View the first in our new series of videos. Social Recognition : The future of employee recognition is social. The marketing team will never watch a TV advert or Hollywood movie in the same light again, after producing two minutes of hard core social recognition video message. We hope you can stick with us for 2.12 minutes.

Overview

The global non-cash reward industry is estimated at $47 billion, this includes everything from trophies to e-codes, and gift vouchers to iPads, and the reward industry is only focused on one goal, $48 billion.

Social recognition is changing the industry. Recognition was a tool purely designed to facilitate reward distribution to a few, be it monthly, quarterly, more likely annually, and even more likely, never at all.

Workstars are making the case for change. Social recognition programs shift the emphasis from reward, to recognition, ensuring your company captures the highly valuable positive energy and excellence, that is missed every day. This shift is in part being driven by HR and leadership teams, who are embracing recognition as a software solution. Empowering employees, raising the bar on managers, improving engagement scores, and providing meaningful HR analysis, far outweigh what reward, gets delivered ( or emailed ) where.

Simply making reward a secondary, optional, or invisible process. Ensures every company can maximise the benefits of appreciation and positive reinforcement, without breaking the bank.

Why change? Let’s look at some of the issues on the HR horizon; the current trend and demand on HR includes:

• How to get employees involved, giving employees a voice
• Providing a more visible, and stronger leadership narrative
• Aligning people and company, through values and behaviour
• Making a positive impact on culture, and employee-to-employee relations
• Making performance reviews relevant and at least not de-motivational
• The connection between managers and (dis)engagement
• Attracting, engaging, and retaining talent

Workstars, nor social recognition profess to be the knight in shining armour arriving to save HR. However, it is clear that social recognition is going to play a much bigger role in influencing, and progressing HR strategy.

So the next time you think employee recognition, don’t think reward. Think about the millions of positive working highlights, and internal customer service moments, you let slip out of your business every year. Then think about your Glassdoor, employee engagement, performance review, and talent management strategies.

We hope you agree, the future of employee recognition is empowering employees, raising the bar on managers and providing meaningful HR analysis, not more reward budget.