What are employee of the month awards?
Employee of the month is a recognition program designed to highlight one exceptional employee each month. The main purpose is to recognize top performers, but it’s also designed to help with employee retention and morale. After developing ideas for employee of the month, the company typically sets employee of the month criteria, and supervisors or managers help choose a team member who meets that criteria.
Usually, this entails some sort of formal recognition, such as:
- An official certificate
- Photos in a public area of the workplace
- Company-wide email announcements
Some companies also provide a prize, such as:
- A cash bonus
- A gift certificate
- Additional paid time off
Related: Sample of Appreciation Letters: Templates and Examples
Limitations of employee of the month
Despite the popularity, employee of the month ideas can come up short if your goal is to help retain employees and improve employee satisfaction. Consider these downsides to this type of recognition program before implementing it in your workplace:
Confuses employees
In most cases, the employee of the month criteria isn’t made clear to the employees or the managers selecting the winners. With little guidance or understanding as to what earns recognition, employees may feel the entire program is a popularity contest rather than a true evaluation of outstanding work or performance.
Breeds competition
In some cases, peer-to-peer competition can be a great motivator. When used consistently month after month, however, it can break down relationships. Since employee of the month recognizes only one individual, it’s naturally competitive. While a little competition can be good, excessive competition can reach an unhealthy level.
Disallows multiple winners
On rare occasions, some companies may choose two employees of the month, but usually, there’s a single winner each month. This system makes it challenging to recognize groups or teams who perform well on a project together and all deserve recognition.
Limits productivity
Depending on the culture of the company, the desire to win employee of the month could actually decrease productivity. With no clear guidelines for what garners recognition, employees might assume the best way to win is to spend time and energy catering to the manager or management team making the decision rather than focusing on their work.
Discourages employees
Since the company only recognizes one employee a month, only 12 employees receive public praise annually. In a company that has more than 12 people, that leaves many individuals discouraged, and it could negatively impact morale.
Reduces recognition
Some managers feel that by recognizing an employee of the month, they don’t need to do any other employee recognition or team morale building. That leaves a lot of people without positive feedback from month to month and year to year.
Focuses on popularity
In some organizations, certain employees are more visible than others. Those employees tend to win recognition awards such as employee of the month simply because their job provides them the opportunity to interact with the right people. Other staff members could misread this as winning the employee of the month award due to popularity rather than performance.
Other ways to recognize employees
Even though the typical ideas for employee of the month come up short, recognizing and publicly appreciating your employees is an absolute necessity for a positive company culture and high employee morale. Consider these alternatives to an employee of the month program when looking for ways to improve employee recognition:
1. Reward values
Have a few gifts on hand to pass out to those who regularly exemplify a particular core company value. For example, if there’s a person who helps their peers with projects or tasks outside of their normal scope, reward them with a backpack full of goodies for having their colleagues’ backs. You can give these out at random intervals to promote teamwork, collaboration or any other values your company celebrates.
2. Take them to lunch
Take individual employees or teams out to lunch after an extensive project or after accomplishing a major achievement. As with any recognition, ensure the reason for going to lunch is clear to the team you’re rewarding and to all members of the company.
3. Auction off actions
To celebrate the entire company for their hard work, hold an auction in which managers auction off acts of service. Provide your employees with play money from a board game and have them bid on leadership-provided acts of service such as cooking a meal or washing a car. Or skip the auction and just have the managers do something nice for their team like grilling lunch for everyone.
4. Provide a buffet
Thank a team or department for their success by providing a buffet lunch in the office for them. You can also do this as a company morale-boosting exercise by giving all employees lunch on a certain day.
5. Hand out company swag
Order shirts, hats, umbrellas, coffee mugs and other apparel and accessories with your company’s name and logo. Pass these out as low-level prizes for great ideas during meetings, staying a few minutes late to finish up a customer phone call or to recognize other minor acts of hard work.
6. Say thank you
Regularly call employees into your office to thank them in person for the work they do for your company. In most cases, you shouldn’t need a specific event or accomplishment to trigger the thank you—simply providing gratitude to your employees who perform well every day will encourage them to continue doing so.
7. Write a letter
Similar to saying thank you, you can write your employees thank you letters to express your gratitude for their contributions to the organization. Thank you letters are meaningful for employees because they’re a physical token they can keep and revisit when they need additional motivation.
8. Offer time off
Another way to provide a frequent and low-cost reward to employees is to offer small chunks of time off. For example, if an employee receives a stellar compliment from a customer, give them a certificate for 15 minutes of paid time off. Once they acquire four certificates, they can use that hour to go home early, come in late or save up for vacation.
9. Promote peer-to-peer recognition
Create a public area where employees can recognize one another for their accomplishments. This could be a bulletin board where team members write the name of an employee and their accomplishment on a notecard. It could also be a box in which employees submit recognition and a manager pulls a few every week to honor the recipients with a small prize.
10. Share daily or weekly wins
Send a daily or weekly email to the company detailing a few accomplishments from the workday or workweek. These can be small work achievements and personal victories worthy of recognition. For example, you might share that human resources revamped the time off procedure to make it easier for all employees and the marketing team ran in a group 5K race over the weekend to build camaraderie.
Related: How to Motivate Your Employees
Frequently asked questions
How should I decide what type of recognition to use?
Evaluate your current employee of the month ideas and methods of employee recognition to determine how well they’re working. Getting feedback from your employees can also help—a recognition program is only effective if it’s motivating to your team. Your budget can also help you decide if you plan to reward your employees with gifts. Having a mix of informal recognition methods, such as a verbal thank you, and a more structured program with rewards offers more thorough recognition.
Should I end our employee of the month program now?
Employee of the month programs are rarely the best way to honor your employees. However, if your employee of the month program is thriving, there’s no need to end it. Ask your staff how they feel about the current program and what they would like to see change. Consider a few alternative approaches to ensure your employees feel regularly appreciated on the job if your current program isn’t working.
How do recognition programs motivate employees?
Employees feel valued when their managers notice their hard work or celebrate their milestones. It encourages them to continue whatever they’re doing and can motivate their colleagues to do the same to also get recognition. When you recognize an employee, ensure you explain why they’ve earned that recognition. This will help others see what actions and attributes garner attention and encourage them to improve their performance.
