28 January, 2021

Using Nominations to Boost Holistic Recognition

The process of inviting nominations is a formal, time-tested method to recognize employee contributions and reward top-performers. Typically, firms encourage nominations for outstanding achievements which result in awards for employee of the month, quarter or year. Nominations in recognition programs serve as a signal to employees across levels on the kind of behaviors and organizational alignment that the executive management of a firm is looking for. Having a well-structured nominations module integrated with your total rewards program comes with significant advantages:

360 Degree Evaluation:

Nominations can be top-down, bottom-up or peer-based. Earlier, corporations would allow for only senior management or higher-ups to be the jury for employee awards, which would give a very unidimensional view of performance. Performance analytics and workforce insight tools today can help define KPIs and measure team or individual effort, which can weigh in as a deciding factor for nominations. Additionally, nominations from peers, subordinates and self can give a 360-degree view of an employee’s contributions to a workplace.

Increases Trust in the Rewards Process:

By leveraging the power of nominations, the entire total rewards process in an organization becomes increasingly transparent. Employees and executives are able to view (if allowed) nominees and winners at each level of the process. This boosts trust in the firm for rewarding employees on merit alone and not on any preset relationships. Moreover, it also makes managers more wary about continuously nominating their ‘favorites’, thus making them aware of their own subconscious biases.

Gamification of Rewards:

For firms that choose to incorporate an automated nominations process, workflow rules can be enabled that allow for gamification in rewards. For example, in sales teams, all those who achieve 120% of their monthly target qualify to get nominated for the ‘Salesperson of the Month’ award. By incorporating these rules at an initial stage, employees are more motivated to excel and make it to the list of top performers.

Improves Managerial Feedback:

Employee awards that need monthly/quarterly nominations force managers and leaders to keep an eye out for good work, thus ensuring that they observe team members keenly to justify their nominations. Through keen observation, managers often make it a habit to evaluate employee’s performances more regularly and can then give more timely and relevant feedback.

Improves Retention:

According to Deloitte, organizations with rewards and recognition programs have a 31% lower voluntary turnover. This comes down to the fact that all employees and particularly millennials crave to be noticed for their work done. Organization-driven recognitions through manager nominations can be effective in making employees feel appreciated and hence more loyal towards their employer.

Accelerates Adoption of any R&R platform:

Features like notifications can serve as reminders for timely nomination submissions and chat-based nominations can enable employees to nominate their colleagues on-the-go, ensuring high participation and validity for recognition programs.

Encourages Favorable Behaviors:

HR personnel should be able to configure new award categories and event-based awards in an R&R platform on their own and make changes when necessary. This includes nomination categories that can spread across CSR contributions, teamwork initiatives, punctuality etc. By configuring nominations, an HR team can build and convey the ethos of an organization.

Oftentimes, high-performers who are introverts or executives in backend or support functions don’t get the same attention that star sales executives of a firm do, for example. This leads the former group to feel like their work is not respected or valued, ultimately leading to disengagement. Nominations can help bring the spotlight to such ‘unsung heroes’ thus encouraging a wider range of talent to compete for employee awards. Self-nominations also encourage employees to take pride in and highlight their work irrespective of their position within the firm. Well-structured award nominations driven through a technology platform result in a measurable, 360-degree approach to recognition. This creates a merit-based culture within the firm, wherein everyone has an equal chance to work hard and emerge to the top.