Effective employee recognition is timely and meaningful, says Tommy Lee Hayes-Brown, AIC, a certified recognition professional and member of the Multicultural Sales & Service Team with MetLife Auto & Home, a division of Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Local Control a Key
Each MetLife office is given a recognition budget and the discretion to decide who will be recognized and how, according to Hayes-Brown. "It's all left to the individual office," he says, adding that they did not want a "big mandate" from corporate.
Employee involvement in the recognition process is critical, he says. It has to be driven by the employees and modeled by the leaders. "Then you know it becomes part of your culture."
Three Tiers of Recognition
Following the "rebirth" of its employee recognition programs 6 years ago, with help from Recognition Professionals International (RPI), MetLife Auto & Home started offering three tiers of employee recognition:
1. Day-to-Day Recognition
"The day-to-day recognition is probably the most important," says Hayes-Brown. "It allows you to give employees constant feedback and encourage them to repeat that behavior."
Day-to-day recognition includes a pat on the back for a job well done, leaving a thank-you note on an associate's desk, or giving someone a roll of Life Savers candy for helping out and being a "life saver," he says.
Employees also can nominate a co-worker for recognition on a third-party vendor website, where they can describe what the associate did and identify a category the behavior falls into, he says.
The categories are tied to the company's core values. For example, this year's categories are innovation, learning, caring, and collaboration, Hayes-Brown says.
Local recognition committees—made up of local peers—review the nominations from the vendor website and decide the level of award. Employees selected for an award are directed to a website where they have access to a certain level of merchandise from which to choose.
2. Informal Recognition
This type of recognition includes celebrations of service milestones as well as team-oriented accomplishments. Associates and management determine what accomplishments are worthy of celebration and plan appropriate activities.
The type of activity varies widely, and has included themed parties, managers washing associates' cars, and the entire office participating in volunteer work together, he says.
3. Formal Recognition
Toward the end of each year, the company accepts nominations for formal recognition. Again, employees nominate on the vendor website.
A corporate recognition team, with representatives from every division, reviews the nominations and picks "the best of the best," Hayes-Brown says. Only about 2 percent to 5 percent of the employee population is selected.
Those employees are invited to a gathering where they meet the company president, attend "elegant dinners," and participate in teambuilding activities and focus groups, he says. "Not only are they recognized for what they did back home, but they are asked to help us move forward."
When employees are recognized and feel valued, "It creates a better working environment, which then creates a better customer experience, which creates more opportunities for us in the marketplace."
Hayes-Brown's Tips for Recognition Success
Here are a few tips to help strengthen employee recognition programs:
- Be Strategic. Reinforce employees for behaviors that are consistent with your core values, your goals, and/or your mission statement.
- Get Employees Involved In the Recognition Process. "It shouldn't be an HR program, nor should it be a management program," he says. "Everybody should own it. Everybody should have a piece of it. That's how you build it into your culture."
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