Many recognition program owners have a challenge in common: helping employees redeem points or level-based rewards. Here’s a list of practical ideas for you to try out. Use them to encourage employees and leaders alike to get the total value of their rewards.
1. Have you asked your employees? Find out from employees why they aren’t redeeming. It may surprise you to learn from their responses. It’s one thing to nominate someone, but maybe they don’t know how to select something and redeem their points.
2. Make sure you are setting clear expectations. Lay out the guidelines for your online recognition and reward programs. Invite people to redeem rewards immediately or bank their rewards for higher valued items. Identify in your system which option people are choosing to do.
3. Enlist the aid of your senior leaders. Capture a senior leader’s video endorsement of your recognition and reward programs. Have them share their admiration for the great work employees are doing. They can issue a call to action to redeem and use their points.
4. Ensure you have a wide range of preferred items. Employees will always claim rewards much quicker when they have more choices. Giving your population lots to choose from really helps. Make sure they know what’s available and any new options and send communication out regularly to remind them to redeem.
5. Teach leaders about program usage and redemption. The success of any online recognition and reward program starts at the top. Show your leaders how to give recognition and nominate for rewards. Orient them to the rewards catalog and instruct them so they can help staff know how to redeem their rewards.
6. Create a brief redemption video. Ask employees about redeeming rewards from the program. Do they know how to do so? Create video tutorials for independent viewing and use staff meeting opportunities for hands-on redemption of points or rewards from the online system.
7. Advertise all the options available to redeem. Use all the internal communication channels to promote and advertise the various rewards available. Let employees view on monitors or on the corporate intranet site items that are available. Use posters and tent cards in the cafeteria and electronic newsletters for virtual staff.
8. Constantly communicate to make staff aware. It is easy to forget when someone has rewarded you over and above the recognition received. Arrange a notification system to give the team a view of their reward balance every 30 to 60 days after they received recognition.
9. Continually measure redemption levels after each communication. Apply different methods to invite and encourage point redemption and measure the results afterward. You might also consider running an A/B test or conducting split testing by random experimentation of two or more versions of a variable.
10. Work with your department or your vendor’s merchandising group. Review your catalog of rewards regularly. Compare existing popular categories of items. Solicit suggestions from staff each year. Take extra care when refreshing your catalog. Ensure you’re giving everyone access to the best rewards
These 10 tips should help increase employee awareness of your recognition program’s benefits. Once employees are familiar with your company’s recognition platform, interacting with it will become part of their routine. However, it is essential to direct them on why they will benefit from using it by showing its value.
