Benefits October 7, 2003

Survey: Corporate Attaboys Still Popular

October 7, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Employee recognition is still a big thing in the workplace these days and companies have integrated it into their corporate mission and HR strategy, a new survey found.

Reported by

Fred Schneyer

The poll by WorldatWork and the National Association for Employee Recognition (NAER) also showed that employers are thinking more strategically about what kind of recognition should go with different types of programs as well as which kind of recognition workers would find the most rewarding.

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Not only have 87% of companies made an organized campaign to pat employees on the back part of their personnel policies, four out of 10 are doing more with their worker recognition campaigns than a year ago, the survey found. Only 12% have cut back on recognizing workers.

Of those companies with a recognition program, 65% have a written strategy and 97% of those feel it aligns with their organizational strategy and links directly to what matters most to the organization.

Two out of three respondents said they measure their recognition program’s successes through employee satisfaction surveys (67%) and the number of nominations (50%). More than four in 10 have a companywide budget for the program while 38% use individual department budgets to pay for the recognition.

As to why they present awards to certain employees, nearly nine in 10 (87%) use length of service as the reason. Other reasons included: