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Do you give out a SERVICE award or similar recognition to employees?

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Jurry Smith
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Hi!  

We are exploring ways to recognize exemplary employees who continually engage in the community. Do you have an annual award or recognition program in place? What is the criteria? Who selects the winner? How are employees nominated and by whom? I appreciate any insight you can provide.

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    Rita Michaud
    (Edited )

    Hello Jurry Smith, 

    Great question and what a fun thing to be exploring and planning. There are so many ways you can incentivize and reward your people, and it often comes down to budget and what resonates best with your people. If your team is competitive  - something gamified might be worth considering! 

    One very cool and special example of this is how Adobe decides on grants budgets globally. Of course, it is not specific to one individual by any means, but they use location based engagement and participation numbers as an indicator of how many grant dollars that location will be able to grant back into the community. What an amazing way to reward their passionate employees each year! You can hear Adobe tell their story here (for users with full B-Hive access) and here (for users who do not have full B-Hive access). 

    Some other examples of individual recognition I've seen are: 

    1. Using Benevity Reporting data, pull details of your top volunteers on a cadence that works best for you (weekly, monthly, annually) and highlight their story! This can be done on a variety of communication platforms, or directly in Spark with the cover story and news articles. That recognition, and the opportunity to highlight a cause that is important to them, is often enough incentive.. but we've seen clients give a small corporate donations on behalf of their 'volunteer of the month/ year' as well! 
    2. Have your people nominate the superstars! This can be done company-wide or by location. Run a nomination program or survey. Getting your people involved with the decision making, makes it more engaging overall and you'd often get great stories out of the process! I've heard of office locations doing something as easy as a Slack poll or setting up a quick survey with survey monkey! 

    I can't wait to see how the community responds with the initiatives they run and to see where you land with your SERVICE awards! 

    Rita

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    Allisen Gaudet

    Hi Jurry - we do celebrate our people giving back with both company-organized and non-company (personal) volunteering at Accenture Canada program:

    • We recognize our volunteers and givers quarterly with a badge on their internal people page 
    • We profile top volunteers and their stories annually during National Volunteer Week
    • We host the annual Making a Difference Awards in June. We ask employees for nominations of people they know who are making a difference in the community. Our Corporate Citizenship team reviews and then publishes names of all qualifying nominees (basically a 'common sense' test!) and nominees receive a $25 charitable gift card in appreciation
    • We also publish as many stories as possible thanking our volunteers following events in our internal social media stream.

    We don't have a dollars for doers program so these no- or low-cost recognitions and expressions of appreciation are what help us build our culture of giving back. Hope these ideas help!

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    Jurry Smith

    Thank you Rita and Allisen for these wonderful suggestions! I think we have a better idea now of where to start.

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    Kelsey Jones

    Hello!

    We have a Volunteer of the Year award given to the employees who logs the most volunteer hours during the calendar year. The winner receives a $500 Benevity gift card, trophy and other perks such as NBA and NFL suite tickets (pre-pandemic).

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    Kelsey Jones

    Hello!

    We have a Volunteer of the Year award given to the employees who logs the most volunteer hours during the calendar year. The winner receives a $500 Benevity gift card, trophy and other perks such as NBA and NFL suite tickets (pre-pandemic).

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    Dana Anderson

    Does anyone have a sample thank you card (verbiage) for ambassadors?  We are sending a thank you gift, but I would also like to send a card and thank them. 

    Thank you,

    Dana Anderson

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    Angela Johnson

    I enjoyed reading the recognition ideas and would love to hear what gifts or events others have done- especially now that many are still remote. Last year, in an attempt to provide recognition with a purpose, we gave a $30 gift card to a black, female owned business, a branded pin and lanyard to employees who gave at the $1,000 for our Fall Giving Campaign.  We hoped to do a BBQ to present everything, but had to cancel due to COVID.  Any virtual recognition ideas out there??  Has anyone invited speakers? If so, any recommendations?

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    Jurry Smith

    Hi Angela,

    We conducted a virtual Month of Service campaign this past September with the American Red Cross and highlighted their five lines of services (one each week).  Missing Maps was the perfect virtual activity, along with Be Red Cross Ready disaster readiness webinars and virtual card-making events for patients in VA hospitals. As a thank you gift for participating, we mailed a drawstring bag, first aid kit and pack of alcohol wipes with a thank you note printed on seeded paper to each employee to start their own disaster/survival kit.

    We also sent an iron on patch to commemorate the campaign. We did one for our previous Fall Volunteer Challenge and we have different versions for Employee Appreciation events and one to honor our Essential Workers who have been reporting to the office during the pandemic.

    A few new ideas we are thinking about are Door Dash or Grub Hub gift cards, subscriptions to wellness or social impact apps, and "Meeting-Free" days (days where you are allowed to free your calendar from any zoom meetings but you can still check in with one another if you want to).

    I hope these ideas help! Please reach out if you would like more information.

     

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