Most recognition providers offer the same system, where employees get points to hand out to colleagues.
Here’s are just a few reasons point systems fall short:
The value of points is often unclear with hidden markups
Giving small amounts of points can devalue recognition
Deciding how much to give can cause some to abandon
Recognition is capped when employees run out of points
You can’t print points out, so some people will be excluded
People game the system and just exchange points with friends
It can take a long time to save enough points to redeem for something, which disconnects the reward from the behaviour
Now, points could work for your company if all your employees are tech savvy and you have a significant recognition budget (at least $10/employee per month on top of additional budgets for milestones, managers to do spot awards, and subscription fees).
But there's a better way that provides a way bigger impact for your investment.
Here's how to run an impactful non-monetary recognition program:
Allow all employees to shoutout/nominate their colleagues, with no restrictions.
Set some core values in the system so each recognition is tied to a core value.
Run weekly draws for prizes, and surface the winners at team meetings. Ask the sender to provide context on why they sent the recognition. You can provide prizes for the senders and recipients. This helps to highlight some the great work happening and encourage more participation on a regular cadence.
Share leaderboards at month end during team meeting, and reward the top 3 senders and recipients. Actually open some of their shoutouts, and ask them to read a few out in public.
Use the data (along with input from managers) to provide a quarterly award for each core value. Share a story about each winner with the organization, to celebrate them and reinforce the core values.
Use all the left over budget to provide managers with funds to reward their teams in a consistent and meaningful way. This will help them be better managers by giving them the space to also provide constructive feedback when needed.
Another benefit to the Guusto system, is that it provides the option for managers to shoutout/nominate employees on behalf of others. So if someone is tech adverse, they can simply request their manager to make a shoutout for them. The goal here is to ensure your recognition program is inclusive with no one is left out.
Contact us anytime if we can be of any further help.