Encourage collaboration and teamwork with a recognition program that is effective and enjoyable!
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Transform your workplace and start building a culture of recognition with these actionable employee engagement tips and insights.
As people leaders, managers, and employees, we spend a significant amount of time talking about workplace feedback. Most organizations have formal review cycles that ensure individuals receive the information they need to grow and develop in their careers on an annual or bi-annual basis. This feedback is often oriented around an employee’s strengths and areas of opportunity. While these feedback cycles are incredibly essential to build a structure around career development, it’s the micro messages and nudges provided to employees daily that significantly impact performance through reinforcing positive behavior. These frequent reminders signal to employees what actions are valued within the organization and significantly impact overall performance. This is where meaningful recognition, broken down as in-the-moment and deliberate celebrations of positive behavior, takes center stage.
Meaningful recognition requires us to be deliberate about naming a specific behavior, outlining the impact of the behavior, and sharing the big picture of why the impact matters. The cycle we fall into is recognizing exceptional work with a “thank you.”
Have you ever put exceptional effort into a thoughtful presentation, dedicated extra time to help a colleague, or went above and beyond to complete a project, after hours, on a Friday night, all to receive a colleague’s well-intended “thank you!” but still felt unappreciated? The same holds true with our frequent notes of “great job!” and “way to go!” The intent to recognize another is there, but we miss out on creating meaningful recognition that holds far more power and generates a longer-term impact for both the individual being recognized and their team. When we recognize the hard work of others with intentionality, we acknowledge its significance and validity.
Saying “thank you” is polite but not enough to create purposeful change in behavior and establish an individual understanding of why the behavior is important. While including a “thank you” is important, it does not provide feedback that people can use. Meaningful recognition should aim to be performance-driven and outline the same level of thoughtful detail as developmental feedback. When managers give the context of what the person did to warrant recognition, they help their employees frame why their behavior matters and ultimately develop the muscle to repeat strong behavior. This enables managers to process what effective behavior looks like on your team and how you can best coach your team to perform similarly in the future.
The best part about meaningful recognition is how we have all we need to put our intent into action once we’re aware of how to give it. Recognize your employees and colleagues in-the-moment, and soon after they do something great. This motivates people to keep doing those actions or tasks.
Consider the questions below as a framework for giving meaningful recognition:
We can start with our initial intent to share a “thank you” or “great job” and expand our thoughts to make our recognition more meaningful. Thank you for what? What actions made this a great job?
“Thank you for working late last Friday. I understand the number of competing demands our team faced, and you stepped up to deliver the project before the weekend. The extra time you took to update our systems on Friday will enable us to smoothly onboard four new hires on Monday and set them up for a successful first week. You embodied our value of leading with excellence.”
“Great job on the sales pitch on Tuesday. It was clear that you spent much time crafting your narrative and story. Your delivery was engaging and articulate, enabling you to connect with our clients, which ultimately helped us close the deal. Way to live out or value to think big and take intelligent risks.”
When we are pulled in multiple directions, it’s easy to think we’re the best version of ourselves by remembering to recognize others with our gratitude. If we want to lead from the front and reinforce habits that stick, let’s do better. Regular positive reinforcement that outlines why employees are being recognized reminds them of the type of behavior that is valued by the company and drives business objectives. This encourages the behaviors that cause the most significant impact on the organization. When meaningful recognition is shared publicly, it spreads awareness across the company about the most impactful contributions.
Providing meaningful recognition requires intentionality. Platforms like Assembly facilitate this type of meaningful recognition. Assembly is an employee engagement platform that empowers individuals with a convenient tool to create a culture of meaningful recognition. Teammates can recognize each other on the platform with personalized notes about the specific behavior, its impact, why it is important, and the bigger picture. Employees can celebrate one another, earn badges, redeem culture awards, and collecting points to be redeemed or donated. With Assembly, employees can learn from others by publicly seeing the behaviors recognized throughout the organization and what it means to live out the organization’s core values.
About the Author: Marissa Morrison – She is the former Head of People at Factual, Inc. before it was acquired by Foursquare where she is now Senior Director, Human Resources. Marissa also serves as Assembly's advisor where she provides guidance on narrative, product development, and much more!
Get the foundational knowledge on creating an employee recognition program that boosts employee engagement and helps them feel valued.
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Yes, at Assembly, security is a top priority. Each quarter, we have ongoing security work that is everyone’s responsibility. While we maintain a strong security posture, it was important for us to prove to our customers that we do everything we claim to do. This led us to pursue a SOC 2 Type II report that would provide evidence of our compliance with industry gold-standard security practice.
There is study after study showing that employee recognition leads to increased engagement. This in return creates an environment where employees are happier and more motivated which increase productivity and reduces voluntary turnover significantly. In order to filled critical roles, companies tend to spend nearly twice the value of an annual salary. Assembly is an investment in your employees that supports your bottom line.
Yes, we will offer contracts for companies with longer-term agreements to help larger customers have more certainty around future costs.
The minimum agreement term is a 12-month subscription.
We do and for FREE! Any new customer needing further support to get started with Assembly to ensure you're set up for success can request custom onboarding support. Improving your employee experience is about much more than just using our amazing software; it’s about transforming your business to create a workplace that people love. That’s much easier to do with the personal support and advice from our passionate people experts.
At the time of redemption (when your employees exchange their points for a paid reward) you'll pay face value. If a reward is a $10 Amazon gift card, your cost will be $10. All paid rewards are billed for on a monthly basis.
The good news is that you don't have to pay for rewards upfront because we only charge you when points are redeemed, not when they're earned.
We offer discounts or educational or charitable organizations. In order to secure a discount, you'll first need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
For all other organizations, we are willing to consider longer-term agreements in exchange for discounts. To set up annual plans or longer, you will need to book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a month to month plan, you can go here and cancel anytime. If you're having concerns or need help setting up your account for success, you can always book a demo with a customer support specialist.
If you're on a longer-term custom plan, you'll need to reach out to your customer support specialist to cancel your account or email us at support@joinassembly.com.
Great question! You can customize your core values to match your organization's to boost and track alignment. You can change your currency from the 🏆 emoji (our default) to any emoji of your choice. You can swap our logo for your own. You can also set up company culture rewards such as, "Lunch with the CEO," "Buy a book on us," and so much more!
While we recommend a peer to peer set up where anyone in your organization can give or receive recognition, you can set up Assembly however you want. If you need to limit the people who can give or receive recognition, that's perfectly fine and can be done from your Admin, here.
Assembly connects to the tools your employees use every day to offer an easy, seamless experience with minimal change management.
Assembly has integrations with HCM/HRIS systems like ADP, Google, Office 365, and Slack. We also integrate with communication tools like Slack and Teams so you and your employees can access Assembly wherever they work now.
That depends on the company's permissions set up. That said, over 90% of the employees on Assembly's platform are recognized on a monthly basis. That means nearly every employee across all of our customers are receiving regular recognition from their peers, managers, or leadership. We're extremely proud of this.
They are not required. You can use Assembly without having rewards set up. However, we don't recommend it if you intend to have a high adoption and usage rate. You can always keep the costs down by offering internal culture rewards that are fulfilled by you internally.
No, you can remove allowances from anyone or everyone. It's up to you but we do recommend using points whether they're worth a real dollar value or not. Companies that use points have a much higher engagement rate even if those points don't exchange for real dollars.
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