Awarding your employees can be a great way to motivate them. Keep reading to learn why you should give your employees custom awards.

Did you know that 85% of workers feel more motivated to do their best when an incentive is offered?

That’s right.

But despite the evidence, many companies still fall short when it comes to recognizing employee achievement.

If you’re looking to increase morale, improve work quality, and boost employee retention, then offering custom rewards is a smart move.

Unlike generic bonuses or vouchers, custom rewards allow you to recognize unique strengths and achievements, which makes them more meaningful to staff, increasing the benefits.

Still not convinced?

Keep reading for seven reasons you need to start giving out custom awards.

1. Boost Staff and Team Morale

Do you feel like morale is low amongst staff? Are your teams no longer excited about what they’re doing?

Giving out custom awards is an excellent way to give morale a much-needed boost, especially during difficult times.

It’s a sad fact that 79% of employees don’t feel strongly valued for the work they put in, and this feeling leads to a loss of motivation and productivity.

When you reward workers, you benefit them and their wider team. The award recipient will feel that their effort is being noticed, and their coworkers will feel glad to be working with a competent, skilled person.

Keep your team motivated with regular awards.

2. Give Workers Something to Aim For

If you don’t work in a sales or target-driven environment, it’s easy to lose sight of what you’re really aiming to do.

By offering custom awards for specific achievements, you’re setting goals for employees to work towards. These could include measures like, “Most Positive Feedback from Clients,” or, “Best Customer Service Rating.”

When staff feel lost about what to focus on, they can look to the available awards for guidance and motivation.

If there’s an area you’re particularly keen to improve, like turnaround time, try offering several awards which focus specifically on that area.

3. Show That You Recognize Hard Work

Does your best employee know that he or she is the best?

If not, why not?

Staff won’t know that what they’re doing is right if you don’t tell them, and something more than a quick pat on the back lets the whole team know that you value hard work.

By giving multiple awards to a single employee, you create a company role model.

Other members of staff will know who to look to for inspiration and guidance, and you might quickly see the attributes of your best worker spreading around the office.

Just be sure to recognize different forms of hard work.

Don’t give all the awards to your confident sales guys, and leave the shy but skilled programmers feeling underappreciated.

4. Increase Employee Retention

You want to hold onto your best employees, right?

Unfortunately, if they’re not feeling appreciated, staff are likely to start looking for better opportunities elsewhere. One person quitting can easily trigger a spate of resignations, and that means loads of hassle recruiting and training new staff.

Offering a thoughtful custom award could be just enough to keep one of your best workers from jumping ship to work for a competitor, especially if they’re feeling undervalued.

If you want to keep your staff, you need to give them a good reason to stay.

5. Offer Tangible Proof of Achievements

How do you feel when someone says, “Hey, great job with that project!”

Pretty good, right?

Now, imagine that you had a physical award recognizing your hard work, something you’d see every single day at work.

The good feelings you get from a single compliment are multiplied many times over when you receive a real, tangible award, and that means that the positive benefits are magnified too.

When an employee looks at an award on their desk, they’ll feel appreciated, valued, and motivated to keep doing their very best.

For the small cost of a custom award, you’ve created a tool that keeps your employees happy and motivated, day after day – and we’d say that’s a pretty good return on investment.

6. Improve Job Satisfaction

It’s been shown that most Amercian employees are unhappy at work, which impacts on performance and productivity.

While factors like job security, working environment and relationships with co-workers are key in keeping employees satisfied, rewards also have a big role to play.

Giving out custom awards shows employees that their work really matters, which makes them feel more satisfied and encourages them to keep trying their best.

Workplaces which don’t recognize employees aren’t pleasant to be in, don’t encourage staff to try their hardest and lose employees fast.

Try putting together a job satisfaction survey, then giving out custom awards. Compare the results before and after your award presentation, and you might be shocked by the difference.

7. Recognize Individual Strengths

How often does someone take the time to really recognize the individual hard work of every employee in a team?

Sure, someone might say, “Great job, guys,” or, “Nice work with that,” every now and then, but what about genuine, individual compliments?

Awards which come with custom messages like, “Thanks for your excellent work increasing our marketing outcomes by 77%” show that you truly recognize and value the efforts of every single employee.

Instead of having a generic ‘Employee of the Month’ award, why not try offering recognition for, “Most Helpful Employee,” “Best Customer Service Advisor,” and “Most Likely to Go Above and Beyond.”

These individual awards will stick with employees, make you stand out against other employers, and boost their self-confidence.

Confident employees make better workers, which will increase profits for you – it’s a win-win.

Why Give Custom Awards at Work?

Custom awards are an excellent way to recognize individual strengths and achievements and boost employee morale.

In turn, you’ll see better employee retention, more hard work, and better job satisfaction scores. The cost of purchasing awards will easily be balanced by the benefits you’ll see across your business.

Ready to purchase your first set of awards?

Check out our wide range of employee awards and choose the designs that will appeal to your team the most.