August 22, 2016

Prepping for Holiday Season Employee Recognition

Sure, the weather is still warm and sunny but before you know it, the holiday season will be here in all of its winter wonderland glory. As a business owner, you have a million things to organize for the holiday season, from client gifts to end-of-year accounting tasks. With your yuletide to-do list longer than Santa’s, prepping for holiday season employee recognition is an important undertaking that should be a top priority for any and every business.

Pick a Theme

How are you going to recognize employees during the holiday season? Are you going to give out Christmas-themed awards at a holiday party? Maybe you want to celebrate your staff with an end-of-the-year event where you review all of their 2016 accomplishments. Determine how you will recognize employees during the holiday season with the input of the human resources department and managers.

Choose Employees

Now comes the toughest part: selecting the employees you want to recognize. First, if you own a small business, you might want to consider recognizing everyone. This is a great opportunity to think of funny awards you can bestow upon each staff member that are unique and demonstrate your familiarity with each person individually.

For bigger companies, recognizing everyone individually might be too time-consuming and actually work against your efforts to boost morale. Instead, large businesses should work with team leaders to select the top performers to acknowledge.

For bigger companies, recognizing everyone individually might be too time-consuming and actually work against your efforts to boost morale.

Set a Budget

“A recent survey by WorldatWork indicates that organizations are budgeting an average of 2 percent of payroll for recognition programs” Tina Weede, CRP, vice president of Recognition Professionals International, wrote in a 2013 article. “The real answer is, however, that there is no budget too small.” Whatever your budget is, whether it’s under $50 or a few thousand dollars, will be more than enough to show your staff how much you appreciate all of their hard work and long hours of dedication.

Find creative ways to use your budget that most effectively demonstrate the company’s appreciation to these employees.

Delegate Tasks

Regardless of business size, organizing a holiday season employee recognition program is a massive undertaking. Opting to take on this project by yourself will likely result in there being no holiday season recognition for employees because it’s too much for one person to handle on their own. Work with the human resources staff and management to determine the most efficient way to execute your holiday season employee recognition program so the responsibility isn’t solely yours.