The morning of Compt’s recent brand relaunch, our engineer Fran Calderon had one simple but non-desirable job:

Get online at 5 am to turn on the new site.

As someone who values their sleep, I did not envy Fran. But I did want to show that I (and the rest of our team!) really appreciated him going above and beyond to ensure a successful relaunch.

But I live in Connecticut, and Fran lives in Boston. So in addition to sending him a warm ‘thank you’ via Slack when I logged in, four hours past his new log-in time, I also sent him a monetary peer to peer reward, which covered a well-deserved gourmet coffee for him, as an example of employee recognition..

It was a simple thing to do to show Fran that I saw the hard work he put in, and I wanted to show him that I appreciate him.

And that’s the thing. Sure, a “thank you” or “great job” will suffice for simple tasks, but what about those employees who go above and beyond?

What about the massive accomplishments that deserve more than just a pat on the back?

To truly recognize and motivate employees, you need a comprehensive employee recognition program.

What is Employee Recognition?

Employee recognition is the act of showing appreciation for and acknowledging an employee’s contributions and achievements in a tangible way.

This can include:

• Verbal praise
• Award ceremonies
• Monetary rewards (e.g., a performance bonus, raise, or a spot bonus)
• Flexible schedules or extra time off
• Opportunities for career advancement
• Public recognition (through company newsletters or social media)
• Gifts
• Personalized notes of appreciation
• The list goes on!

The key is to make employees feel valued, appreciated, and motivated to continue performing at their best.

There are so many different ways to recognize employees, which is exactly why you need a strategic employee recognition program behind everything.

Most Employees go Unrecognized. And That’s a Problem.

According to research from Great Place to Work, roughly two-thirds (65%) of employees say they haven’t received any form of recognition from their employer within the last year.

McKinsey found that more than half of employees who left their job in the first six months of 2022 didn’t feel valued by their company (54%) or manager (52%), or they totally lacked a sense of belonging (51%)

But, as Harvard Business Review puts it, employees are 40% more engaged when their managers show appreciation for their work. And 65% of employees say peer recognition makes them feel more motivated to do their best.

Through recognizing team members, organizations achieve the following:

• Increase employee engagement
• Reinforce a positive company culture
• Build stronger connections between team members
• Improve trust between team members and managers
• Boost employee morale and productivity
• Reduce employee turnover rates
• Align team members with company goals and values
• Foster a sense of belonging and purpose within the organization

And for employers, it isn’t something that has to be hard or expensive to implement. Some companies go all out with their rewards and recognition, but it all starts with simple, thoughtful gestures of appreciation. And those are free to give.

What is a Recognition-Worthy Accomplishment?

To create a company culture that radiates positivity and recognition at its core, you have to do more than write “great job” in the company Slack. So how can you find key employee recognition examples at your company?

For starters, there are tons of accomplishments that are worthy of recognition — performance, goal attainment, attitude, and work ethic. The degree to which you recognize a team member’s accomplishment should reflect its impact on the company.

For example:

• Daily wins like a successful client meeting warrant verbal praise or a Slack shout-out.
• Bigger accomplishments, like crushing a quarterly sales goal as a team or launching a new product, could warrant a team outing or dinner.
• Continuous excellence and going above and beyond (think: always mentoring new team members) can be rewarded with more tangible forms of peer-to-peer recognition like a monetary bonus.

Plenty of companies also hold an annual event, where they formally celebrate employees for their contributions throughout the year.

9 Inspiring Employee Recognition Examples

While recognition efforts are most impactful when they happen organically, it’s up to you, the employer, to take the first step in creating a culture of appreciation. You have to provide them with the tools and resources that make recognition possible. And you have to lead by example — publicly recognizing employees and actively encouraging those behaviors.

Here are some of our favorite ways to incorporate recognition into everyday work with key employee recognition examples:

1. A dedicated Slack or Microsoft Teams channel

This is one of the best employee recognition examples because it’s incredibly easy to set up and get the entire team involved in. Plus, it’s inclusive of your team members who work remotely for part or all of the week. It works similarly in both Slack and Teams, where you can add a channel specifically for this purpose.

These channels are the place for a simple recognition message. Whenever a team member or manager wants to shout out a colleague for something, they simply share a message in the channel. That way, everyone can celebrate the accomplishment together.

For example, from an employee:

“Wanted to give a quick shoutout to @Sara for crushing that presentation this morning. Incredible job!”

Or from a manager:

“Guys, @Ethan is seriously rocking it this month. He’s already closed 5 deals and it’s only the 10th. Keep up the awesome work, Ethan!”

The best thing about a channel like this is that everyone can see it. When a few teammates participate, others will follow suit. So it’s the perfect way to get the ball rolling with a recogntion program.

To go even further, Compt integrates with Slack and Teams so any recognition given via the platform (whether monetary or not) can be shown immediately to the rest of the company.

Learn more about Compt’s integration with Slack and with Teams.

2. Employee Appreciation Day

The beautiful thing about employee recognition is that there are countless ways to do it. Choosing how to recognize doesn’t have to be challenging, yet some companies get overwhelmed and choose to do nothing, which isn’t great for morale.

Many companies will find a good ‘launch day’ for their recognition program, whether that’s at the start or the quarter or around the holidays, and broadcast employee recognition examples for people to mirror. One of the best pushes out there, though?

Each year, Employee Appreciation Day falls on the first Friday in March. That’s the perfect excuse to show your team members how much you value them.

Some employee recognition examples for Employee Appreciation Day:

• An office party
• A company-sponsored happy hour
• Picnic and games in the park
• An award show
• A night out with the team (e.g., concert, bowling, comedy show)
• Team retreats or adventures
• Small gifts or bonuses
• A half day for everyone

Whatever you end up doing, make sure to prepare thoughtful notes to go along with it. Execs, department heads, and managers should each take part in this. You’ll also want to feature a special message for your employees (along with a team photo and notable achievements that year) on your company blog and socials.

For a more in-depth look at how you can celebrate,check out our article on Employee Appreciation Day ideas.

3. Birthdays

Every team member has their special day once a year, and this is the perfect time to give them individual recognition. You don’t have to get too crazy about it, but a simple gesture like a card or lunch on the company goes a long way.

If you wanted to, though, there are tons of ways to celebrate employee birthdays as an example of employee recognition. One of our favorites is to set up a birthday stipend, which is a small cash bonus employees can use to treat themselves on their birthdays along with a birthday wish. For a budget, I’ve seen companies give anything from $25 to $100, with incredible utilization rates.

We love stipends because they’re flexible — employees can choose how they spend it instead of getting something they’ll never use.

And with Compt, they’re easy to offer. You can set them up during onboarding, and the system automatically applies them for you so you never miss a birthday. Plus, with Compt, your stipends work in the same platform as your other rewards and recognition efforts.

4. Special milestones

Aside from birthdays, there are plenty of milestones worth celebrating. A few of the most popular milestones that can be great employee recognition examples are:

• Successful onboarding completion
• Big employee and company anniversaries (5-year, 10-year)
• Promotions (make sure to celebrate twice — once when it’s announced and once in-person at the next team meeting)
• Top-performing months or quarters
• Other personal milestones (buying a new home, getting married, new baby, etc.)

Here’s an example of how Compt’s anniversary set up looks like for the administrator:

You can also use this as an opportunity to share some of that special employee’s accomplishments with the team. Depending on what systems you have set up, your employees could comment or react to the celebratory moment, too.

Think about the moments, little and big ones, that are worth celebrating that will put a smile on your employees’ faces. It’s gestures like this that show that companies are listening and caring about their people’s experiences in and outside of work that can lead to more examples of employee recognition.

5. Monetary peer-to-peer or leadership-led recognition

Peer-to-peer recognition is incredibly powerful. Because there are (obviously) more front line employees and non-managers, it’s an easy way to embed recognition throughout the organization, as more and more people have the opportunity to participate.

A peer bonus is a special type of spot bonus that’s given from one employee to another. They’re usually small amounts, and they’re a creative way to run peer-to-peer recognition at scale.

According to a recent report from Gallup only one in three U.S. workers strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days. Compt clients are bringing recognition to the forefront of workplace culture, with one of our clients seeing a 1200% increase in awards given YTD when compared to the previous year after implementing their Appreciation Award program with a low monetary amount.

Our client said,

The Awards are helping employees feel recognized in the smaller moments, rather than only when there is a bigger [CEO award] given out.

• Bank employees receiving peer recognition, where non-leaders receive $15 per quarter (senior leaders receive $60 per quarter) to recognize non-leadership employees.
• Varying levels of recognition, with a biotech company giving senior leaders $350 per quarter to recognize, and individual contributors receiving $50. People managers get a ‘People Manager WOW’ with $200 per quarter to recognize others based on behaviors linked to company’s guiding principles.
• One of my favorites: A ‘Surprise and Delight’ award for managers to deploy to others each quarter, from a marketing agency.

Recognition comes in all shapes and sizes (and budgets!). Other examples from our clients include:

Employers can also tie recognition to a specific company value that employees can choose when giving recognition. Here’s a look at what our own employees select from the Values menu with our personal Compt recognition program:

6. Employee shoutouts during all-hands meetings

When companies hold monthly town halls or all-hands meetings, they usually use it as an opportunity to announce big news and deliver updates from the month. Leaders should get in the habit of including employee recognition shoutouts as part of their updates.

Here are a few ways you can include them:

• Team-specific milestones. For example, “Congratulations to the Marketing team for achieving record-high website traffic this month!”
• Individual kudos. Personally name-drop high-performing and/or noteworthy employees, and explain to the rest of the company what they did to deserve the recognition.
• Birthday or anniversary acknowledgments. Take a moment during the meeting to recognize any birthdays or work anniversaries from the past month.

An easy way to incorporate this into your all-hands meetings is to have a designated slide or segment dedicated to it. You could call it something creative, like ‘The Kudos Corner,’ and open up a discussion for anyone who wants to nominate a colleague afterward.

We do this quarterly with our ‘Hellacompter’ award, given in our all-hands meeting. Each quarter, a person gets recognized by someone else on the team, and then they are the ones to ‘pass’ the award on the following quarter.

GE Healthcare is an example of a company that takes this to the next level. They hold their weekly Friday team meetings at their on-site restaurant (fancy, we know) to create a comfortable and casual atmosphere. Before, they prepare by mounting a dashboard on the wall highlighting employees and their specific performance/achievements.

During their monthly all-hands meetings, they spotlight standout employees by presenting “Six-Word Success Stories” — personal statements from employees describing what success means to them.

7. Social media mentions

Your company’s social media profiles are the place to recognize your team and employees for the public to see. LinkedIn should be your #1 priority, but lots of companies share to Instagram, Twitter (X), and Facebook as well.

There are tons of recognition opportunities here:

• Thoughtful team posts for Employee Appreciation Day
• Monthly employee spotlights for your Employee of the Month
• Posts highlighting your female team members on International Women’s Day
• Pride posts for LGBTQ+ team members during Pride Month
• #Workiversary and birthday shoutouts

Recently, we gave a special recognition to our engineer superstar Angela Zhu, whose other job is on Team USA on the Women’s Ultimate Frisbee team. It was a great moment to recognize a MASSIVE accomplishment!

Your team can repost these mentions. So, just like LinkedIn employee recognition messages, they can make them part of their own profiles by reposting it and then pinning that to their Featured posts.

8. A gamified employee recognition program

Top companies create structure around rewards and recognition by gamifying the employee experience. This means creating a system that offers points, badges, or some form of tokens or ‘currency’ your team can collect.

Employees earn points through peer/manager nominations, or by winning awards, participating in wellness activities, and reaching company milestones — whatever you want to incentivize and reinforce at your company. And they can redeem them for real-life rewards.

A few great examples:

• Typeform uses a system called “Typecoins,” where employees receive a monthly allowance of virtual coins that they can award to their peers as a form of recognition. They’re redeemable for cards, cash, and other rewards, fostering a culture of recognition and feedback within the workplace.
• Cisco has a program called “Connected Recognition,” where employees can earn significant rewards as their peers and managers nominate them for various achievements. This system is supported by a substantial budget, calculated as a percentage of the payroll, allowing for meaningful recognition across the organization.
• Merck uses a global recognition program called INSPIRE, which allows employees and leaders to celebrate each other through messages, points, and cash rewards. Since its inception, this program has facilitated over three million recognitions, illustrating its scale and impact.

9. Annual award shows and events

If you’ve seen The Office, you might remember “The Dundies” — an annual award show where the team recognizes their coworkers in a humorous and playful way. In order to maintain morale, everyone got one.

The Dundies were executed terribly, but the concept of the award show is one worth replicating. Hosting an annual award show, where employees are recognized for their achievements and special qualities, is a great way to boost employee engagement.

Some award categories you can consider:

• Rookie of the Year
• Team Player
• The Innovator
• MVP (this works best as a sales award)
• Office Hero
• Mentor of the Year
• Customer Service Award

The award show can be a formal dinner or happy hour event at a rented-out venue. At a lower cost, you could also have it in the office, with catered food and a fun dress code.

How to Drive Participation with Your Recognition Program

A recognition program is only good if people are using it, right? My suggestions here are to give out budgets at a set time so employees know when their ‘recognition pot’ renews, like at the start of the month.

Here are a few other ways to drive better participation:

• Have a strong communication plan when you roll out your new program so everyone knows what’s going on (and are excited about it!)
• Add your company values into the recognition options
• Keep up-to-date with how your recognition program is going through analytics. With Compt, our clients have access to real-time data to give you a look into trends of who is giving and receiving recognition.

The Best Employee Recognition Programs all have a few things in Common…

While many employee recognition programs are structured according to company values, culture, and unique branding/industry, there are a few things they all have in common:

• They incorporate a diverse range of monetary and non-monetary rewards.
• They’re timely and consistent.
• They celebrate both individual and team accomplishments.
• They include multiple forms of top-down and peer-to-peer recognition.
• They’re creative — through special titles, themed events, and storytelling, the company behind them uses the program to reinforce their brand values.

Above all, recognition is all about celebrating your people.

Showing employees that they’re being seen and celebrated for all the great work they’re doing (in and outside of work) is critical to keeping employees feeling more connected to the organization, ultimately bringing greater retention and a happier workforce.

Ready to start your own employee recognition program?

The rightemployee rewards and recognition software can make the headache of organizing a diverse recognition program infinitely easier.

Compt not only offers visibility and control over the type of recognition bonuses or non-monetary recognition but also keeps your reward program tax compliant. If you’re ready to kick off your own examples of employee recognition, we’re here to help.

Request a demo to see it in action.