In recent times, the language of rewards and recognitions has acquired new idioms. HR managers are now slowly moving away from the routine reward programmes to a more comprehensive strategy that will engage, motivate and gratify their employees.
Companies now have a workforce that consists of Millennials, GenXers and Baby Boomers and managers need to make sure that employees across all generations are sufficiently gratified, engaged and motivated. Human resources is now breaking the routine of rewards and recognition being showered only on high performers and sterling achievers. Incentive programmes are now being redesigned around the employee life cycle. The employee life cycle starts from onboarding/induction and goes up to the time the employee retires/exits the company.
Apart from regular monthly/quarterly bonuses, the employee life cycle covers employee induction/ onboarding gifts, peer-to-peer rewards, gifts for personal occasions such as birthdays, weddings gifts, marriage anniversary gifts and gifts to new parents. Companies are also moving towards a more comprehensive system of rewarding employees with the gifts of experience.
Some of the elements of this new system are:
Peer-to-peer rewards
While managers may reward their employees during the annual appraisal and monthly and quarterly appraisals, peer-to-peer rewards and appreciation is something new.
According to a study by JetBlue, peer-to-peer recognition can up engagement by 2 % and increase employee retention by 3 % in an organisation. The main purpose of peer-to-peer recognition is to make appraisal less like a performance review and more like an expression of gratitude.
Onboarding gifts
Gifts given to new employees help improve their experience in the organisation from the first day. This will help boost their productivity and helps improve the culture of the company. Organisations are also giving away local experiences to employees who have moved cities to join the company.
This helps familiarise the employee with the city and makes them feel comfortable in their new surroundings.
For exiting employees
These employees are opinion leaders; as they leave the organisation they also take with them the opinion of how the company has treated them. A smooth exit process will always help the employee consider returning to the company in the future.
Service awards
These awards are designed specifically for employees who have served a tenure of 5, 10, 15 or more years at the organisation. With a multi-generational workforce and millennials constantly job-hopping, when an employee completes a long tenure with the company, it becomes a celebrated occasion
Personal gifts
More and more companies are now giving away gifts to employees on special occasions such as birthday, wedding, marriage anniversary and the birth of a child. To make the it memorable, managers are given employees the gift of experience rather than something material.
(Kushal Agarwal is co-founder, Xoxoday)
