Reward and recognition: Five steps to success

It’s a well-known statistic in employee engagement circles that a happy and engaged workforce is 21% more productive. But with the challenges 2020 has brought: remote working, disparate teams and increased pressures matching the rising levels of uncertainty, how can we effectively – and authentically – recognise and reward the extra efforts employees have made this year?

Here’s our formula for reward success…  

1. Start with WHY

Your reward offer shouldn’t be about ‘perks’ and one-off treats. Sure, that might come into it – but it’s not WHY you’re doing what you’re doing. Your strategic reward offer should be aligned to your mission, vision and values. It’s the foundation of your Employer Value Proposition (EVP) and should speak directly to the type of employee you want to attract and retain.

Think of it as ‘the deal’. If you come and work with us and share your skills, talent and experience then this is what you’ll get in return. It’s essential to make sure your policies and processes enable this, too. No-one likes making promises they can’t keep. 

2. Invest in insight

HR zone make a strong case for this: “HR analytics can close this gap between research and practice by making the link between benefits and the reward and organisational strategy more clear.” One of the most effective ways businesses can make sure they get ROI on their reward investment is to base their decisions on data. It’s here that you’ll uncover the insight needed to really understand your workforce and what motivates them.

A recent report from Aon shows how much the digital age has increased the value we place on benefits. Think about the total reward package. It’s not just pay and bonuses that employees value. Uncovering some golden nuggets of insight like this will really help you take action that your employees will truly appreciate. Taking the time to segment your workforce in this way means you’ll get a much more personalised approach that is more likely to land well with your employees – not to mention boost engagement and productivity.  

3. Talk about it

With a whopping 41% of businesses not regularly communicating with their employees on the benefits available to them, that’s an investment that employees don’t know about. No one wins. To really make your investment work for you, you need to talk, communicate, engage with your employees on your EVP. What’s the deal? What do they get when they choose to work with you? What do they need to give in return? Something as simple as a seasonal calendar of activity can work really well here. Not only will it give you something to hook on to but it also builds a regular rhythm of activity that employees will become familiar with.

The best way to engage your employees in this conversation is to make it fun. We loved working with Arval on this and got employees really engaged in The Journey Makers.  

4. Take advantage of tech

It won’t surprise you to hear that 77% of all digital minutes are now spent on mobile. We’ve all become accustomed to the simplicity of being able to shop online, stream music and manage our bank accounts through an app on our phone. Shouldn’t it be this easy to access employee benefits too?

The easier you can make it for your employees to access the benefits on offer, the greater return you’ll see. Something like Reward Gateway’s employee engagement platform SmartHub could work for you.

5. Meaningful measurement

Proving the ROI of your investment can be a tricky thing to do, especially when there are so many contributing factors. But without proving its value how can you justify the investment? And how will you know that you’ve achieved what you set out to do?

We’re putting in all the hard graft and making it easy for you. We’ve got a unique, made-to-measure (pun intended) tool that will plug in all of your internal communications and engagement data and give you a measure of success back. Check out our Make Measurement Meaningful approach, or contact our Employee Engagement expert, Lucy McKerron for more information.

If you only remember one thing…

Think of reward as a strategic tool that can help you attract and retain the best talent out there giving you an edge on your competitors. If you follow our top five tips, you’ll reap the reward.

How can McCann Synergy help?

Luckily, the Strategy team here at McCann Synergy are dab hands at helping our clients turn data into insight and using this insight to inform reward strategy. Here are some ways we can help:

• Walking in their shoes’ – in our hands-on immersion programmes we roll-up our sleeves and spend time with your employees to uncover rich insights that lead to strategic recommendations
• Employee workshops – immersive, fun, creative workshops tailored to understand employees’ attitudes, views and motivations to reward
• Employee segmentation – demographic and attitudinal segmentation, creation of employee personas and recommendations on the best ways to engage with employee clusters
• Internal communication audits – a deep dive into your existing communications, with a focus on ensuring you’re using the right channels and content to reach your internal audiences
• Talent mapping and people analytics – our data analysts will take a deep dive into your employee data, market data and key trends to help you identify and engage with employees
• Leading-edge psychology – from identifying what makes your people tick, getting inside leaders’ heads, assessing and selecting talent, to helping retain your highest performers, our behavioural psychology team applies the very best methods and techniques to ensure insight delivers results

Get in touch via hello@mccannsynergy.com – we’d love to help with your plans for reward and recognition in 2020, and beyond.