10 Amazing Employee Recognition Examples from HR Leaders

Employee rewards and recognition is a $45 billion dollar industry. And with companies like Google shelling out millions on employee awards and trips to Hawaii, even window shopping down recognition lane can be a stressful experience.

But great employee recognition doesn't have to include an expensive overhaul of your entire culture. And there's no need to wait until the "right time" to get started. These ten real-life stories and examples from actual managers, executives, and brilliant HR thinkers will show you just how simple and straightforward employee recognition can be.

10 Real-Life Employee Recognition Examples

#1 - Josh Bersin - Walking the Walk

One of Deloitte’s premier HR minds and one of the industry's leading voices, Josh Bersin definitely talks the talk. Among many other gems of HR wisdom, Josh tells us that, “[w]hen you recognize the right things in the right way, people work harder.”

But he also walks the walk. In 2012, Deloitte launched their employee recognition program using gratitude as a simple yet powerful foundation. And even in his article announcing the program, Josh gives thanks.“PS, I would like to thank Stacia Garr, our Principal Analyst in talent management, for this amazing work and all the value it will provide to our clients. We have already implemented many of the practices in this research in our company and the results have been fantastic.”

This example shows how a simple two-sentence P.S. at the end of a blog post can bridge the gap between a company's leaders and their employees, while showing a little love for the people who make it all possible.

#2 - Lars Schmidt - Taking it to Twitter

Lars Schmidt is the founder of Amplify Talent and HR Open Source. Lars is all about transformative hiring and spreading next-level HR knowledge. One day in 2014, he found himself in a reflective mood. So he sat in front of his twitter for nearly 20 hours, tweeting out kind words to friends, coworkers, and even strangers.

His 'Random Tweets of Kindness' went viral and #RTOK was soon trending on Twitter with over 4,000 tweets from 35 countries expressing love and appreciation for their friends and teams.

And while you might not be able to spend twenty hours tweeting, the fundamentals of Lars’s Twitter recognition spree can apply to any kind of recognition program. His tweets were powerful because they were public, openly accessible declarations of genuine praise — almost like a tiny heartfelt recommendation letter.

#3 - Laszlo Bock - Making Rewards Personal

Laszlo Bock is a big name in the HR world because of all the awesome work he did at Google—work that has inspired even more amazing HR policies at Google, and pretty much everywhere else.

In an interview with SHRM, Laszlo tells us what he learned while working under another legendary businessman, Jack Welch. Among other things, Laszlo learned, “how important it is to know your people” explaining that Jack spent half his time getting to know his workforce.

Laszlo points to how much better and more relevant an award can be when you actually know the person and what it is that they like. Laszlo makes a practice of personalizing employee recognition rewards as a way of showing, not only that you recognize an employee's awesome work, but also that you respect and celebrate their personal interests—an undeniable part of who they are on the whole.

#4 - David Novak - Getting Weirdly Specific

Like Laszlo, business author and former CEO of Yum! Brands, David Novak believes awards must be specific to the individual you're recognizing. Even if that means getting a little weird with it sometimes.

During David's tenure at Yum!, employees were given some pretty strange gifts, such as rubber chickens, cheese heads, and those crazy wind-up walking teeth toys (to show that the person walked the talk, get it?).

David not only took out-of-the-box employee recognition to a whole new level, he also personalized his awards to recognize employees in a way that never felt shallow or routine. And come on, there’s no doubt a rubber chicken is a way more memorable than a gold plaque.

#5 - Ally Bunin - Keeping it Human

Ally Bunin is as an HR expert and leader in the medical industry. Passionate about creating an awesome employee experience, one of the first things Ally did when she joined Brighton Health Plan Solutions was create an employee recognition program.

She used a points-based system with built-in peer-to-peer recognition where employees could redeem points for any reward of their choice. What's great about Ally's approach isn't just that it uses the same principles that make gamified perks and recognition a hit with employees, but that she kept the program human and authentic by giving a handwritten card along with each reward.

In these days of all tech all the time, Ally’s story rocks because it shows how to launch a recognition program that keeps those small touches that can make every award feel sincere, personal and undeniably human.

#6 - Marcus Buckingham - Accepting Your People for Who They Are

Marcus Buckingham is a world-renowned work researcher for Gallup and a best-selling author on HR and leadership. He can tell you plenty of stories that make a clear case against a one-size-fits-all approach to employee recognition.

Marcus uses one of his own coworkers, Larry, as an example. Larry is a pretty unempathetic manager and can be a bit too direct. And while most HR managers would rush to get Larry enrolled in some kind of EQ training program, Marcus says stressing out about an employees perceived 'weakness' is a waste of time and money.

The way for Gallup to get the most out of Larry — and for Larry to get the most out of Gallup — is to focus on the strengths that set Larry apart, namely his strategic thinking and confidence. By Gallup letting Larry be Larry, they also let everyone else know they're free to be themselves at work without being "punished" for it. Accepting your people for who they are makes the entire workplace feel more natural, without ever having to force it.

#7 - Ben Eubanks - Letting Everyone Chime In

Ben Eubanks is the cofounder of HR Revolution, a regular writer on all topics HR, and a BIG believer in innovation. In fact, Ben believes innovation is the master key to business success and when you read what he has to say about it, it's hard to disagree. But Ben also believes that innovation and recognition can easily go hand-in-hand.

In other words, to really recognize your employees, start by recognizing their innovations.

Ben shares one story that gets at the simple power of the suggestion box. In one of the companies where Ben worked, the employer actively encouraged employees to submit ideas well outside of the confines of their job. So one employee took the initiative and suggested they make one of their products open to licensing. That little folded up piece of paper in the suggestion box ended up being a “million dollar product line for the business.”

A truly epic employee recognition program lets the employee feel a sense of pride and ownership, and gives the business awesome new sources of revenue in the process. Talk about a win-win!

#8 - Tammy Bjelland - Using Your In-House Experts

Tammy Bjelland is an education and talent development expert and the founder of Learning In Bloom. Tammy suggests bringing your employees into the training process by having a top salesperson write the sales script for new hire onboarding. “That practice,” she writes for FitSmallBusiness, “fulfills two functions: recognizing the employee for their strengths and developing valuable assets to compile in a company-wide training program.”

Tammy’s example shows how recognition done right can often kill two birds with one stone.

It also shows how recognition can be a growth opportunity, both for the individual employee and the organization as a whole. By giving the top salesperson a small, non-intrusive training task, you might just open them up to other opportunities in the company later, like leadership or management.

#9 - Tawni Cranz - Recognizing the Struggles

If you’ve done your reading on company culture, you’ve heard all about the awesome perks and policies of working at Netflix. Tawni Cranz was the head of HR at Netflix from 2007 to 2017, where she helped come up with some of the companies best ideas, including the widely hailed unlimited parental leave.

Tawni recognized the difficulty new parents face and made sure work wouldn’t be one of them. Employees who have recently adopted or given birth can come back part-time, full-time work, and take time off as they need.

This policy is great because it recognizes an age-old struggle many employers still ignore, while extending an unparalleled level of trust and autonomy to Netflix's employees.

#10 - Lucy Adams - Respecting Each Other’s Humanity

Lucy Adams founded her own HR consultancy firm after slugging it out in the field and finding so much wrong with the way things were done. And one of Lucy’s biggest frustrations came from a blatant lack of humanity in the office.

Lucy shares two stories about humanity in the workplace, one good and one bad. In the good story, Adams witnessed a partner at a law firm spend his afternoon going desk to desk, after announcing their restructuring, to talk out frustrations directly with his people.

The bad one involved Lucy during her time working in HR at the BBC. Lucy received feedback that a company-wide email she sent out was “crap.” Rather than getting defensive, she tried to understand why she was getting this feedback. Lucy quickly realized that by the time her email had passed through all the different departments and compliance hurdles, any friendly, human language had been completely stripped out, leaving only stale corporate jargon. It was crap.

The workplace can sometimes leave little room for the basic humanity we should all be able to extend to each other. The stiff, overly formal nature of business can even commandeer the words we use to connect with each other. Whether it's binge-tweeting your love for your people, or simply saying "thank you" like you mean it, these real-life employee recognition examples are great because they show how simple employee recognition can be.

Employee Recognition: Here’s How Some of Our Favorite HR Experts Define It

Don't get us wrong, we love tech, but HR is overflowing with it.

With tools for everything from sending automated birthday GIFs to doling out points on a Slack scoreboard every time someone restocks the toilet paper—let's just say, it's easy to lose sight of why these tools exist in the first place.

So what is employee recognition, really? Here's how some of our favorite HR thought leaders define it.

Employee Recognition Is a Spark for Organizational Innovation

To Ben Eubanks, employee recognition is an essential driver of innovation.

The expert HR analyst and founder of upstartHR, explains that with the right approach to employee recognition, you can drive innovation across every department within the organization (not just the flashy R&D teams).

"It might not be your job as an HR leader to recognize employees, but it is your job to design/build the system that your employees and managers use. We know that recognition improves employee engagement, and innovation provides an opportunity to target those employees that are dreaming up new ideas and methods to improve the business."

By showing all your people that you value their input and ideas, you're opening up every system, process and product to new efficiencies that can take your organization to a whole other level. Here's Ben again:

"The outcomes for submitting ideas can be as simple as peer/social recognition or it could include financial incentives and rewards. Whatever the case, be sure to create a system and culture of recognition that makes employees want to find smarter ways to work. Don’t just attempt to motivate your people—inspire them."

An important piece of this is making sure you recognize employees by acting on their suggestions and ideas. Even if it's just on an experimental basis, showing your commitment to smart innovation will always take you farther than simply talking about it.

Employee Recognition Will Look a Little Different for Everyone

We love most things Kris Dunn has to say. The Kinetix CHRO and author of the HR Capitalist blog gave an epic shoutout to low-key recognition, using awesome examples of low-key ways to communicate your appreciation to employees who might not be comfortable with public recognition.

Kris points out that while we're used passing out awards and making big announcements in the white-collar world, this may not be the best approach for introverts or blue-collar workers.

"The broader point for any of us thinking about recognition is simple. To maximize your approach and the subsequent results, you’ll have to customize your recognition programs for different employee segments.Failure to consider when and how to recognize individual segments can and will be held against you in the court of employee sentiment. If you’re wondering why your managers don’t use the recognition tools you provide, it’s likely because you haven’t provided them with choices that work for the employee types they manage."

Employee recognition is an inherently personal thing. Set your managers up to win by taking the time to figure out what works best for each individual on the team.

Employee Recognition Happens in the Moment

One of our favorite stories of employee recognition in action, involves a manager and a millennial (obvious, right?).

Fistful of Talent author and former HR Manager Tim Sackett explains how, after conducting a performance review for a high-performing millennial, his executive sent a handwritten letter to the employee's parents thanking them for raising a rockstar.

Here's what happened next according to Tim:

"About a week later, I got a call from the front desk. It was the employee’s father, asking the front desk to talk to the executive and telling them they were the father of this employee. The front desk person called me, believing something bad must have happened, so I took the call.

I spoke with a man in his 50’s who had a hard time holding back tears of pride, thanking me (and our executive) for sharing such a wonderful story and how proud they were. The employee also came in to my office to thank me for doing this – believing I must have put the executive up to it (it’s an HR touchy-feely thing).

The employee said that they could never imagine a better place to work. A 3-minute hand written letter = powerful recognition and engagement."

How's that for appreciation?

At first glance, it's tempting to see this as just another story about performance strategies for millennials, but one of the most beautiful things about employee recognition is that a little truly goes a long way. Or as Tim says, "Employee recognition doesn’t have to be hard, or take a long time, or be a part of a process. It has to be genuine, in the moment and meaningful. Too many times we forget this on the organizational front."

Do You Need an Employee Recognition Program?

By now, we know there's a reason Oleg's post has 31,454 likes (at the time of writing this article). And we know it has nothing to do with star-studded perks and rewards programs.

But surely we can't just throw employee recognition to the wind and hope that it magically happens, right? Right.

Or at least, mostly right.

The problem is work gets in the way. We get caught up in the day-to-day and forget all about the people who make work happen.

According to research from management consulting firm Cicero Group, employees found that a simple "well done" was more effective for engagement than a 5% increase in salary.

Do you need really need an employee recognition program to make sure these simple words are being exchanged?

Yes, you probably do. But it's important to note that, at the end of the day, you can have the trendiest employee recognition program this side of Silicon valley, but it will mean zilch to your employees if you don't lead with integrity.

But if the research on employee recognition is to be believed, any effort you put into making your people feel appreciated will definitely come back to you in the form of hard returns for the business. If you're ready to do it right, there is a very solid business case to be made for employee recognition.

The Hard Benefits of Employee Recognition

We all love having something to look forward to and designing a program to reward and recognize your can definitely encourage the whole office to develop a deeper commitment to each other and the business.

Here's some math that makes a clear case for employee recognition:

• 69% of employees saying they would work harder if they felt their efforts were better recognized. — Harvard Business Review
• 58% of employees said managers and bosses could get more engagement out their employees by simply by offering more encouragement. — Psychometrics
• 88% of employees who received strong performance recognition were proactively innovating, compared to 46% of employees who received weak performance recognition. — Cicero
• Businesses with a "recognition-rich" culture have 31% less voluntary turnover. — Bersin

If that's not enough to convince your CEO it's time to invest in an employee recognition program, try this:

Companies who spend a minimum of 1% of payroll on recognition are 79% more likely to have better financial results.

Despite the massive market for employee incentivization, employee recognition programs don’t have to cripple your budget.

5 Easy (Yet Overlooked) Ways to Recognize Your Employees

Employee recognition programs are not what they used to be and as the experts note, real employee recognition has basically nothing to do with mass-manufactured trophies or bringing your pet to work, and everything to do with how you treat your people in the day-to-day.

Here are five simple ways to make your employees feel appreciated.

1. Say “Thanks”

According to Harvard Business School professor, Francesca Gino, “Receiving expressions of gratitude makes us feel a heightened sense of self-worth, and that in turn triggers other helpful behaviors toward both the person we are helping and other people, too.”

Francesca and Wharton professor Adam Grant measured a groups of students’ sense of self-worth after receiving feedback on performance. They found that 25% of the group that received just an acknowledgment felt higher levels of self-worth, compared with 55% of the group that received thanks.

Apparently, there's a pretty big difference between "Good job" and "Thanks for doing a good job."

2. Meet 1:1

The days of tenure-based recognition and employees of the month are long gone. Those methods just don't work on younger employees, especially considering how often they change roles.

As Gallup’s chief scientist Jim Harter puts it, "recognition is a short-term need that has to be satisfied on an ongoing basis -- weekly, maybe daily."

And nothing says you care more than taking time out of your hectic schedule for a set one-on-one. There are a number of reasons to meet privately with your employees. If you're looking for a little inspiration (or questions to get the convo started), start here with our post on 11 Types of Employee One-on-ones.

3. Encourage Peer-To-Peer Praise

We love managers, but sometimes their faces are just too close to the mirror to see what's really happening within the team.

Peers who work shoulder to shoulder on the business's frontline will always know when someone deserves a pat on the back. Peer-to-peer recognition can also help offset some of the rater effects that can skew a manager's perspective and contribute to a broader environment of support and recognition.

The best way to encourage peer-to-peer recognition is to simply lead by example. Don't be afraid to say something nice about a high-performing employee or manager, even if they're from a separate or "competing" department. You might be surprised at how quickly others follow suit.

4. Talk about What’s Next

According to Mercer, 78% of employees would stay with their current company if they knew there was a clear career path for advancement. In another survey, 53% of employees said respect for their knowledge and experience was their biggest expectation from management.

Performance reviews are the perfect opportunity to show your employees you appreciate their potential and you're ready to take advantage of it. Remember, recognition doesn't always have to be delivered in the form of a pay raise or promotion (though those things do help!)

What matters most is that you have a system in place to help them feel great by keeping that momentum toward the bigger picture.

5. Follow Up

If your employees are disgruntled and disengaged, it's usually due to a lack of follow-through on the part of the manager or exec team.

Any exec can call an employee into their office and ask for the next big idea, but not many can fearlessly hand over the trust, resources and autonomy it takes to let the employee run that idea past the finish line.

If you're committed to showing your employees you care, you must have a system in place for delivering and collecting feedback on both sides of the table, and actively follow up to measure your progress on shared goals.

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