Ensuring Fair Employee Recognition: Strategies from Different Teams
In an era where workplace culture is paramount, ensuring fair and unbiased employee recognition is more important than ever. Insights from a Director of Compensation & Benefits and a Chief Executive Officer bring valuable strategies to the table. The article begins with an expert’s advice to implement a structured recognition program and concludes with showcasing achievements during sprint demos. Discover six powerful insights that can transform your approach to employee recognition.
- Implement a Structured Recognition Program
- Standardize Recognition Process Across Offices
- Institute a Peer Recognition Program
- Use Performance Metrics and Analytics
- Base Recognition on Objective Metrics
- Showcase Achievements During Sprint Demos
Implement a Structured Recognition Program
Ensuring fair and unbiased employee recognition across departments requires a deliberate and structured approach. I implemented a recognition program tied to specific criteria, such as measurable achievements, peer nominations, and alignment with company values, to create consistency. The program includes a digital platform where all employees can nominate colleagues, ensuring visibility and inclusivity. To reduce unconscious bias, I trained managers and teams on objective evaluation and encouraged a diverse group of reviewers for quarterly awards.
Additionally, I track participation data to identify trends or gaps, addressing any discrepancies that arise. Regular feedback sessions allow employees to voice concerns about fairness, which helps refine the program. I also celebrate achievements at both the team and company levels, ensuring recognition isn’t confined to a single department. By maintaining transparency and using data-driven insights, I’ve built trust and ensured that recognition feels equitable across the organization.
Charles Mangino
Director of Compensation & Benefits, Vita Coco
Standardize Recognition Process Across Offices
My company operates multiple offices across the United States, which can make it a challenge to make employee recognition consistent and fair throughout the entire team. Our solution has been to standardize the recognition process, which we did by taking the following steps:
1. Clarify, define, and communicate expectations for each role. When employees understand what’s expected of them, they know what they have to do to not just meet those expectations but what will be seen as going “above and beyond” and likely earn them recognition. This also clarifies things for managers who oversee employee recognition, ensuring they’re focusing on the same things when they evaluate employee performance.
2. Develop an employee recognition policy. This should include what actions or behaviors are deserving of recognition as well as the type of accolades or rewards that they can earn by excelling in those areas. This helps to keep your recognition consistent across the organization, which can help to minimize bias and promote fairness.
3. Train managers on employee expectations and the recognition policy. Individual manager behavior is one of the main sources of unequal recognition in workplaces. If upper leadership doesn’t provide guidance on this point, it falls to individual managers to decide which behaviors are worthy of recognition and what that recognition will look like. Inevitably, that means it will be different between teams or offices, which can come across as unfair from the employee standpoint. You can avoid this by clarifying manager expectations around employee recognition to the same degree you define expectations and policies for employees.
Matt Erhard
Managing Partner, Summit Search Group
Institute a Peer Recognition Program
Ensuring fair recognition across departments can be tricky, but making it a structured experience helps a lot. Instituting a peer recognition program open to everyone shifts the focus from top-down approvals to a more collective approach. Here’s how it works: each team member is encouraged to submit nominations for their peers who they think have gone above and beyond. This method diversifies the voices that decide who gets recognized and allows overlooked contributions to surface. It keeps the process relatable, as employees often know the day-to-day grind of their peers better than anyone else.
To add a creative twist, have employees nominate peers through a simple reward application that’s accessible company-wide. Everyone can view nominations and even vote. This keeps the process transparent and builds a culture where recognition feels genuine and wide-reaching. Companies can set a specific “Recognition Week” each month or quarter to announce the winners and celebrate their contributions. This small but effective structure not only ensures fairness but also boosts morale, making recognition a key part of the company culture, not just an event.
Jean Chen
COO & CHRO, Mondressy
Use Performance Metrics and Analytics
To ensure that employee recognition is fair and unbiased across different teams, I use performance metrics and analytics to guide the process. This removes any personal preferences or unconscious biases that might creep into decisions and allows recognition to be based purely on measurable achievements and contributions.
In our brokerage, for instance, metrics include the number of successful loan applications processed, client feedback scores, or how well someone supports team collaboration. These metrics are transparent, so everyone knows what’s being evaluated, and it creates a level playing field. It’s not about comparing apples to oranges, but recognizing contributions within the scope of each person’s responsibilities.
Shaun Bettman
Chief Executive Officer, Eden Emerald Mortgages
Base Recognition on Objective Metrics
While we do allow individual departments to implement their own recognition awards strictly within their own teams, any company-wide award or recognition is going to be based on clear, defined, objective metrics, and we always take the time to post all of the top performers by these metrics. This helps to make it clear that we aren’t just playing favorites.
Nick Valentino
VP of Market Operations, Bellhop
Showcase Achievements During Sprint Demos
We ensure that employee recognition is fair and unbiased across departments by having sprint demos at the end of every two week period. During the sprint demos, each department, engineering, marketing, and support are able to showcase the work they’ve done, things they’ve learned, or new opportunities. It gives everyone on the team a voice and control over what they feel is important to share. Plus, it allows everyone to see the great work that’s being done by the team allowing us to celebrate their successes alongside them.
Nicole Martins Ferreira
Product Marketing Manager, Huntr
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