12 Oct 2021

What does the future of work look like and how will this influence reward and recognition?

We have seen a dramatic shift in the way we work in recent years. Businesses have shown that it’s possible for their people to successfully work from home while maintaining morale and output, highlighting the importance of digital solutions. We also continue to see a shift in priorities from employees as the world of work develops and the needs and wants of generations shift over time. As a result, it’s vital that employers reward their people in a meaningful way that will make them feel valued.

Broaden your horizons

Length of employee service, retirement commendations, and outperforming company benchmarks are often the pillars of recognition for organisations, but these fail to celebrate the ongoing hard work of employees in their day-to-day activities and many successes can go unnoticed.

Aligning recognition with company values, innovation of processes and systems, knowledge sharing, effective collaboration and team victories provides much greater opportunity for employees in more static roles to be rewarded, especially when there is a limited outline of what is considered going above and beyond, such as being recognised for customer service’s high satisfaction rate.

Engage leadership

When leaders are engaged in initiatives employee engagement is greater and management can operate more effectively. In a 2016 Gallup survey, it was found that recognition has a greater effect when coming from management and leaders, especially when done frequently and within reasonable time. By assigning regular opportunities to recognise employees, which can include official forms of recognition or smaller and informal variations, this can become part of your workplace culture.

Having leadership engaged with a reward strategy will also allow them to hold management accountable. For example, ensuring management raise at least a certain number of nominations during a time frame, which can be measured via reporting. When recognition is a staple part of the culture of your workplace and workforce it can be a fantastic way to entice new talent and retain existing employees by increasing their job satisfaction.

Maintain communication

To ensure your strategy is successful it’s vital to keep two-way communication going. Regular communication from leadership will help to maintain employee engagement and keep them informed of how they can participate, but this will not provide success alone, it’s also essential to maintain an understanding of the needs of your workforce.

By getting regular feedback from your employees you can identify the key issues that matter to them and create meaningful initiatives and rewards. For example, following the changes brought about by Covid-19, it’s likely that employees will have a greater focus on their financial wellbeing as they adjust to new ways of working and living, and solutions for these concerns can easily link with reward and recognition.

In the CIPD/Simplyhealth Health and Wellbeing at Work Report (2021), 57% of organisations reported that they don’t have a financial strategy that considers the needs of different employee groups. However, by using employee feedback it’s possible to align these strategies to support each other and ensure your people resonate with them.

What next?

As work continues to evolve it’s essential employers adapt their reward strategies to ensure they’re meeting the changing needs of their employees. No one-size-fits-all solution will provide the answer that best suits your business, so maintaining communication is vital, whilst using leadership to bolster engagement and holding management accountable.

Looking for inspiration?

You can keep up-to-date with the world of health and wellbeing in the workplace by visiting our Insights Hub; which is designed to inform and inspire all organisations. Explore a wide range of resources such as research and how-to-guides, and hear from industry experts and partners.

This article is provided by Simplyhealth.