Peer-To-Peer recognition at work can be a powerful tool for both encouraging behaviors that shape culture and identifying top performers or individuals with greater influence across an organization. On an individual level, getting recognition or feeling valued can make one feel more productive in their position.
In today’s world, every organization follows a culture of recognition. Employee recognition makes them feel motivated and accomplish their goals. Employee recognition is given by the top-level management to the employees of the organization.
Peer-to-peer recognition is when the employees show genuine commendation and appreciation for each other. Though, this method of recognition is not followed by every organization. But a lot of companies are adopting this culture of recognition after they get to know the benefits of the same.
Ways to promote peer recognition culture in your team
Peer recognition increases employee motivation and self-esteem, better collaboration, increased transparency, improved employee morale, decreased employee turnover, and a great team spirit.
Define Objective
Before you start, your objective should be clear and shared with all the management of the organization so that they see a clear picture of what they are going to do, how they are going to do it, and what will be the outcome of the program. Cost estimation is a very important aspect of recognition programs.
Build a team
You need to appoint a team to do the recognition program. The team will be responsible for creating activities that emphasize everyone’s contribution to the recognition and rewards. The team will be responsible for implementing, managing, and establishing a peer recognition program.
Characteristics of team members:
- Good knowledge of the program and its benefits
- Leadership qualities
- Have an interest in the program
- Following company values.
Define clear program criteria
Before implementing the program, there should be a criterion on the basis of which the recognition program is going to take place. This criterion should be clear, concise, and understandable. This should support the culture of peer recognition. The peer recognition criteria should be based on the following questions;
- What type of behavior of an employee should be awarded?
- How the said behaviors should be awarded?
- How often should employees be awarded?
- What platform should be used for team communication?
Share the idea with the employees
Make the employees aware of the program, how to use it, the benefits of the program, and encourage them to give their feedback and inputs. Draft ideas for creative employee recognition rewards and send the survey to the team and ask them to rank the options. This will help to create the most creative recognition rewards. It is authentic to share the idea with employees. They add up their own ideas and inputs into the program. Employees can best define what makes them motivated with the program.
Microbonuses
The micro bonuses can be given by leaders to the employees, employees to employees, and even from an executive to a manager. Peer recognition also supports the idea of giving micro bonuses from peer to peer in recognition of a great work or valuable contribution. You can give the micro bonuses at the very moment when a valuable contribution is made by the colleague.
Characteristics of recognition
There are a few characteristics of the recognition program that should be followed to make it more effective and attractive to the employees:
- Make it immediate
It is the key element of peer recognition that the recognition should be immediate. Because when the recognition gets delayed, the impact of the reward also gets denied.
- Authentic
Ensure that the recognition is genuine. It should not feel like it is another task for the employees that they just have to do to complete their to-do list. If this happens, then they will be unlikely to give sincere commendations.
- Specific
A generic recognition will not lift up the spirits of the employees. So the employees have to be specific while giving recognition to their colleagues. The specific commendations will spur peers to do even more and build a good culture in the team and company.
Exciting Activities to make recognition fun
Making it fun is the best way to help people quickly adopt the recognition culture. The employees will lose interest in the program if they don’t find it easy, fun, and exciting. The aim of the program should be to create a recognition experience that your team will love.
Measure the success of the Program
This is the last step while promoting the peer recognition culture. In the end, measure the metrics to know how much the program was effective. To measure the effectiveness of the program, these are the metrics you can follow;
- Number of peers recognition sent
- Number of active leaders
- Activation rate
- Up sticks
- Losses
The measurement of results helps you to analyze where the adjustments are needed in the program and how to make them implement.