In this month’s Recognition TV webisode, we talked about Service Anniversaries. This is the one recognition program that you can find at all organizations! Recognizing years of service can affect employee morale, retention, and motivation, so make it count! Here are five tips you can follow in your organization that employees will fondly remember for years. 

Watch the Recognition TV websiode here:
 

The holidays are here! It seems like all the major retail areas are already bustling with holiday shoppers looking for the best gifts for everyone on their list. Have you thought about appreciation for your team yet?

The holidays and end of the year are an important time to reflect upon the contributions, accomplishments, and successes of your team. At Baudville, we celebrate with our Year End Party which includes awards, employee gifts, and lots of fun! Our employees always look forward to our event, so I’ve put together three areas of tips and ideas to help you make your own year end efforts successful. You can also get all these tips in our Recognition TV video.

1. Event Themes
Your year event or award ceremony should have a theme! It can be simple or as creative as you can imagine. Some of our past themes for the Baudville Year End Party have been game show, roaring twenties, and casino. Regardless of the theme you choose, you should always make it about the guests of honor: your team.

Your theme gets applied to all the communication about your event including the invitation, presentation slides, menu, directional signs, table cards, ID cards, even your follow up newsletter article. ID cards are an important element of our year end party. Every employee receives a card (we make them with the IDville ID Maker system) when we arrive at the party. The ID card reveals table assignments and makes employees and guests more comfortable because they don’t have to remember everyone’s name!  

Award certificates are a popular way to express appreciation or recognize accomplishments. At Baudville, we frequently give certificates to winners of games or contests, and use award certificates in our formal recognition programs. 

With June right around the corner, certificates are also a great way to give end of the school year appreciation to teachers, volunteers, school staff, and students. To create and present memorable award certificates, follow these five award certificate tips. 

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!