What are the best practices for recognizing and rewarding high performance?

One practice I’ve found particularly useful in newer teams, is to encourage each team member to create a “read me” document or “working style summary” that includes how they like to be recognized, what’s important to them, what motivates them. This helps others learn and appreciate different styles and preferences and as a team, establish diverse, inclusive recognition habits.

What resonates with one may not with another. Variety Matters. This creates a more inclusive & engaging environment that resonates with all our top performers, fostering continued excellence. Meet Sarah & David, both outstanding members of our marketing team. Sarah is passionate about collecting badges & cherishes the visual representation of her accomplishments. She finds it highly motivating to earn badges for completing challenging projects or meeting targets. To acknowledge Sarah's achievements, the virtual badge system works. On the other hand, David is a more reserved team member who values personal interaction. A brief one-on-one chat between him & a member of the leadership team to express appreciation for his contributions works.

I believe one of the important practices to design something called business incentives and reward. This will be strong tool to recognize achievements, and how to reward this with linkage to the business needs and the company value. You have to show them how important their achievements, and how is the business will react about this.

In my experience, the power of unplanned and unanticipated recognition and rewards is immense. It extends its influence far beyond the individual employee, touching their families and stimulating loyalty to the organization. Moreover, it has a ripple effect by inspiring others to imitate the recognized employee's behavior, attitude, and actions that are desired by the organization. Understanding your employees on a personal level empowers your organization to select the type of recognition or reward that truly resonates with each individual. It's important to recognize that not all employees perceive recognition and rewards in the same manner, making personalized approaches key to creating a culture of appreciation and motivation.

To effectively acknowledge high performance, employ diverse recognition and reward strategies such as -Verbal Appreciation -Tangible Rewards -Professional Growth -Public Acknowledgment -Peer-to-Peer Recognition -Flexible Work Arrangements -Customized Rewards -Team Celebrations -Personalized Thank-You Notes -Special Projects -Leadership Opportunities By using a mix of recognition and reward methods, you cater to the diverse preferences and motivations of your team, ensuring that high performance is consistently acknowledged and encouraged as 'one size doesn't fit all'.

To be meaningful, recognition should be personalized and aligned with the recipient’s recognition preferences. For example, not everyone wants to be publicly recognized. Managers should take the time to understand what motivates and drives the people on their team so that they can recognize and reward them accordingly. Likewise, organizations can offer a variety of ways/channels for employees to recognize each other, to make it easier to personalize recognition.

A dedicated team lead, Ade recognized the importance of peer involvement in recognizing excellence. She decided to implement a peer recognition program to foster teamwork & celebrate outstanding contributions within her team. The Challenge: Recognizing Hidden Talents. Ade introduced the "Innovator of the Month" award, allowing team members to nominate their colleagues for exceptional contributions. The nominations included brief descriptions of the nominee's achievements & how they had positively impacted the team or project. After nominations, the entire team would vote to select the winner. The Results, A Culture of Appreciation & Collaboration. The peer recognition program brought about remarkable changes & became a cherished tradition.

Involving high performers in the process not only acknowledges their expertise but also reinforces a culture of peer-to-peer recognition and teamwork, fostering a more robust recognition and reward system.

Reward & Recognition is a strong tool to drive motivation to superior performance, creating a culture of "performance rewarding" is key for the success of any organization, be it extrinsic or intrinsic rewards, it should serve the ultimate goal of driving towards higher performance. However studies showed that organizations which focus on leveraging intrinsic motivation have a higher employees engagement level than those focusing on extrinsic motivation, concepts like: sense of meaningfulness, autonomy, sense of accomplishment are far more important than a monetary reward or a gift to increase motives for higher performance. A different angle to look at motivation

Celebrating and sharing success stories is not just about acknowledging individual achievements; it's about fostering a culture of continuous improvement, motivation, and engagement within the organization. It benefits both the employees and the overall health and reputation of the company. By celebrating and sharing success stories, you not only honor high performance but also inspire others and reinforce a culture of excellence within the organization.

I have always practiced and guided my stakeholders to celebrate successes with all team members. These big and small wins always boost the morale of the individual, team and everyone involved. Company's Slack/Team channels (or any other platform) is the simplest to share these success and makes the maximum impact.

Cultivate an environment where employees feel valued, heard, and respected by asking for input and recognizing great work. Prioritize appreciation, active listening, and respect by consistently seeking feedback and celebrating exceptional performance. Make this an ongoing leadership initiative.

Working on rewards without getting the basics right would be a futile exercise, as an HR consultancy we always advice clients to look into key HR practices that will make employees feel appreciated and taken care of, take a look at the list below: -Pay well -Strong mission: environmental or social cause -Give contracts at least a week before start -Obsess about the first impression (onboarding) -Managers to give weekly feedback on work performance -Know who is thriving and who is not in your team Thriving: promote, not thriving: counsel / terminate -Provide psychological support -Praise your entry level employees / sales / cs teams -Talk business to your employees -Build your company story with your employees -Make profit and share it

I believe one way to highlight performers is also to give them a platform where they can speak .so may be a meeting ..or a talk where they can just speak for a minute or so and share their achievement and how they did. The idea is to make them speak about it where they can affirm more positive words ..and that shall give them a high plus inspire others also

Always understand what's the purpose of the recognition the organization wants to introduce. What impact will the recognition plan have on the employees in scope? What might be the simplest and fastest way to recognize people? Your recognition plan could have different frequency for different sets of employees depending upon the job they do, their demography, their contribution and many such factors.

One of the best practices for recognizing and rewarding high performance is to avoid ‘CROWNED PRINCE SYNDROME’. This occurs when top management only considers those who have become visible to them and rather than looking at a wider group, top management focuses only ‘crowned prince’. This person(s) is often one who was networked well with organizational leaders. There are often capable employees throughout the organization who may be overlooked because of the more visible ‘crowned prince’. The potential outcome of this syndrome is not only performance problems but also the motivation of current employees may suffer if they feel that their high performance was overlooked.

Giving better merit hike in annual appraisal and promoting with additional responsibilities. Assigning business partnering projects will also provide opportunities to grow further.