in all types of organisation.

Recognition is about saying “thank you,” and the importance of these two little words should not be overlooked in creating a positive working environment, driving improved performance and boosting employee engagement.

Not just a HR initiative

Staff recognition schemes aren’t just a HR initiative, there are indispensable for forward thinking businesses that want to grow and be successful. This is because when employees are recognised for going the extra mile, or whatever targets the business sets, then overall the business performs better.

As adults, we spend over two-thirds of our lives at work. Therefore it’s essential for companies to create an atmosphere whereby their employees don’t event consider changing companies. As employees, we all want to work in an environment where we are treated with mutual respect, feel appreciated, our contribution is valued and we work together as a team.

And it’s a well-researched fact that companies that have staff recognition programmes which tie in their strategic objectives report less frustrated employees.

Saying thank you is priceless

Every employee loves the positive feedback a formal recognition scheme can deliver, that feel good factor that comes from your peers, manager or leadership team recognising your contribution.

However, some of the biggest barriers to staff recognition come from managers and leadership teams. The challenge is often to get managers to accept that building relationships with their employees is a key management task and should be as important as building relationships with customers. There is also a time issue, how do you ensure that your management team has the time to actually have meaningful conversations with their team members?

Getting staff recognition right

Recognition is one of the most powerful tools that HR teams have at their disposable. According to the Mood Tracker Spring 2012 survey, 78% of employees would work harder if they felt their efforts would be recognised. Yet only 15% had received any recognition in the past month.

An ‘employee of the month’ award or rewards that are available only to the company’s top performing sales personnel just don’t cut it anymore. When implementing any new recognition scheme or reviewing an existing one you have to make sure that it is accessible to every member of staff, and they all have an equal and fair chance of receiving a recognition award.

Schemes that allow peers and colleagues to nominate one another are becoming more popular as are schemes that offer a wide range of rewards so employees can choose their reward and select something of value to them such as vouchers, an experience day or a gift.

Happy employees = engaged employees = better business results

Saying thank you with a staff recognition scheme doesn’t just increase engagement, encourage the right behaviours, embed new values and reward employees that go the extra mile. It also help employees feel glad they came to work today, and isn’t that ultimately what all employers want?

Kuljit Kaur

Kuljit is responsible for business development at The Voucher Shop, a  division of p&mm ltd. Your one stop shop for corporate vouchers and gift cards for employee benefits, recognition or rewards. Connect with Kuljit on Google+

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The ‘Sub-Saharan Africa Employee Engagement Survey’ was the first survey of its kind for the region and released at the end of January 2013. The scores from the survey correlate very closely with those of other emerging economies, but are significantly higher than all the developed economies around the globe. The closest rated developing region is Latin America, which follows at 71%. North America scored 64%, Asia Pacific scored 58%; while the global average is 58%.

These scores are still significantly better than the major economic regions of North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. Taking data from Aon Hewitt’s earlier 2012 Trends in Global Engagement Survey (published in June 2012) engagement levels in Europe were just 52%*

* The survey covered more than 9.7m employees in 3100 organisations across Asia Pacific (including the Middle East), Europe, Latin America, and North America.

“A large number of organisations are experiencing high turnover of staff. Following the global economic crisis, opportunities for career advancement in certain industry sectors is still limited, however, scarce skills and top performers continue to be in high demand, making employee engagement critical to a company’s sustainability. Issues around values, transparency, trust, ethical business practices, promoting team work, recognition and rewards and career development opportunities are equally important as competitive pay and benefits to encourage attraction and retention of key skills.

Proactive employers must start identifying unique ways of creating an attractive value proposition for their staff if they are to arrest such an exodus”

stated Pat Smythe, Chairman of Emergence Growth.

Are these findings simply a result of a European expectation for more? More benefits, better working conditions, greater flexibility, superior line management, regular recognition, or is it time for European companies to look at less developed nations to see what we can learn from their engagement strategies?

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That’s compared with engagement levels of 37% in the private sector, where 8% of workers expect redundancies ahead, and 33% engagement levels in the public sector, where 28% of workers report plans for redundancies in their organisations.

The CIPD’s quarterly Employee Outlook, which surveys employees across all sectors about their attitudes to working life, finds that engagement in the voluntary sector is driven not only by an affinity to the organisation’s core purpose, but by open and honest management teams and cultures of mutual trust and respect.

Job Satisfaction

Voluntary sector workers enjoy the highest rating of job satisfaction (a net score of +52, compared with +25 in public sector and +45 in the private sector). Whilst employees may feel that they are contributing to the wider community, which in turn delivers a sense of fulfilment with their work, this is not the only factor determining better job satisfaction…

• Employees in the sector are also more aware of what is happening in their organisations (68% compared with 51% in public sector and 53% in the private sector). Better communication leads to better engagement
• Voluntary sector workers believe that their directors and senior managers treat them with respect (+31 net agreement, compared with +19 in private sector and -7 in public sector)
• They are most likely to have trust and confidence in their leaders (+19 and +23 compared with -25 and -22 in the public sector and +12 and +14 in the private sector).

“It would be easy to attribute strong engagement scores in the voluntary sector to employees’ affinity to their organisation’s charitable purpose, but our survey suggests that quality of management is a principal driving factor behind high levels of job satisfaction and employee engagement despite prolonged job insecurity.

The data from the voluntary sector gives us some hints on how to engage staff through leadership – at all levels of the organisation – and provides some good practice that both the private and public sectors can learn from”

said Claire McCartney, research adviser at the CIPD.

View the original article on www.smallbusiness.co.uk

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Responding to research recently published that shows two thirds (66%) of employees are seeking training outside their workplace in order to advance their careers, Ivie told HR magazine that workers no longer want “old-fashioned” training methods.

“Individuals are starting to take responsibility for their own progression, which is great to see but the problem is they are becoming more valuable in the workplace and attractive to rival employers,” Ivie said.

“The training budget is always the first to be hit when companies are cutting budgets but employers need too open up their mindset and get away from worn-out training models,” Ivie added.

The Kelly Global Workforce Index (KGWI) revealed only 50% of employees believe the training offered by their employer is good enough to help them upgrade their skills and progress in their careers.

It found as many as 57% of employees are seeking training in order to pursue a completely new field of work.

The research also found employers are frequently missing opportunities by not offering appropriate training tailored to their workforce.

Ivie said: “Organisations should undertake a training needs analysis looking at data around performance and employee feedback in order to create a training and development programme that satisfies both the individuals’ and company’s needs.

“Remembering that people learn in different ways, it’s important to consider a blended learning approach and to consider adopting policies that support external training, for example, flexible working arrangements.”

This article originally appeared on www.hrmagazine.co.uk

Staff reward and recognition schemes are a significant cost of doing business, so why would you not make every effort to get the most from your scheme? In order to get the very best value out of them you need to treat recognition as an investment rather than a cost.

Did you know?

McKinsey research  shows that communicating benefits (such as a staff recognition scheme) effectively can reduce the cost of these benefits by up to 20 per cent each year.

Communicating with your employees about your recognition scheme is essential if you want it to be a success. We’ve got years of experience in helping our clients run their employee reward and recognition schemes, so here are our five top tips for communicating with your staff about your programme.

1. Know your employees

When it comes to staff rewards, different businesses have different demographics of employee. This means that different businesses, and different employees within said businesses, may want and expect to receive different rewards.

Ask your staff to take part in a survey about rewards, find out what they are interested in and what they are not, quiz individuals about the lifestyle factors that affect them. These surveys can be paper-based, sent out via email, intranet site or done through a workshop.

2. Keep it simple

Most of your staff will not be experts in human resource matters or employee rewards, so make sure that your communications materials are kept simple. Use language your employees will understand and avoid any jargon. You could also set up a scheme FAQ and continually add to it, this will create a library of recognition scheme information which will reduce calls and emails to your administration team.

3. Brand your benefits

Everyone recognises a brand, so create a brand for your scheme that communicates the benefits and value your employees are being offered. Your brand doesn’t need to be complicated and you don’t need to spend a lot of money creating it. Simply develop a consistent layout for emails, leaflets and printed materials. Add a visual element to create interest and a strapline, to let your employees know what they could gain by going the extra mile.

4. Use more than one channel

Like any good marketing programme, you need to spread the word by using more than one communication channel. Some staff may not bother with your intranet, preferring to read notice boards. Others may feel they are too busy to regularly recognise their colleagues, so timely reminders by email may reach them. In addition, some staff members may prefer to involve their families in their decisions regarding where to redeem hard earned rewards, so printed materials that can be taken home will be needed for them.

5. Co-ordinate communication

If you’re using more than one channel, don’t forget to co-ordinate your communication so that your staff receive the same consistent messages about the scheme. It’s no good some staff reading in an email that one reward is available and your noticeboards or intranet telling staff something different.

Implementing the above ideas is just a start to communicating the need for your staff to recognise each other’s efforts but they will go a long way to creating a successful scheme.

Kuljit Kaur

Kuljit is responsible for business development at The Voucher Shop, a  division of p&mm ltd. Your one stop shop for corporate vouchers and gift cards for employee benefits, recognition or rewards. Connect with Kuljit on Google+

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Presenteeism is defined as attending work whilst distracted by sickness or other factors, the opposite of absenteeism. It can mean still going to work even though you might have a cold, ‘man flu‘, migraine or other illness.

The study of 667 employers found that it was being fuelled by the threat of redundancies, with the problem likely to get worse among firms laying off employees in the coming months.

Helen Dickinson of healthcare firm Simplyhealth, which helped with the study, said:

“It’s fair to say that the double dip recession is having an impact on business health as well as employee wellbeing, with this year’s survey showing a clear rise in presenteeism. The link between presenteeism and job insecurity is unsurprising.”

It seems that therefore employees are coming into work simply because they need the money and they cannot afford to take time off due to illness. In days gone by, coming into work when you were ill was usually a sign of commitment to the role, an act of organisational citizenship and was often admired by colleagues. These days there is a fear of being seen as uncommitted if you don’t come in, with the perception that you’re more likely to be made redundant if you’re not committed driving this rise in presenteeism.

So are these concerns about absence affecting redundancy selection founded in fact? Yes, they often are. When it comes to selecting who is to be made redundant businesses may look at absence rates as one of the selection criteria.

Coming into work when you’re ill can cause more problems than it solves

If you come into work with a cold or the flu then your colleagues are not going to thank you for spreading your germs around. There is also a productivity factor. How productive are you likely to be if you are under the weather? If you’re unable to concentrate what is the likelihood that you will make mistakes that require extra work to correct them later?

These situations can also lead to stress and stress-related absences, especially when employers are constantly striving to maximise the performance and productivity of their employees in the current economic climate.

This leaves many employers wondering how they can improve the performance of their staff without causing additional stress and making them feel like they have to come in when they are ill. After all, they don’t want all their team to go off sick as that would seriously impact on the performance and productivity of the team with colleagues trying to pick up the additional workload of those who were off ill.

There are no easy answers. Creating a less stressful environment and healthy employees requires a business culture that makes employees feel valued and not under threat. Staff recognition programmes can assist in making employees feel valued and employee benefit schemes have an impact on employee wellbeing through a range of flexible lifestyle benefits, but the culture required to change the atmosphere of a workplace needs to be driven by the business’ leadership team.

Your turn

Have you ever gone to work when you were ill? How did you feel? Would you do it again or do you think you would be better off to stay at home and get better? Have any of your colleagues come into work when they were ill? How did this make you feel?

Kuljit Kaur

Kuljit is responsible for business development at The Voucher Shop, a  division of p&mm ltd. Your one stop shop for corporate vouchers and gift cards for employee benefits, recognition or rewards. Connect with Kuljit on Google+

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It might seem a strange idea to start a business whilst in a recession but it can be great time to get going, assuming you have recognised a market need and you can fill it. But a recession isn’t only advantageous to start-up businesses but also to existing businesses, just look at Google, PayPal and Salesforce.com who have thrived.

So what is their secret? Aside from setting business objectives, knowing their customers and monitoring their competition, successful businesses are looking to make savings across their businesses functions. And they are managing to do this not by cutting back on service and quality but by outsourcing.

Outsourcing is a popular trend for forward-thinking businesses. It allows the business to remain flexible, cost-efficient and adaptable which increases the chances of the business surviving the recession. One area that is commonly outsourced is employee benefit programmes.

The benefits of outsourcing your employee benefit scheme

There are numerous advantages to outsourcing your employee benefits. The cost savings involved in outsourcing are usually cited as the main reason for doing so. Employing someone specifically to manage administrative tasks such as updating employee details and other repetitive tasks can be costly when you take into account expenses such as holiday pay, NICs or pension contributions. These tasks can be handled by providers who have processes and technology in place to be able to do these tasks much more efficiently.

Another benefit is the range of employee rewards an outsourced provider can offer. Flexible benefit schemes are becoming more and more prevalent as they allow your employees to choose those benefits that suit them. However these schemes, which often include salary sacrifice, can be complicated to manage. If you don’t have access to the skills needed put the right rewards in place then your employee benefits scheme may do more to harm employee engagement than encourage it.

Employee benefit providers can also deliver analysis and advice on the scheme. Using the scheme data, providers can use management reporting to analyse the data and spot trends. For example, if take up on a particular reward is low then it can be highlighted to the company and the two can work together to address the problem.

Outsourcing the right way

Of course there has been occasional negative publicity surrounding outsourcing employee benefits, but this has generally occurred because the business has had unrealistic expectations or the provider has failed to deliver on its promises.

This can be avoided by:

1. Monitoring the scheme closely. If you are promised cost savings, make sure your current costs are benchmarked beforehand so you can monitor the outsourced costs and keep track of any savings.
2. Considering what parts of your employee benefits scheme would benefit from being outsourced. Remember, you don’t have to outsource everything.
3. Ensuring that both your business and the outsourced provider have a clear understanding of your roles and responsibilities.

When it comes to outsourcing your employee benefits, remember there is not a one size fits all approach. Consider what fits your organisation, the number of staff and your business objectives, then choose a provider that matches your requirements.

Kuljit Kaur

Kuljit is responsible for business development at The Voucher Shop, a  division of p&mm ltd. Your one stop shop for corporate vouchers and gift cards for employee benefits, recognition or rewards. Connect with Kuljit on Google+

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Many small and medium sized businesses don’t think they have either the money or the time to implement a recognition scheme, but here are six ideas that you can implement, whatever the size of your business.

1. Reward loyalty

There’s no getting away from the fact that recent economic times have been tough. Your employees may have been through redundancy consultations or not had a bonus or salary increase for a couple of years. If they have shown loyalty to your company by not leaving then show your appreciation. Loyalty schemes no longer start with 20 years of service, depending on the industry you’re in and factors such as employee turnover, some schemes start rewarding loyalty at just three to five years.

2. Recognise results and behaviours

Create a culture of being recognised for the right thing rather than just staying an extra year to get a gold watch. If your employees have gone above the call of duty to solve a customer problem or have found an innovative way to improve processes/products then recognise those things. As an employer write down which behaviours would you like to see in your company and recognise those.

3. Link staff recognition rewards to company goals and values

Staff recognition programmes don’t just have to be about driving down costs or increasing revenue, although many a CEO/Manager focus on the bottom line. Forward thinking companies tie recognition programmes to their overall strategy, mission statement and values. This leads to recognition for high levels of customer service, teamwork and improvement in processes.

4. Implement a peer to peer employee recognition programme

Modern staff recognition programmes allow peer to peer recognition awards, and it is these type of award schemes that are highly regarded by employees. Why? Because employees love that their peers know what they are doing on a day to day basis and just how hard they work. This means that when they say, “thank you” it’s meant and it isn’t just ‘political’ recognition. These kind of schemes can be implemented by giving employees access to online systems that allow nominations to be submitted for on the spot recognition (in the form of a personalised thank you message) and submission further up the chain for approval to include an additional reward of a higher value.

5. Share recognition stories

Do you have a company newsletter, blog, intranet or notice board? If you do then share the news of those what have been recognised. By sharing their story, the who, how, what, why and when, you can use these case studies to create greater employee engagement and learning. The story may resonate with someone else who will then think, “I could do that/I could change that slightly so it improves my team’s work/customer service, etc.” It can also promote the behaviour and values that managers expect from their team.

6. Make it easy

Don’t put barriers in the way of a staff recognition scheme. There have been lots of technological changes in recent years that mean it’s easy to implement online systems, for example through an intranet, to make recognising an employee simple and easy. You can do it with just a couple of clicks. This also cuts down on the time taken to get nominations and process them.

Remember a recognition programme is designed to show appreciation to employees for what they have done – it’s about taking time to say thank you in a meaningful way.

Kuljit Kaur

Kuljit is responsible for business development at The Voucher Shop, a  division of p&mm ltd. Your one stop shop for corporate vouchers and gift cards for employee benefits, recognition or rewards. Connect with Kuljit on Google+

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In short, your boss enjoys his job more than you do.

Engagement was up in eight of the nine sectors measured, with “managers, executives and officials” showing the best increases: 10 percentage points between 2009 and 2012. On the other end, manufacturing and sales employees had five and six percent increases, respectively. Other professions reported only slightly greater engagement than in 2009.

Increases across the board are definitely a good thing, but even Gallup was somewhat puzzled by the dramatic difference between management and workforce.

“It is possible that, amid tough economic times, managers and executives are increasingly motivated to drive a sense of purpose in their organisations,“ they reasoned.

They also suggested that managers may be more optimistic about the recovering economy and enjoy a greater sense of control that those lower on the ladder.

Interestingly, the service industry showed something of a reversal. Years ago, they were the most engaged while now, it is the only sector surveyed where engagement fell.

“During the recession people were happy just to have a job,” remarked Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics. “Now, those that are most marketable are feeling more confident in their options.”

A National Employment Law Project report last year showed that post-recession job gains were primarily service industry jobs. Lower-wage occupations amounted to 21 percent of recession losses, but 58 percent of recovery growth. Between 2010 and 2012, 1.7 million jobs (43 percent of net employment growth) came in food service, retail and employment services sectors.

Because of this, there’s sort of a fear still lingering in the job market: Lower-level employees are pretty replaceable, and they know it. “There’s a lot of fear remaining,” Lister said.

“It is much easier to be engaged in a job that you expect to hold for the foreseeable future (than) a job that you could lose at any time,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Do you enjoy your job?

This article originally appeared on www.inquisitr.com

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