Employee Rewards & Recognition Trends 2021

The pandemic’s onset in 2020 is causing large-scale and long-term changes in how businesses operate. Organizations must realign their rewards and recognition programs to guarantee that their employees, no matter where they work, feel accepted, included, and appreciated.

One of the most essential components in employee engagement is employee recognition, which is the open acknowledgement and expressed gratitude for an employee’s contributions to their organization. Recognizing employees will be more crucial in 2021, especially as they face a fresh set of problems and prolonged uncertainty. Here are the most important employee rewards and recognition trends of 2021:

Digital and Platform-driven:

Given that most companies expect a major portion of their workforce to work from home by 2021 and beyond, it’s not surprising that companies would invest heavily in technological platforms for employee recognition.

With little administrative overheads, these recognition platforms will enable firms to implement digital programs that can adapt to the needs of a virtual and scattered workforce in terms of timeliness, regularity, and social exposure.

End-to-end recognition solutions that can assist organizations digitize and automate their programs, are cost-effective, easy to maintain, and provide a high level of end-user experience for employees will be required.

Focus on Peer Recognition:

Peer-to-peer recognition has long been recognized as one of the most successful means of recognizing and motivating employees for their hard work.

Peer recognition will become more popular in employee recognition in 2021, as employers see it as an efficient tool to encourage collaboration among remote workers and foster a pleasant work culture.

Recognition for Culture-building:

Employee recognition will play a significant part in developing a positive work culture in 2021, especially in the absence of other levers accessible in a physical work setting.

Supervisors and peers should be encouraged to notice and reward behaviors that are consistent with the company’s basic values and contribute to the creation of a positive work environment.

Informal or Fun Awards for Engagement:

Because many essential levers of employee engagement are inaccessible in the digital workplace, firms can use informal or entertaining prizes to motivate remote workers.

These amusing awards could be awarded to recognize coworkers’ excellent qualities, interests, and hobbies, which could include sports, adventure, fitness, music, fashion, gastronomy, gaming, electronics, and so on. These can be accomplished using some type of online nomination and polling system.

Informal or enjoyable rewards can help to break up the monotony of working alone while also increasing team camaraderie and promoting a healthy work atmosphere.

Rewards for Employee Wellness:

Wellness awards are anticipated to become a significant tool for encouraging participation and interest in such activities as companies focus on employee wellness initiatives to keep their staff healthy, motivated, and productive.

Employees should be rewarded for increasing their awareness, participating in a variety of wellness activities, and promoting healthy competition among coworkers.

This might be accomplished by integrating different fitness gadgets used by employees, presenting individual and group performance through digital leaderboards, organizing challenges and contests, and rewarding winners with reward points.

Employees are more likely to stay engaged and stay around if they are recognized. It’s crucial to remember that while recognition isn’t a cure-all for bad corporate culture, it is a cornerstone of any great employee experience.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ADVANTAGE CLUB

Advantage Club is a global provider of employee benefits. The platform serves to digitizing all employee demands under one canopy through numerous employee engagement programs such as incentives, rewards & recognition, flexible and tax saving modules. It now serves over 300 organizations in 70 countries and has over 10,000 brand partnerships.