Do-it-yourself vs. Doing it right Fueling employee engagement with a social recognition and reward platform

2 DO-IT-YOURSELF VS. DOING IT RIGHT FUELING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT WITH A SOCIAL RECOGNITION AND REWARD PLATFORM

In an increasingly competitive and volatile marketplace, business is catching on to a new formula for success: Results and customer satisfaction are driven by having a highly engaged workforce. According to the Hay Group, companies with the most engaged employees report revenue growth at a rate two-and-a-half times greater than their competitors with the lowest level of engagement.

But it’s a strange new world. Employee engagement is the key to success, but most companies still lack on-the-ground programs to drive employee engagement and alignment.

The result of this oversight is disengagement, costing the US economy $450 to $550 billion per year in lost productivity.1 To complicate matters, increased competition means employees have increased options–in fact, half of employees plan to quit their jobs soon.2

Today’s workforce has a new set of expectations for compensation. Millennials have effectively rewritten the employee manifesto for every-one: it’s not just about the money, it’s also about being recognized for their contributions.3 It’s not surprising then that recognition ranks at the top of the list of employee engagement drivers.4

How can organizations leverage the connection between recognition and employee engagement? Research shows a social recognition and reward platform provides the best results as well as alleviates operational pains common to traditional “do-it-yourself” methods for administering company recognition and reward programs.

Do-it-yourself vs. Doing it right

While it’s common to outsource functions like payroll processing, many companies continue to build their own recognition and reward programs and maintain them in-house.

Simply maintaining the reward inventory can be taxing. Instead of value-add activities, administrators dedicate time to tracking, stocking, and managing physical reward inventory, not to mention worrying about how to keep items secured and safe.

Do-it-yourself (DIY) recognition programs exacerbate the issues of unequal access and recognition inconsistency. A social recognition and reward platform provides equal access along with full visibility and track-ing of program activity so gaps are easy to see and address.

Companies with the most engaged employees report revenue growth at 2.5x greater than their competitors.

1. Gallup. “State of the Global Workplace.” Gallup. 20132. Fenn, Donna. “A third of your employees want to quit. Here’s how to keep them” CBS Money Watch. 20 Mar. 2011. Web. 3. Frauenheim, Ed. “Motivating Millennials: It’s About Pay, a Fair Say, and Solid Management.” TLNT. 14 May 2014. Web. 4. Harvard Business Review. “The Impact of Employee Engagement on Performance.” HBR. 2013.

3 DO-IT-YOURSELF VS. DOING IT RIGHT FUELING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT WITH A SOCIAL RECOGNITION AND REWARD PLATFORM

DIY programs are typically tracked manually with little or no automation. Staff rely on Excel spreadsheets to track performance, which quickly becomes onerous. Tracking the various programs within an organization and monitoring the impact of the overall program is a huge administrative burden.

And, of course, it’s easy for DIY programs to lose momentum and flounder because competing priorities keep HR from spending the appropriate amount of time on managing the program.

Research from Bersin and Associates revealed that employees at organizations that were highly effective at integrating technology into recognition were three times more likely to be in the top quartile of business performance. This is because recognition technology can make recognition more accessible to employees, enables organizations to flex their recognition programs to fit different business units’ needs, and results in more frequent recognition.5

Consolidation, automation, integration

A social recognition and reward platform automates the manual processes associated with DIY programs. And consolidating all recognition initiatives in one system enables business alignment as well as budgetary synergies.

Capturing all of the important data necessary to monitor program effectiveness and budget usage is inherent in an enterprise solution. By providing visibility into program trends and metrics, the effort and guesswork are taken out of program administration, monitoring, and reporting.

Sharing the data with other systems is also automated: Payroll can receive full information on employee rewards directly from the platform.

5. Sherman Garr, Stacia. “The Employee Recognition Maturity Model: A Roadmap to Strategic Recognition.” Bersin by Deloitte. 2012.

4 DO-IT-YOURSELF VS. DOING IT RIGHT FUELING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT WITH A SOCIAL RECOGNITION AND REWARD PLATFORM

Recognition Professionals International (RPI) recommends allocating on average 3% of employee salaries to rewards as a best practice.

A recognition solution provider can help you make this process automated taking the guesswork out of budget-ing recognition. And the best providers can implement a successful solution for 1% of employee salary, or less.6

Effective budgeting

DIY employee recognition budgets are dispersed and discretionary: Managers use their corporate credit card and give out gift cards. HR and Finance have no insight into what is actually being spent. Budgeting and tracking is virtually non-existent.

Using a social recognition and reward platform, administrators have full visibility and self-service control over investment targets. Enterprise solutions can automate budgeting and tracking and allocate budgets based on permission levels like role or team. Additionally, real-time budget tracking makes it possible to have line of sight into program usage and ROI.

Recognition mix

It’s virtually impossible for a manually administered program to offer a full spectrum of recognition types and tools that would engage employees across different employee groups. The administrative load is just too heavy.

Combining consistency with variety is key to an effective program. An enterprise solution offers multiple recognition features to bring recognizing to life at all levels. It also enables the organization to find the optimal mix by combining online and offline recognition tools, social everyday recognition and points-based recognition, and formal award and milestone recognition programs.

Adoption is the acid test

Program adoption is the bellwether of success. High adoption equals high value and engagement impact. But what is high adoption? Average adoption around 80% indicates a robust solution, and reflects ease of use similar to today’s most popular applications. That means the employee experience is so intuitive that training requirements are negligible. These platforms are accessible to all employees and offer branding and communication tools and support to ensure effective roll-out, rapid adoption, and ongoing momentum.

6. WorldatWork. “Trends in Employee Recognition.” WorldatWork and ITA Group. June 2013.

5 DO-IT-YOURSELF VS. DOING IT RIGHT FUELING EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT WITH A SOCIAL RECOGNITION AND REWARD PLATFORM

Conclusion

With a social recognition and reward platform it’s possible to achieve both sustained increases in employee engagement as well as reduced administrative costs. An effective provider offers solutions that address and adapt to the unique needs of each business and culture. Selecting a fully-fledged social recognition and reward platform equips HR administrators with real-time reports, budget tracking, and a complete palette of features to choose from to see the most return on investment.

How every employee has embraced recognition at Ryan LLC

Just 23 years old, Ryan is an award-winning global tax firm. The company’s target is to be a billion dollar company by 2018. The key to their success is unwavering focus on total client satisfaction, which Ryan knows is driven by employees who are experiencing work (and life) success.

Recognizing employees is core to this philosophy and Ryan had developed an internally-run recognition program, with lackluster results. Ryan decided to partner with Achievers to deliver their recognition and reward program.

The Achievers Employee Success Platform has helped Ryan take recognition to a new level and it’s had a profound impact on the culture at Ryan. Their recognition program has taken off tremendously around the world: Every employee, every group, every function has embraced “Ryan Pride”.

Measuring how employees feel about the recognition they are being given has revealed a ten-point increase in satisfaction: the benchmark for recognition satisfaction was 83%, and now it stands at 90%. The only thing that’s changed: implementing Achievers.

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Learn how your company can change the way the world works at www.achievers.com

Achievers delivers an Employee Success Platform™ that enables social recognition, which dramatically increases

employee engagement and drives business success.