What Can Business VoIP Do for the Employee Recognition Program?

The recognition program – does it make your employees cringe or do they get excited about the benefits you offer? Is your recognition program designed around what will motivate your team or is it more for your own benefit? The key to the successful recognition and incentive program is to design it around the most effective methods to drive the results you want to achieve.

For instance, companies of all sizes are leveraging business VoIP because it offers the user the same quality experience in communications at a much lower price. This benefit is the key incentive to considering a migration to an all VoIP environment, even if it means a company-wide change. But it’s not the only benefit VoIP delivers for the business. Efficiency and productivity improvements are also real and measurable, providing just the right level of motivation.

A recent Nextiva blog post explored the value in delivering the right employee recognition and incentive program. The key to building an effective program is to get personal, be unexpected, make it public and spread it around. To get personal, you have to get to know your employees. Rewarding a vegetarian with a $250 gift certificate for premium steaks is the wrong way to go. It not only ensures the employee receives a gift he or she can’t use; it also demonstrates that you don’t know them well enough to know they don’t eat meat.

Taking the unexpected approach keeps it fresh. The random reward for a job well-done is often more effective than those the employee base has come to expect. Remember Christmas Vacation when Clark was expecting the Christmas bonus and considered it part of his salary? Building that kind of expectation in a bonus program leaves little room to actually incentivize the employee. The reward that is unplanned and unexpected is more likely to have a bigger impact for a longer period of time.

A good dose of public praise is also important for an effective reward program. Don’t take it to the level than the employee is embarrassed or that it puts down those who didn’t get recognized. Instead, celebrate his or her success and why it matters to the company. Keep in mind that if some employees feel as though they never get any kind of recognition, resentment will follow. Some employees do deserve more reward than others, but good can be found in all people. Look for something to acknowledge in a positive way and that reinforcement may lead to bigger and better things. 

Believe it or not, access to the latest tools to promote efficient operations within the business can also motivate the employee base. Business VoIP not only helps to improve the customer experience with deep integration across networked platforms, it can also improve the work of employees as they have access to the tools they need to be efficient, effective and productive.