So, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that we have a laundry list of questions that we get about employee recognition all the time.
It’s an occupational hazard of sorts TBH – as soon as someone hears that you operate in the achievement and awards space, they immediately want to pick your brain about how it all fits together. Happily, we don’t mind at all. Quite the contrary.
Although we are more than willing to keep answering all these questions in person at cocktail dos and industry soirees, we thought we’d pen down our go-to responses here as well, just for the sake of posterity. So, without further ado, here you go…
Seven FAQs about employee recognition, answered by the insightful (and rather delightful) bountiXP team:
1. Isn’t employee recognition expensive?
It doesn’t have to be. In the end, it all comes down to the platform you use. Ideally, you want to partner with a provider whose platform can be scaled to suit different needs and budgets. This flexibility of scale should apply as much to the number of users on the platform, as to the number, combination and configuration of applications in use.
As a client, you should have the freedom to configure the platform around the feature sets that best fit your objectives, and also add or subtract users in response to organisational growth or downsizing.
Read more: 9 Tips for picking the right employee recognition software for your business
2. Is employee recognition really worth the investment?
We understand that business is about getting results. It is however important to steer clear of the idea that engaging employees in the workplace is a ‘soft’ issue. It is a productivity issue that can directly affect your company’s bottom line, because organisations don’t get results – people do.
In the race for market share and competitive advantage, many organisations have already shifted their perception to see engagement as an operational imperative rather than a business function. These guys are out there looking for employee recognition and engagement solutions that will best fit their business models. Shouldn’t you be doing the same?
In the end, the formula for success is pretty straightforward. Engagement drives performance, and performance delivers results.
3. What types of rewards get the best results?
It all depends on the person being rewarded. This is why it is always best to make a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards available, and to offer the recipient the option of choosing their own reward when possible.
Your goal should be to reinforce the behaviours that drive organisational success with reward experiences that are meaningful, memorable and personal. This is why our platform in particular hosts a comprehensive range of employee-centric rewards that include digital vouchers, an awardscard® linked to Mastercard®, virtual cards, as well as experience and travel rewards.
4. How do you choose which behaviours to reward?
It all comes down to your business goals. The key to getting a greater return from people is to engage and motivate them more effectively. The bountiXP platform does so by linking employees’ actions with organisational goals and values. We call this dual-purpose recognition.
Each message of recognition created on the platform requires the employee to link it with a relevant strategic business goal or organisational value. These messages of recognition and appreciation for a job well done appear on the platform’s newsfeed, drawing people’s attention to the actions and behaviours that support the organisation’s strategy.
In short, goal-based and values-based recognition aligns strategy and culture for business success. As such, you should reward behaviours that are in line with what you hope to achieve as an organisation.
5. How do you measure the success of an employee recognition strategy?
The beauty of living in the 21st century is that we no longer have to guess at things like this. We use metrics! YAY for the power of data.
When you choose bountiXP as your SaaS-based platform, you can track performance and measure the success of your employee recognition initiatives 24/7. We combine in-depth programme knowledge with a data-driven approach to prove the connection between behaviour and business performance.
Drawing on hundreds of individual user data points, our platform generates easy-to-interpret people analytics and talent data, displayed in dashboard visualisations that help to enhance programme effectiveness. This includes aspects of programme activity like participant registration, usage and sign-in, social activity, recognition activity, and points activity.
6. Aren’t employee recognition platforms hard to roll out?
They don’t have to be. Although the traditional model of setting up a recognition and engagement programme can take anywhere between 6 and 12 weeks, with SaaS-based solutions like bountiXP the time to activation is significantly reduced. This is because its applications come ready-installed and configured. This ability to deploy quickly also brings down installation and administration costs.
So how quickly can it be deployed? Well, it depends on the level of customisation you require. If there are little to no tweaks to make, programmes can be live within hours. However, it does include a nifty programme design console that includes a suite of configurable set-up features and capabilities that enables clients to create a tailored solution around their specific programme objectives.
7. Who developed bountiXP?
bountiXP’s architecture, UI/UX and interactivity design is driven by a team of highly skilled designers, developers, data scientists and content creators, led by Managing Director, Dane Amyot.
As a seasoned business analyst, Dane brings a varied skill set to bountiXP, guiding the business in improving its software application suite and support services. Having led the project to design South Africa’s first, best-practice employee recognition programme guide, we are proud to say that our MD is now widely regarded as a thought leader in SaaS-based employee recognition and engagement product development.
There you have it – 7 employee recognition FAQs, asked and answered. Check back soon for more valuable insights from our passionate team of people-inspiration mongers.
In the meantime, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel where we share great videos that cover topics like the science of employee recognition, how to launch your employee recognition programme, what goes into creating a communication strategy, and more.