Alexandra Powell
When it comes to recognition, the most popular or well-known sort of recognition is related to tenure.
You’ve likely heard the statistic that nearly 87% of all reward and recognition spend goes to years-of-service service awards, which is why it’s important to also consider using some of that budget for alternatives to length-of-service awards, too.
While continuous and frequent reward and recognition is often the goal of our clients, tenure shouldn’t be ignored. The key is to make it a part of your holistic reward and recognition strategy, as we show on our Recognition Pyramid framework.
With the average tenure of employees at just about 4 years, and this number varying wildly among multigenerational workforces, longevity at a company is certainly something to celebrate! To extend the moment of long service awards, there are a few things employers can put in place.
First, with the award itself, make sure that it’s something meaningful that the employee would actually want to use.
Our Reward Marketplace already gives employees the ultimate choice and flexibility on their reward experience, choosing from vouchers to popular retailers, charitable donations, swag and more. And now, with Milestone Moments, employees can select and redeem a reward against a personalized, employer-tailored catalog powered by Amazon Business. This can be a great experience on its own, or reserved for even more special moments, like a 10-year service anniversary award that deserves extra attention.
On top of the award, make sure that your recognition tools include peer-to-peer eCards, free for employees to send to one another.
If the company knows a certain employee’s anniversary is coming up – our clients’ managers get alerted a week in advance so they can be ready – they can opt to send a ‘Happy Anniversary’ eCard to their coworker with a personal message or a funny GIF to commemorate the moment.
For those who might not be as close to the coworker celebrating their tenure, they can add on to the moment of recognition with comments and reactions right on the social recognition wall or via a mobile app so that the celebrated employee feels special right away.
Depending on how large your company is, we’ve also seen clients do really special shoutouts on their internal communications platform, like “5 Things We Love About George!” to create a dedicated blog post for specific and special milestones. As a bonus, these tenure shoutouts can also be mentioned in blogs that get more viewership such as the weekly blog from the CEO, or news about new joiners, leavers, promotions and, of course, tenure in blogs led by your People Team.
There are plenty of creative ideas to extend the moment of celebrating a years-of-service award if you have the right tools at your fingertips. Retaining your star performers starts with acknowledging how they’ve contributed to your business, and tenure can be an easy thing to highlight and shine a spotlight on.
Long service awards can still be an important part of your overall reward and recognition strategy, as long as they’re delivered in a meaningful, unique way. If you’re interested in learning more about how the Reward Gateway platform supports long service and tenure awards, reach out to a member of our team.
