Enterprises that have strong collaborative and cooperative work atmospheres tend to be more productive and have higher quality performance. Our workforce is the backbone of any enterprise, and motivation is directly influenced by the appreciation and respect your employees show towards each other. Several enterprises focus on management and leadership feedback and often neglect peer-to-peer feedback, which has several benefits that can impact your bottom line. Building an effective peer-to-peer recognition program from scratch can appear daunting, but it can be much simpler by following a few simple practices. This article covers the best practices and recognition ideas to follow while implementing a peer-to-peer recognition program.

7 Peer-to-Peer Recognition Program Best Practices

1) Leverage a Comprehensive Peer-to-Peer Recognition Platform

Peer-to-peer recognition should be fun and easy for your employees. It should also be accessible and possible to send recognition from anytime and anywhere. An essential aspect of a recognition platform should be that it is integrated with other systems in your enterprise. HR staples like Microsoft applications should be centralized so employees may do their best work. You can empower them with tools they are already familiar with to create a seamless user experience that increases productivity. It also eliminates the logistical problems of maintaining several systems. Ideally, you should have one global platform that your employees can easily adopt.

2) Advocate Inclusive Recognition at the Workplace

The main idea behind peer-to-peer recognition platforms is to enable all of your employees’ voices to be heard. Establishing an inclusive culture that allows your employees to develop trust and meaningful connections with your platform is imperative. However, participation should not be forced and should remain a voluntary option. Mandatory recognition tends to feel disingenuous and inauthentic. You want peer-to-peer feedback to be genuine, honest, and unbiased. Employees should feel comfortable with your platform and willingly contribute. By ensuring that your peer-to-peer recognition program is inclusive, your employees will find a community within your enterprise in which they are supported and valued.

3) Give Public Recognition to Boost Employee Morale

Private recognition is not transparent or clear with feedback received. It is far more effective to leverage a program that enables public recognition in the form of newsletters or tools with similar capacities. Public recognition offers a spotlight for your employees, which is simply impossible with private credit. Being recognized by a coworker is more likely to make your employees feel part of a team. Employees that are recognized publicly also feel the responsibility to pay it forward. It increases the collaboration and synergy amongst your team members, which increases the overall productivity of your enterprise.

4) Drive Frequent and Cyclical Recognition

Recognition needs to be given regularly. The impact of recognitions that occur only annually or every few months is minimal and not very effective. The aim is to build a growth culture and one of recognition in our enterprise. Therefore, employee effort must be noticed frequently and in real-time. Regular recognition is more likely to result in employee retention and employee engagement.

5) Be Specific on Recognizing Peer-to-Peer Recognition

Your peer-to-peer recognition platform should insist on being specific. Urge your employees to explain their feedback in detail. It allows you to offer employees individual feedback that focuses on their strengths and weaknesses. Your employees will feel like a general thank you message is inauthentic and useless to them. Instead, offer them customized feedback that shows them they are being valued and appreciated. Furthermore, tie recognition to your enterprise values. This will highlight the connection between their performance and enterprise values, thereby increasing motivation and allowing your employees to be in alignment with the vision of your enterprise.

6) Break the Divide Between Leadership and Employees

If leadership feedback is conducted in a specific manner, your employees will likely emulate the same behavior in a peer-to-peer recognition platform. Rather than leadership enforcing specific methodologies, it would help if you encouraged leaders to lead by example. You can train your managers to give frequent and meaningful recognition that happens in real-time. You can leverage modern technology to make it a single-click process that even the busiest managers can find time for. Following a top-down flow, your employees are more likely to provide meaningful and impactful recognition after receiving the same from managers.

7) Celebrate Peer-to-Peer Recognition Milestones

Accomplishments – personal and professional are worth mentioning. Therefore, they must be celebrated. You can develop empathy and meaningful relationships between your employees by providing the means to send digital cards and other gifts that celebrate an individual’s accomplishment. Birthdays and work anniversaries are other occasions that you can use to honor an employee. It gives them a sense of gratification and makes them feel more valued and respected. 

Conclusion

Peer-to-peer recognition platforms are a great way to enhance team spirit and create a collaborative working atmosphere where the entire enterprise aligns with common business objectives. It can be challenging to start implementing a new program but is far more likely to result in a positive and effective program if you follow the best practices mentioned in this article.

Also Read: What Makes An Employee Recognition Program Successful?

Also Read: Peer Feedback Boosts Employee Performance