How to run a successful service award program.

Why service awards work:

Imagine you have been with a company for 10 years. You've worked hard, put in extra hours, taken pay cuts during hard times, and were partly responsible for its growth in the good times. Overall, you were an extremely loyal employee. Now imagine after all of those years of service and dedication, you have not received anything but an occasional pat on the back. How would you feel about your company? How would it affect your attitude and your performance?

We are all creatures of our environment, sensitive and responsive to external reward and punishment. Negative reinforcement, because it focuses on failures, does not motivate. Positive reinforcement does. Just by believing we're doing well. We'll try harder, be more persistent, feel more loyal and become more dedicated.

Service award programs are management's way of providing positive reinforcement directing attention to the rewards of dedication, loyalty, employee involvement and enhancement of an employee's value through public recognition.

The more reinforcement management provides, the better the results they will achieve. People need symbols of that reinforcement. Service award programs provide such symbols of pride in achievement. More than money, which can create envy or political infighting, an actual, physical award offers individuals the opportunity to gain the wholehearted recognition and approval of their peers.

How to determine if your company needs a service award program:

• Does your company have a systematic way of letting people know that their contributions are valued?
• Does your company publicly single out those people who do something right, rather than those that do something wrong?
• Has your company established fundamental goals and continually reinforce the pursuit of them?
• Does management believe that its companies primary assets are its employees?
• Do you encourage performance competition among workers in a way that is non -threatening?
• Do you offer strictly monetary rewards and fail to provide symbolic ones as well?
• Is management as totally committed to its people and their well being as they wish their employees to be towards the company and its goals?
• Is top management visibly involved in the recognition of the employee achievement at all levels?
• Does management reward only the top performers ignoring the remaining vast majority?

Establishing goals.

Service award programs are long range programs designed to affect the overall attitudes of people within a CO. thereby enhancing their commitment to excellence in every aspect of their on the job performance.

Compound the benefits to derived when employees are motivated, Enthusiastic, and productive, and the return on investment is expanded mightily. The prime factor in motivation is simply the self-perception among employees that they are in fact, doing well. Mere belief that they are succeeding will lead to more persistence, higher motivation and greater accomplishment.

Service award programs focus not on one-time achievements but rather, on cumulative levels of performance. They direct attention to those steady, good work attitudes that bring about a happy productive workplace. The first most common area of service award recognition is length of service. See that there is awards set for every milestone, especially the first anniversary. This way you will be letting your employees know, that management recognizes them, is pleased they've become part of the organization and wants and expects them to be around for a long, long time. This first year service need not be expensive. Employees revere and proudly wear gifts like tacks or other items of jewelry. The advantages are obvious. To maintain the loyalty and respect of your employees should be a building block of increasingly more prestigious awards, and just as important award ceremonies. We suggest the use of precious gemstone, such as ruby, sapphire, emerald and diamond for lengthier years of service. Products can also expand using the same logo jeweler to include rings and again the use of precious stones to emphasize outstanding achievements.

It is vital that there is continuity throughout the years. The program is in effect so that each award becomes established in people's minds as the award for the corresponding achievement. People will strive harder when they know precisely what they are striving for. Whatever the award, it must be identifiably your company's symbol of recognition for that particular achievement or it will lack sufficient meaning to motivate your employees.