Thanks to Cutting Edge PR for a terrific article on employee recognition. We’ve liberally borrowed from their prose here (but have given due credit) because a great idea for content creators and managers is to boost morale with employee recognition on digital signs.
Employee recognition is the timely, informal or formal acknowledgement of a person’s or team’s behavior, effort or business result that supports the organization’s goals and values, and which has clearly been beyond normal expectations. The key word here is timely, and digital signage is a timely messaging medium you can easily exploit for huge benefits in employee satisfaction.
The antiquated question is: “Why thank them when they’re just doing their job?” That attitude no longer cuts it in today’s competitive business environment. If you want to keep employees, and keep them happy on the job, recognition of their efforts is a must. This isn’t some touchy-feely HR initiative – this impacts your bottom line.
It doesn’t cost much to recognize someone, and with your digital signage system, it’s as simple as putting up a message to thank them or announce their accomplishments. Meta-analysis conducted by the Gallup Organization for 10,000 business units in 30 industries found the following benefits to successful employee recognition:
- Increased individual productivity – the act of recognizing desired behavior increases the repetition of the desired behavior, and therefore productivity. This is classic behavioral psychology. The reinforced behavior supports the organization’s mission and key performance indicator.
- Greater employee satisfaction and enjoyment of work – more time spent focusing on the job and less time complaining.
- Direct performance feedback for individuals and teams is provided.
- Higher loyalty and satisfaction scores from customers.
- Teamwork between employees is enhanced.
- Retention of quality employees increases – lower employee turnover.
- Better safety records and fewer accidents on the job.
- Lower negative effects such as absenteeism and stress.
The costs of not effectively recognizing employees can be a disengaged workforce with high workplace injuries, illnesses, turnover, absences and fraud.
Your recognition program can be as complex as a formalized process that includes gifts, intranet posts, and plaques on the wall. Or, it can be as simple as designing a digital signage message thanking someone for their work on the new phone system.
If you could guarantee that five minutes of work on your part would make a coworker happier today, you’d do it, wouldn’t you? So, go ahead, recognize someone on your digital signs.