Within the Planning section of the Employee Reward and Recognition site you will find recommendations on how to utilize reward and recognition in your business. As proven tools, reward and recognition can assist you:

• Promote specific behavior and activity
• Drive individual and team performance
• Celebrate achievements and results
• Recognize loyalty and contribution

Reward and Recognition Opportunities

Service Awards

Recognizing employee service milestones allows you to promote how critical longevity, loyalty and contribution are to business and personal success. Each milestone is an opportunity to celebrate the individual for their time, dedication and most importantly, their contribution and achievements.

Tips for success:

Create a consistent structure for service milestones and budget. Consistency is especially important with the earlier milestones as you will have more employees achieve them. The award program offers you a wide range of award budgets that you can tailor this to what will work in your business. Communication of your program is important. You may want to post or promote your program where it is visible to employees.

Presenting Service Awards

The presentation of the award is vital to the success of your program. Here are a few pointers to help you prepare and deliver an effective presentation. The presentation will only take a few minutes at most, but they will be the most important few minutes in the entire process.

• Plan ahead—order the award thave prior to the employee’s anniversary
• Plan the presentation to occur on or close to the employee anniversary date
• Schedule a convenient time when other team members can be present
• Be prepared to personalize the presentation to focus on:


• The individual’s longevity and dedication
• Specific contribution and performance that make a difference
• Results that the restaurant has achieved in that time period
• Anything unique about the individual that stands out

Rewarding and Recognizing Performance

The program offered to you is very flexible in terms of budget levels and how it can be used. It is flexible so that you can use reward and recognition to create focus for the specific behaviors, activities and performance that will help you drive business results. And, celebrate when results are achieved.

Outlined below are recommendations for motivating your team and celebrating achievements.

Individual Reward and Recognition

Reward and recognition for individuals should focus on what the employee can impact or control. You can recognize individuals for going above and beyond or for being consistent performers.

• Guest comments
• Attendance and punctuality
• Appearance—uniform and hygiene
• Attitude and sense of urgency
• Customer greeting and service
• Safe work
• Referral for new employee
• Assisting with new employee training
• Adherence to procedures

Tips for success:

• Be consistent
• Promote your expectations
• Catch somebody doing something right
• Frequently reinforce the behaviors you are trying to drive
• Recognize and thank the individual as close to the behavior as possible—thank them on-the-spot or before the shift ends

Presenting Individual Recognition

• Say thank you on-the-spot—frequently
• If you are presenting an award, cite specific behavior examples and how those behaviors make a difference in the restaurant
• Emphasize if you are recognizing the individual for consistency or above and beyond performance
• Use thank you recognition presentations to promote desired behaviors

Team Reward and Recognition

Team reward and recognition can be effectively structured to drive specific activities and inspire consistent performance. Here are suggestions to help you: Set specific short-term performance targets that can be measured and let the team know how they are doing along the way Occupancy rates Guest satisfaction scores Team safety results Food and beverage sales Community involvement Mystery shopper results

Achieving great results provides the ultimate opportunity for you to pause and recognize your team—they made it happen. Along the way each team member will have developed a greater appreciation for how they contribute and you will be fostering an environment where results matter.

Tips for success:

• Promote the activity or the goal to the team
• Promote the award opportunity—let the team know what is in it for them
• Provide feedback on progress steam knows how they are doing
• Engage the management team
• Celebrate the results

Presenting Recognition

• This is a more formal presentation than individual recognition
• Create a “party” atmosphere—it is a celebration
• Schedule when most team members can be present
• As you present the awards, sincerely thank each individual for their role in achieving the results
• Set an expectation for future achievement