Employee Reward And Recognition

Abstract

Companies have to break the bad habits of recognizing employees only by occasionally giving them mugs, t-shirts or pens with the company logo stamped upon it. They must realize that for most employees, most of the time, how they are treated on a daily basis matters more to them and more effectively communicates that they are trusted, respected and important to the company.

Potential employees coming to FedEx Home Delivery, whether newly graduated university applicants, transferees from other companies or internal candidates, are looking for different things from their work life than they were just 10 years ago. Today's employees are looking for some balance in their lives. Many employees will give up a portion of their lives for the 50-hour work week, but there has to be some benefit associated with that amount of labor.

Home Delivery employees have some expectations of their company. They are looking for an integrated approach to life. Work is a piece of a bigger picture to them. For the amount of labor that they give, they expect that they will receive important benefits. Benefits like competitive pay, family leave, tuition reimbursement, employee assistance programs, flexible hours and financial planning programs. They also expect that FedEx will enable the "soft" cultural values such as the company's commitment to society, the environment and diversity.

FedEx can also expect that the employees will have their own set of ethical values. They know that their employees exhibit high standards of honesty, trust, professionalism and ethical behavior. Home Delivery employees are open communicators and share what they know freely with each other. They work together with respect and dignity upholding diversity, ethnicity and different work cultures. Home Delivery employees provide excellent customer service and attempt to promote the brand identity wherever they happen to be.

In devising an award system to complement such employees, one must realize that traditional forms of recognition such as achievement awards, cash substitutes (gift cards), nominal gifts or food and public perks (parking spots) have diminished in importance for most of today's employees. These types of awards have become ranked near the bottom in employee surveys across the country. It is sad, but true that most certificates of achievement end up in a drawer collecting dust and not proudly displayed on the cubicle wall.

In many companies across the United States, the average employee's faith in his/her company has dramatically declined.