Technology recruitment firm Understanding Recruitment recognises its employees’ achievements by offering a variety of rewards to boost engagement.
The organisation, which has 85 members of staff based in St Albans, England, offers its employees breaks away to recognise strong performance and the achievement of targets. Every other year, the employer takes the whole workforce away on a fully-paid trip to celebrate their hard work and successes; previous destinations have included Miami, Barbados and Las Vegas. On the alternate year, individual members of staff qualify for a fully-paid trip based on their performance.
This was introduced to reward and recognise everyone in the business regardless of their role, explains Chris Jackson, founding director at Understanding Recruitment.
“Last year we took everyone away for a weekend to Palma,” he says. “This was fantastic for engagement and to reward everyone for their hard work, especially off of the back of Covid-19. We also provide staff with the chance to take sabbaticals, offering three months for five years of service and six months for 10 years. This gives workers the chance to take a break for whatever reason and know that their job is still there. Investing back into staff is really important to us.”
Every week, the firm encourages staff to put forward recommendations for colleagues who have personified and lived up to its values through its Value of the Week initiative. These, and other success stories, are shared with everyone in the organisation to provide recognition that is not just based on results, but also rewards short-term achievements where staff have worked hard.
In January, Understanding Recruitment set up an employee ownership trust, selling 60% of the business to the trust. The decision behind this was focused on ensuring all employees were recognised and rewarded for their hard work and loyalty, and can share in its financial success.
In addition, the firm has offered staff unlimited paid holiday for the past three years once they have been in their role for a minimum of two years in order to ensure they have a good work-life balance. It also offers a budget for a team wellbeing day, where each team can choose an activity to do together to help boost their morale, employees can take two paid volunteering days to support a charity of their choice, and through the UR Foundation, staff can travel anywhere in the world for a paid week away to help a charity or organisation.
It also offers staff the chance to work three days in the office and two days from home, ensuring continuity across its employee recognition initiatives to avoid any negative impact.
Having recognition is a key part of building a successful business, as well as promoting best practice when individuals have worked hard, says Jackson.
“Recognition is important to create a positive environment, and build teamwork, camaraderie and engagement. It’s also good to not just recognise individuals but teams and the business as a whole. We want to operate as one, help and support each other, and recognise, both from an individual and team perspective, good performance and effort.”
The organisation also ensures that it rewards employees who do not always meet their targets, so they know their hard work and effort are still being recognised and that they are improving and moving in the right direction.