How Bonfyre Makes Employee Recognition More Valuable

When an employee stands out from their peers with performance that truly embodies company core values, the best thing to do is recognize them for a job well done. Bonfyre makes employee recognition easy, intuitive, and delightful with robust features that center on the employee experience.

A company’s core values are its guiding principles. Values are what a workforce mobilizes around to accomplish the company mission and vision. For employees, core values are supposed to light the way to integrity in their individual roles. They’re a roadmap illuminating what success looks like in the business and the methodology to pursue it in their daily work.

Employee recognition makes a big impact on the workforce. It helps employees understand the company core values better, motivating stronger performance and driving better business results. Even taking just a small moment to give an employee a pat on the back in front of their peers can go a long way.

The problem?

Too many organizations today are saddled with out-of-date recognition programs that are clunky and cumbersome to use.

We hear these pain points on discovery calls with clients all the time. These programs have too many interfaces and stages, mandatory (and lengthy) form entries, and even paper components to hunt down and fill out. It all adds up—especially on busy days when leaders have a dozen other high-priority tasks to complete.

Even if you can work through all these obstacles, another problem arises: delays. All these stages create delays between when a leader chooses to recognize an employee and when the employee actually receives the recognition. Sometimes it’s as short as a few days. Other times it takes until the next quarterly update for the employee to find out. The bigger the delay, the more the recognition’s impact diminishes.

It’s no wonder then that only 23% of employees strongly agree they can apply their organization’s values to their work every day. Recognition isn’t happening nearly as often as it should, making it tough for employees to connect their daily contributions with the bigger picture. Poor program design is getting in the way of reinforcing values and driving business results.

Thankfully, there is a better way.

Bonfyre makes employee recognition for core values effortless and efficient

The Bonfyre platform brings employee recognition to life with a suite of features designed to be impactful for everyone involved. Here’s a brief overview of how Bonfyre makes employee recognition for core values a ritual the whole organization can rally behind.

Employee recognition has never been easier. With Bonfyre, all employee recognition happens in real time. No paper forms, no delay, and no fiddling around with confusing technology. In just a few quick taps, you can recognize team members that exemplify company core values and celebrate wins of all sizes as soon as they happen.

Build awareness of company core values. All employee recognition badges appear in Bonfyre’s chat feed, so everyone in the community can see when you spotlight a stellar employee. The next time you recognize a salesperson for embodying the company’s value of going “Above and Beyond” in their role, their team members can know the second it happens… and so too can the CEO, making it all the more impactful.

Custom badges celebrate your unique values. Bonfyre makes employee recognition personal with customizable badge icons and descriptions. Every one of your unique company values can be recognized in the platform—and you even have the opportunity to establish some new ones. Our best clients create custom badges that recognize their teams’ unique daily experiences to illustrate how their contributions ladder up to the company mission and values.

Measure impact of core values. The data from Bonfyre’s recognition tool paints a picture of how company core values are being shared in real-time. With just a few taps, you can see how often people in your communities are being recognized, and which values and badges are resonating the most with your workforce.

Find out who your best employees are—and your best leaders. Recognition comes from all directions on the organizational chart with Bonfyre’s flexible badging systems: top-down, bottom-up, and side-to-side. Leaders can recognize employees or other leaders for great performance. But additionally, employees have the freedom to share the love with recognition too.

When employees have the authority to recognize their leaders and fellow colleagues, it presents a new way to interact with company values. Recognition gives employees a tangible way to think about their work activity and personal values, and figure out the role they play in the company mission. As one Bonfyre client’s experience shows, this dynamic can create a whole new way for employees to take ownership of their experiences.

Related: The Future of Employee Recognition

How one client put recognition in the hands of employees with Bonfyre

One Bonfyre client, a not-for-profit hospital system spanning multiple states, has had tremendous success creating a culture of recognition using the Bonfyre platform. In this client ecosystem, we gave four Bonfyre communities access to our recognition feature to help them celebrate their values and empower teams.

Over a nine-month period, more than 500 recognition badges were awarded throughout this hospital’scommunity ecosystem. What’s more, the recognition made a big impact on everyone. These recognition moments received an average of twice as many likes and reactions than a standard post in the chat feed. Positive feelings were shared by all, not just the employees being recognized.

Out of all the badges awarded in this period, 76 of them came from the four leaders heading their respective communities. The efforts they made to spotlight employees and team leads in the hospital with values-centric recognition came out to a rate of two badges per community leader per month. The client reported this was a significant increase over the leaders’ use of the company’s traditional recognition program.

But what about the employees and team leads accounting for the other 424 badges? Employees in this hospital system’s communities had no shortage of values-centric awards to give out, including their “Above and Beyond,” “Presence, and “Teamwork” badges. But they took their recognition to the next level with custom badges tailored to their unique experiences.

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) team created a customized “Platinum Bedpan” badge, complete with its own unique art and description. Working in the ICU isn’t easy—team members regularly tend to high-need patients that require specialized care. True to its namesake, the Platinum Bedpan badge is given out to ICU team members who make it through the “poopiest days” with the best attitude.

Another award in this client’s community ecosystem, the “Rubber Ducky” badge, follows a similar principle. The Rubber Ducky badge values team members who carry out one of the less glamorous aspects of patient care with a smile. It’s given out to nurses who complete all of their patient baths in a shift.

Celebrating these moments is important. Sometimes work is difficult. Sometimes it’s not glamorous. And sometimes, it takes integrity and perseverance to make it through a tough day. When organizations like our client bring these moments to light, they’re saying, “We know your work is hard. Thank you for doing it with a smile.”

Employee recognition is just one of many features the Bonfyre platform offers to help employees connect to the company and build strong work relationships. Want to see firsthand how Bonfyre can transform your employee experience?

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