This week is spring break for most of the schools in West Michigan. While several of our employees have migrated to warmer climates, we brought fun to work with our own spring break festivities. 

Over the years we’ve had lots of customers tell us about the challenges they face implementing employee recognition in their organization. They know their organization would benefit from the positive reinforcement and open communication of employee recognition, but they have a difficult time convincing management to invest. We wanted to help our customers make a compelling case for employee recognition and implement it quickly and easily in their organization. 

I attended a conference last spring, given by an organization who shall remain nameless because of what I am about to tell you. It was actually a good conference, filled with useful info that I was able to bring back and apply to my daily work. But what I also brought back was one hideous-looking Certificate of Completion.

I put it up on my wall anyway because I was proud of my accomplishment. But, within moments, one of my coworkers commented on it (quite possibly how that word hideous got planted in my brain). It was shoddily laid out and seemed to just scream that it had been thrown together both quickly and carelessly. Exactly not what a certificate is supposed to portray.

The thing about certificates is that they are meant to be shown off. Which means they should probably look nice. Not just nice, actually, but impressive. And if you’re going to the trouble of giving an award, it should represent the achievement accordingly.

This is not at all hard to do.

1. Start with the paper. Ask yourself: is this a formal or casual occasion? Can I use a preprinted sentiment, or is the award specific enough that it needs to be customized?

Our blank and pre-printed papers run the spectrum from elegant and distinguished to fun and informal. Really, if you can’t find it here, it probably doesn’t exist!

Bestselling Scallop                 Completion                 Bright-Foil Field Day

Award certificates are commonly used for volunteer appreciation, and many organizations will be ordering their certificate paper and getting designs ready as National Volunteer Week approaches! 

Award certificates are especially popular for National Volunteer Week because they are a very affordable recognition option. National Volunteer Week will be here soon, April 10-16, so we’ve put together a few resources that will make your award certificate creation easy! 

Thank you for joining me for today's Recognition TV webisode!  You can watch the complete recorded webisode with all my Employee Appreciation Day ideas on Baudville.com or on Baudville’s Facebook page. Several of my tips, ideas, and best practices are below, but I recommend you watch the entire video (it’s only about 15 minutes!) to catch everything. Now get ready! This is a long post with lots of info for you! 

Spring is a popular time for appreciation events, and both National Volunteer Week and Administrative Professionals Week are coming up in April! National Volunteer Week is April 10-16 and Administrative Professionals Week is April 204-30.