Learn why the Employee of the Month award no longer works and explore practical alternatives for recognizing and rewarding employees in the modern workplace. Unravel why the Employee of the Month award doesn’t inspire and motivate employees. Read now for effective awards to boost employee engagement.
The ‘Employee of the Month’ award is a popular and traditional way for companies to recognise outstanding performance and effort by their employees. Though it is a way old tradition, many organisations continue to use it as part of their engagement strategy. For those who may not know, ‘Employee Of the Month’ award is given to employees who perform above and beyond their peers. The purpose of this recognition is to highlight high performers and encourage other team members. The practice continues to remain popular in the retail and fast-food retail sector. But does this age-old practice still work?
In reality, there may be a number of reasons why your ‘Employee Of The Month Award’ fails to provide the results you expected.
Here's Why 'Employee of the Month' Isn't Working Anymore
1. It is outdated for today’s workforce
As we all know, the practice of declaring ‘Employee Of the Month’ is a very old one and has been around for more than 40 years. Maybe it worked previously but today’s workforce is different. Preferences of employees change and things that fascinated people in the past, may not drive them now. Similarly, many employees (especially those that don’t win) may not find ‘Employee of the month’ award that attractive.
2. It is not a team recognition
In a corporation, it is a team which works together to achieve goals and milestones. Recognising a single individual for the same can backfire. Rather than inspiring others, it is demotivating for the ones who do not get recognition. For instance, if we take the example of the fast-food retail sector. In a services and customer oriented business, it is all about creating a better customer experience. Creating or enhancing the customer experience is a team work, and one person cannot get reward for the same.
3. Limited reach and impact
There are only 12 months in a year, and you can only reward 12 people with the ‘Employee Of the Month’ award in a year. Sometimes, people get the reward again and again which further creates more challenges. HRs would want an employee engagement strategy where they can motivate a larger scale of workforce. It gets very important to use other employee engagement tools coupled with the ‘Employee of The Month’ award to create a larger impact. For instance, digital R&R platform like the AdvantageClub.ai, comes with wide range of options and features which help your workforce to stay engaged and motivated. Apart from recognizing individual brilliance, employees can appreciate one another through appreciative badges and personalized notes. Such small gestures also make a great impact. Apart from that, managers and leaders in the organization can have team rewards through points.
4. Measure of performance and biases
When an ‘Employee Of the Month’ is announced, people generally do not know how the performance is being measured. People are not aware of the skills or behaviours which lead to this recognition. That is why people do not get inspired and attracted to this recognition. Moreover, in a team, more often, there are only a few who are capable of getting recognised as the ‘Employee Of The Month’ and the winners get repeated. To others, it is seems like an act of biases by the managers.
5. You may lose the best performer
The challenging concept of ‘Employee Of The Month’ award forces managers to choose different employees for the recognition to keep criticism away. But the previous winners may still keep performing at par and may lose out on the opportunity to get recognition for this same reason. So, instead of motivating, it can demotivate the best performer and he/she might leave. So, there is a very good chance of losing out a best performer.
6. It creates a tense environment amongst team members
The ‘Employee Of The Month’ award aims to inspire people, but instead it can create an unhealthy competition amongst employees. In lieu of recognition, people might only run behind the benefits of receiving this recognition. Just like the ranking practice in the traditional bell curve system of performance measurement, it disturbs the bond between team members and can negatively affect the company’s culture. At the end, employees will just end up competing amongst each other.
Employers might have to adopt new ways of recognising employees. HR professionals can look at tools such as instant recognition tools, peer to peer recognition programs. Or they can go for the ‘most collaborating team of the month’ award. Such concepts might be better effective and do the job for you.
7. ‘Employee Of The Month’ recognition fails to translate as appreciation
8. It can lead to employee burnout
What is the alternative?
‘Okay, so ‘Employee of The Month’ may not work for us. So what do we do to keep our employees happy and motivated?’ When the world is moving towards new ways to recognize their employees, why not you?
Many organizations are digitalizing their R&R (Rewards and Recognition) programs. We at AdvantageClub.ai enable organizations to Recognize, Reward and Appreciate their employees in multiple ways.
Monetary rewards
To formally recognize an employee’s good work, managers can give away points to their employees. In turn, employees can spend or redeem these points on the AdvantageClub.ai platform on more than 10,000 partnered brands and products.
Non-Monetary rewards
Peers can also appreciate each other through non-monetary badges coupled with customized notes. For instance, a programmer fixes a vital bug in the system in a record time putting in extra hours since it was something urgent, the project manager can send a badge like ‘The saviour’ to the employee. Moreover, this can also be seen by other employees on the buzz section. It creates a much bigger impact as such efforts often go unnoticed. Technology enable companies to fill such gaps in their existing R&R program.
Companies can look to incorporate both monetary recognition and non-monetary appreciation to keep their R&R program balanced. Digital R&R programs allow companies to run dynamic benefits programs to motivate employees intrinsically and extrinsically. Archaic ways of recognizing employees will not give satisfactory outcomes to organizations.
It is time to rejig the existing R&R programs and leverage technology for better results.
