You Don’t Need to Break the Bank to Implement Memorable Employee Recognition Rituals

What do you do when budgets are tight and you need to find impactful ways to recognize employees?

💰Think beyond expensive gifting platforms and monetary rewards.

🔨Use the tools you have to celebrate learning, connections, and success.

🏆Focus on how teams can use their wins to help others.

The activities featured here enable teams to create ongoing recognition rituals for themselves. Each includes a value it encompasses, insights on when it works well, and how to execute it with the tools you have.

Photo/Screenshot Montage Video

Value: Celebrating Shared Success

When it works well: At the end of a quarter, after a big product release, or to promote a large-scale initiative

How to do it: Create a fun video with pictures, screenshots, and project info from your target audience. This can be as small as an individual team or as large as a whole department, or even the whole company. Ask team members to nominate others’ accomplishments and send them in. Then organize it in a presentation tool and record it as a video. Choose a live event such as a town hall meeting to showcase it, or send it out via an audience-wide email or chat message.

Tools used:

• Screenshot capture tool
• PowerPoint or other slide building tool
• Survey tool to collect photos and other collateral
• Project examples — demo slides/screenshots
• Feedback snippets from team members
• Video conferencing software or email/chat tool to showcase the video

Superlatives/”Academy Awards”

Value: Maximizing Individual Strengths

When it works well: When you need to build trust in teams who will be working together long-term

How to do it: Choose relevant categories for your audience. Have people nominate other team members like superlatives. Host an awards ceremony to announce the winners. Encourage winners to give short acceptance speeches in exchange for a digital reward. Winners can place their badge on their LinkedIn profile, portfolio, or company bio.

Tools used:

• Survey tool to collect nominations
• PowerPoint or other slide tool for showcasing nominees and winners
• Video conferencing software for acceptance speeches
• Canva for creating digital certificates or badges

#recognize Channel

Value: Demonstrating Public Recognition

When it works well: Keep the channel open so colleagues can post at their own discretion on an ongoing basis. Choose a few days that align with your company’s internal goals to highlight the channel and boost posts.

How to do it: Create a chat channel where employees can write in recognition posts and tag the people in them. This practice prompts others to react, comment, and share stories and feedback. Your company’s mission, goals, and values can spark themed posts throughout the year. Use them to strengthen your internal employer branding.

Tools used:

• Company chat tool, social feed, or intranet page

Virtual Scavenger Hunt

Value: Expanding Institutional Knowledge

When it works well: Introduce new internal tools and systems. Onboard new hires to increase their familiarity with available resources. Highlight subject matter experts across the business.

How to do it: Use your intranet or knowledge management tool to highlight people and projects. Have employees complete a scavenger hunt or quiz. Choose questions to highlight resources or tools you want them to be familiar with. Reward the highest score with a prize. Consider an unexpected reward, such as a coaching engagement with a senior leader they look up to.

Tools used:

• Intranet or other company knowledge management tools to pull content from
• Survey or quiz tool to collect responses
• Reward mechanism for the winner — using tools you have

Skills & Expertise Network

Value: Creating Trusted Subject Matter Expert Partnerships

When it works well: Grow the network on an ongoing basis. Encourage new hires to add their skills. Remind current employees to search for others who have the knowledge they need.

How to do it: Create a skills and expertise dashboard. Employees can write about topics they identify themselves as an expert in. Colleagues can endorse them via reactions or comments. They can search for help and reach out to create peer relationships for areas they want to know more about. Employees can update their skills or add new ones over time as they continue to learn and grow.

Tools used:

• Intranet page, collaboration document, searchable channel, or skills feature on your employee directory

Sharing Wins with Creativity

Value: Promoting Collective Resiliency

When it works well: Celebrate a milestone or the end of a long, challenging project or initiative. Look for stretches with a lot of change management or roadblocks.

How to do it: Feature creative ways to express recent wins while blowing off steam. Write poems, short stories, mad libs, quotes, and comics. Then share them on a digital whiteboard or document. Set some ground rules to keep the submissions work appropriate without stifling authenticity. It may seem silly at first, but it’s also rewarding to share successes in a fun, “I know what you’re feeling” way. Sometimes laughing in the face of a challenge makes you remember why it’s worth it to keep going.

Tools used:

• Digital whiteboard, intranet page, collaboration document, design tool, or chat channel

The six value-based ideas here are by no means the only ways to achieve your recognition goals.

For low-budget, high impact ways to recognize employees, ask yourself:

• Which value am I trying to highlight?
• What circumstances are prompting this recognition cycle?
• Which tools do I have available?
• How can employees be part of the recognition process?

What other ideas do you have to recognize employees in ways that matter to them?

The inspiration for this article came from a peer question in the L&D Collective Slack community. Sign up here to join the community and expand your L&D network. The community is free to join for L&D professionals.

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