Smart Onboarding Boosts Employee Engagement

By: Cord Himelstein, Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Michael C. Fina Recognition

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in some industries, the average job tenure has shrunk to little more than two years. Now more than ever, building relationships and introducing new employees to the company culture early on is critical to fostering long-term loyalty. The first days, weeks, and to a larger extent, the first year at a company is a crucial time when the employee decides if their new job is a good fit. That’s why 23 percent of new hires turnover before their first anniversary. Replacing them also costs between 16-20 percent of their salaries!

No matter the employee, everything must be done to make those first moments of connection rewarding and invigorating. Integrating employee recognition into onboarding creates great opportunities for companies to connect with and support employees as they adjust to the culture. Even though layering employee recognition efforts into onboarding efforts can boost early engagement, a recent Michael C. Fina Recognition survey of HR professionals showed that only 33 percent of organizations currently do so. For shame!

A commitment to recognizing workers prior to their first day, on their first day, and throughout the first year of employment can help accelerate cultural adoption and greatly increase the chances of them staying longer. These efforts need not break the bank either. Here are some of the most popular budget-minded ways organizations are helping new hires feel welcome:

Onboarding Kits: Offering a customized onboarding kit with a personalized gift—and making an employee’s first day a recognition event—can help a new hire get acclimated more quickly. This can be something as simple as a swag bag with a customized t-shirt and other personalized gifts, although some companies create an entire onboarding experience to introduce employees to company values, expectations, and the overall work journey.

First Day Festivities:  Many organizations celebrate employees on their first day with a special breakfast or lunch with coworkers. This is a great opportunity to make personal connections with peers—an important factor in retention. Also, making sure managers spend a good amount of time on the introduction process can ease any anxiety a new hire might have as well as speed up the acclimation process.

Extra Manager Involvement: Beyond introductions to the team, establishing a positive manager-to-direct-report relationship is a silver bullet for voluntary turnover. According to Gallup, only 1 in 5 employees say their performance is managed in a way that encourages them to do outstanding work. Setting regular progress meetings and having informal touch-base conversations help ensure the new hire knows someone is always available for consultation and support.

The onboarding phase has grown in importance over the last decade but with job tenures shrinking it is becoming mission-critical. Integrating recognition program strategy with the onboarding experience is the best way to encourage personal relationships, show new employees your commitment to their satisfaction, and start building loyalty and engagement from day one.

The Hidden Benefits of Giving Recognition Instead of Receiving It

By  Gary Beckstrand, Vice President at O.C. Tanner

The benefits of feeling appreciated and recognized at work are routinely examined in studies, but it’s not often that people examine how recognizing employees affects the giver. Is there more to be gained from recognition than just receiving it?

Recently, my company, O.C. Tanner, conducted a survey of more than 3,400 working professionals from countries around the world to explore how giving recognition in the workplace impacts the giver and, in turn, overall company culture—specifically from an employee’s perspective.

Millennials Love It

We found that employees who frequently give recognition feel more confident and are more driven and dedicated to the success of their organization. This is especially true of millennial workers. According to our survey, four out of five employees say that recognizing someone else¹s achievements makes them want to work harder, and millennials said this most often. Although it has been reported that millennials crave instant recognition for themselves, 85 percent of millennials also feed off of recognizing others.

Those Who Recognize Do Better Work 

What’s more, people who give recognition are more motivated in their jobs, are more confident in what they produce, and feel like they do better work. From our findings, 90 percent of employees who said they ‘always’ give recognition to employees feel that their work in the past 12 months has represented significant innovations when compared to the norm. The percentage goes down as frequency of giving goes down.

Still, People Are Hesitant 

Some people don’t give recognition because they don’t feel they’re in a position to do so in their office. The study also found that one in five employees don’t feel empowered to give recognition at work. Management can address this hesitation by promoting a culture that encourages recognition from every employee, regardless of position or tenure.

Although frontline employees may feel like it’s not their place to give recognition, it’s in an organization’s best interest to do what it can to dispel that perception. Encouraging cross-level recognition doesn’t require large expenditures—team members can simply tell their coworkers that they recognize and appreciate their work.

Promoting Giving 

Changing the focus from receiving to giving recognition may actually enhance employee engagement and an elevated workplace culture faster. Individuals are likely to have fewer opportunities to receive recognition than they do to give recognition. In other words, an employee does not have to wait to receive in order to gain all the benefits of recognition. It may indeed, be better to give than to receive.

The gains of giving recognition are clear, and organizations should reevaluate how they can better nurture a culture that fosters recognition, not just for the recipients’ sake, but also for those giving it.

Meaningful Technology

Empowering the emotional impact of employee recognition

By:  Jonathan McClellan, Employee Recognition Segment Director at Hallmark Business Connections

I think we can all agree that employee recognition plays a huge part in the ongoing success of today’s businesses. Engaging, connecting, and empathizing with your employees strengthens your relationship with them and helps create a work culture that fosters greater feelings of being valued, increased productivity, and enhanced performance for your entire organization. Simply put, by “telling them,” you create meaningful connections that deliver measurable results. But how can you maintain authentic, meaningful connections in your employee recognition program when you have 100, 1,000, or more employees? The answer is technology—technology that allows you to work in a meaningful, yet effective way.

Emotionally Impactful Enterprise Effectiveness

Efficiency in your business’ tools, procedures, methodologies, and processes are key to enterprise effectiveness for your business. And when it comes to employee recognition, it’s truly no different.

While face-to-face communication is the best way to recognize an employee achievement or milestone, turning to a technological solution doesn’t have to mean losing warmth or emotion. In fact, technology can make an enterprise-wide recognition program more authentic and meaningful while being efficient. To do this, it must deliver speed, service and scalability in the following ways:

Speed—the ability to recognize, react, and reinforce the employee behaviors and accomplishments that matter most, when they matter most. Speed in your recognition program shows that you care enough to make their moment a priority.

Service—Your technology solution’s ability to give the right people in your organization the right tools to grow the relationships that benefit your business. By empowering them with resources that give them real-time, reaction capability, they can respond on the fly and recognize on the go.

Scalability—An employee recognition solution must ideally offer a platform that is nimble and responsive to the changing needs of your business over time. The technology needs to provide the consistency, clarity, and control that make your job easier, your employees happier, and your bottom line the happiest.

A Note on Scalability

Why are consistency, clarity, and control so important to scalability in an enterprise-wide, recognition solution? Simple. They preserve the continuity, message, and security of your brand, mission, and vision.

In short, scalability ensures your employee recognition solution remains consistent across your organization in how it’s managed, used, and most importantly, received.

Scalability from a technology must offer clarity by providing the tracking, measurement, and reporting a business needs to gauge effective and efficient performance of the program.

Scalability helps preserve security when the technology actively administers and monitors a business’ rules, obligations, and checks and balances in order to maintain compliance.

Recognize the opportunity

Please don’t believe that a technology solution can effectively replace the ol’ face-to-face. It can’t and shouldn’t ever happen. People thrive on human interaction and always will. But, leveraging technology correctly can help your organization build and strengthen relationships when being together isn’t possible. Whether it’s because of a physical distance or a logistic issue, a technology employee recognition solution can fill the gap and ensure a special moment isn’t missed or delayed when it comes to recognizing and celebrating the employee responsible. “telling them,” says a lot about you. And when done in a timely, authentic and sincerely way, it helps your employees and your business thrive.

Jonathan McClellan leads the employee recognition business unit at Hallmark Business Connections, providing strategic leadership and employee enrichment solutions for Fortune 500 performance-centric businesses.