82% of employees are happier when recognised at work. And we know happy teams create happy businesses. Whilst many employers think they have an effective strategy in place, many are missing the mark by overlooking the crucial elements behind what truly empowers their people – 44% of employees left their last role due to feeling inadequately valued. As experts in all things recognition, here we highlight the 8 must-have elements behind a world-class employee recognition programme to truly maximise and unleash your people power.

1. Make it accessible. To be truly inclusive in its impact, your employee recognition programme must be mobile-accessible to reach deskless and frontline teams, as well as remote employees. Enter: the power of recognition technology that puts recognition and reward in the pockets of teams wherever they are, so everyone feels valued and appreciated.

2. Make it multi-level. Recognition shouldn’t be limited to just managers acknowledging junior colleagues’ achievements. A world-class programme delivers appreciation from every angle by enabling both managers and peers to send and receive recognition. This multi-level approach fosters an authentic recognition culture and celebrates all corners of performance.

3. Make it personalised. Recognition should be limitless and personalised to each individual – and your programme should reflect this through enabling colleagues to deliver a tailored and sincere message.

4. Make it dynamic. Every individual has their own preferences for how they like to be valued. The programme should be dynamic and adaptable in how recognitions can be delivered, either publicly or privately, so employees’ preferences are respected.

5. Make it consistent. Automated recognitions are crucial for ensuring that no key milestone or long-service achievement is missed. This ensures your employee recognition programme remains consistent and delivers ‘in the moment’, alongside pre-set reward that truly engages your people.

6. Make it a community. Your programme should create a centralised digital space that your people want to engage with for not only recognition, but the latest wider community news and updates. This is key for driving overall programme adoption as well as crucially creating an authentic sense of belonging and connection across all teams, wherever they are.

7. Make it meaningful. Celebrating key moments by pairing recognition with personalised and instant reward is a powerful way to value your teams. This ensures your employee recognition programme delivers tangible impact with personal significance that takes acknowledging performance that one step further.

8. Make it congruent. Create and strengthen an authentic business culture by recognising employees for embodying your core values. This not only motivates desired behaviour from teams but allows each individual to contextualise their own impact in driving the organisation’s mission forward.

Fancy exploring a real-world example of these elements in action? Check out our onboarding success story with Charlie Bigham’s, who’s recognition programme with Rippl saw 45% of employees onboarded within its first 6 weeks, alongside over 6,500 platform interactions.

If you’d like to chat further around how Rippl can deliver a bespoke employee recognition programme for your business, get in touch.