Building a Recognition program

Establish the need for change or introducing the new program:
You need to be clear on the end objective before you even start thinking about scoping, budgets, process and making that deadly pitch (which is going to be essential in the end to get it across to people)

Positioning the program:
Are you going to position this as a informal program or is your program looking at bringing in formality around the same, in whichever case you should draw very detailed plans on the roll out and the actual rewards event.

Scoping:
Think about categories, which are the target population, budgets in terms of % coverage (informal awards % coverage is usually quite big, while the formal / management award coverage would have to be around 10% to 12%). You should also think through the budget in terms of money you need and this should include some allocation towards communication and celebration event expenses.

Criteria:
This is the most important bit and you will spend a fair bit drawing detailed criteria. Make sure it has linkages to the contribution areas and competencies you want to reward people at your organization.

One issue you might want to think through is whether you should look at tight linkages as people might say but that’s what our performance management process and compensation philosophy addresses. Don’t fall into this trap, all ongoing reward and recognition programs are part of total rewards (which compensation is part of) and you don’t want to reward anything that is not aligned to organization goals and competencies the organization wants its people to develop and be recognized for. Moreover recognition programs are going to create more traction around behaviors and initiatives that organization is looking to push.

Setting up the process:
This includes the nomination process, approvers / sponsors of the awards and how the whole process will open and close. Think though on a tracking process so that you keep an eye on usage of budgets, coverage in terms of people etc.

Communication:
Very essential if it’s going to be a change over the existing program you had. Usually my experience tells me that this is more difficult then bringing a program for the first time. Spend time to get buy in and on the actual launch, as you don’t want to have any surprises.

Last but not least Recognition programs work best when they are viewed as fair and objective and stand the test of peer understanding as well.