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Letting a co-worker know you appreciate them in a one-on-one conversation is one thing — but publicly acknowledging their contributions takes the impact of employee recognition to another level entirely. It’s no surprise that so many companies encourage this type of communal appreciation through the use of employee recognition boards. Increasingly digital spaces facilitated by dedicated employee recognition platforms, these boards can act as the heart of your organization, connecting team members and building a sense of camaraderie through shared moments of thanks.
Here you’ll find everything you need to start leveraging an employee recognition board at your company, from an overview of its benefits, to some key use cases, to incorporating both a recognition board and employee appreciation more generally into the fabric of your organizational culture.
What is an employee recognition board?
An employee recognition board is a physical or digital space where team members can publicly show their appreciation for one another. These boards feature personal stories, photos, certificates of accomplishment, and positive feedback from clients — everything that celebrates a personal milestone or professional achievement. The best recognition boards are public, situated in a place where everyone at the company can see and contribute to sharing praise. For in-person teams, this may mean a board in the breakroom or conference room, while remote or hybrid teams will benefit from a digital recognition board, ideally accessible through a mobile-friendly recognition platform.
The benefits of employee recognition boards
There are many benefits to an accessible employee recognition board, from improved talent acquisition to higher retention rates. The root cause of these achievements is a better organizational culture, one that focuses on community and creating a sense of belonging among team members. Let’s take a look at some of the ways recognition boards can support your organizational goals.
Talent acquisition
According to recent research, more than half of HR professionals struggle to recruit and retain talent. With so many companies out there, how will your organization differentiate itself? Creating a culture of recognition and appreciation is one of the best ways to attract top talent. An employee recognition board — and a wide-ranging employee recognition program — speaks to the value your organization puts on each team member by letting them know they and their contributions matter.
Engagement and retention
Recognition boards drive employee engagement by encouraging staff to contribute and thank their co-workers for all they do. They make workers feel seen for their hard work while facilitating more frequent recognition. This is strongly associated with higher engagement: employees recognized at least monthly report twice the engagement of those recognized on a quarterly basis or less.
Higher engagement leads to higher retention rates in turn. Employees who are disengaged turn over at rates 18% to 43% higher than their more engaged counterparts. Retaining your best talent is especially important when 41% of employees confess to being on the job hunt. A communal space for recognition can make all the difference: 72% of employees say that they’d stay longer at a job where they felt supported and valued, compared to only 30% who say they’d remain longer at a position that paid more.
Company culture and values
By encouraging employees to recognize one another publically, recognition boards foster a strong culture focused on inclusivity and appreciation. Whether your company values hard work, teamwork, community building, or all of the above, recognition boards reinforce those values by giving employees a space to call out positive behavior that contributes to business success. Public and inclusive recognition helps bake collaboration and belonging into your company culture.
Employee recognition board uses
An employee recognition board is a flexible tool that your company can use to facilitate many different types of appreciation. Here are just a few of the most impactful use cases.
Milestone celebrations
Celebrating professional milestones, like an employee’s anniversary with your organization, or personal occasions like birthdays, is a great use of employee recognition boards. Anniversaries and other key milestones are the times when recognition is most needed — and most missed if it isn’t given. Employee recognition boards let every team member contribute to making these milestones special and serve as reminders of these events and the accompanying recognition for years to come.
Collaboration station
The impact of creating an organizational culture that emphasizes collaboration can’t be understated. The highest performing team members do not succeed in a vacuum, and recognizing collaboration will continue to foster it among your team. Create a place where employees can celebrate the collaborative efforts of their team, whether that takes the form of a recognition wall in a conference room, a channel in a chat app, or a recognition platform accessible to your entire organization.
Recognizing professional development
Employees should have plenty of opportunities to learn new skills that help them advance in their careers while meeting the needs of your company. To demonstrate the importance of professional development at your organization, show appreciation to employees who have taken the time to attend training sessions, obtain a new certification, or develop the hard and soft skills they need to succeed in their role. Publicly recognizing these team members will inspire others to seek opportunities to expand their own skill sets.
How to get the most out of an employee recognition board
When done right, an employee recognition board can be a cornerstone of your organizational culture, serving as a modern public square where all of your team members’ achievements can be celebrated. First, decide if your company’s board will be physical or digital. If your team is largely on site, whiteboards, corkboards, or dedicated wall space can all act as serviceable in-office recognition boards. But if some or all of your team is remote — or if you’re looking for greater reach and interactivity than a physical board can offer — opt instead for a digital recognition board.
Your company can get started with recognizing employees digitally by giving employees shout outs using your existing communication tools, like Slack or Teams. Over time, however, messages sharing appreciation can easily get lost in the mix of daily chatter, and these tools lack dedicated features to boost the impact of each moment of recognition. That’s why your company should consider creating a unique space for employee recognition that guarantees every message of recognition is visible while making the recognition process simple and engaging.
You don’t need to start from scratch, though. Look for an employee recognition platform that provides a centralized place to provide and view messages of appreciation. It should be accessible across any mobile or desktop device and integrate with the tools your team already uses every day, so employees can seamlessly share recognition from within those apps. And your platform needs to keep recognition from becoming just another thing for employees to check off by mixing it up with fun images and GIFs along with millions of reward options available in a built-in marketplace.
Increase employee recognition with Achievers
Your organization can quickly start realizing the advantages of an employee recognition board with the Achievers Employee Experience Platform. This state-of-the-art employee experience solution includes all the features needed to build a sense of belonging through frequent, high-impact employee recognition. It offers support for communal recognition, best-in-class rewards, and measurable results. There’s a reason employees who use Achievers are 3.6 times more likely to provide recognition compared to its competitors.
See how Achievers can accelerate the impact of recognition at your company with a free demo.
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