Whilst the ‘job for life’ mentality is slowly becoming obsolete, that doesn’t mean long service awards are. In fact, many employees are now looking for workplaces that offer a positive company culture and foster reward schemes to cultivate that. Rewarding loyalty through long service awards or work anniversary awards are one of the many ways that organisations can show their appreciation to their employees, here are the benefits of a long service award.
What are Long Service Awards?
Loyalty or long service awards are a form of recognition for employees who have reached a milestone in terms of years of service with their company. They are typically celebrated at 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years. But with more and more employees only staying within their role for one or two years, it’s time for long service awards to be redefined and observed more frequently.
The benefits
Companies who are considering amending the frequency of their long service awards might first want to consider the benefits of the reward scheme from both their employee and overall business perspective.
Motivate and Engage Employees
Successful business owners recognise that happy and engaged employees are integral to the success of the business and one such way to boost motivation is with long service awards. Danni Rush, COO at Virgin Incentives, Virgin Experience Days and Virgin Experience Gifts shared that, “long service awards lead to increased employee happiness, a more motivated workforce and better financial performance for the business overall.” By offering greater job fulfilment and reward loyalty, employees will feel more invested and committed to the company as a whole.
Keep Your Talented Colleagues for Longer
Retaining talent, especially post-pandemic, has been challenging for many businesses with Work Institute’s retention report revealing that 75% of the causes of employee turnover are preventable. An employee is generally less likely to leave if they feel appreciated and their work is not going unnoticed. Long service awards are also a great way to inspire peers to aim for similar targets. If they see an appealing reward is given at 2 or 3 years of service, they’re more inclined to stay and work to achieve the same goal. Not to mention, recruiting a new member of staff is far more time-consuming and costly than investing in an employee reward scheme to incite your existing team members to stay.
Create Connections
The pandemic brought us many life lessons and one of the most poignant is definitely appreciating those around you. Long service awards offer companies an ideal opportunity to let employees know they fit and belong in your organisation – a sense that many workers felt they lost while working solely remotely during the pandemic. The ability to tailor and personalise long service awards also allows businesses the scope to demonstrate that they know who their employees are, outside of the workplace and encourages a greater work-life balance.
Attract Talented Individuals
In business, the effort an organisation goes to when highlighting their culture is key to attracting top talent. Recent studies have indicated that 94% of candidates would consider an employer’s brand when applying for jobs. This goes to show how important it is for businesses to promote positive schemes like long service awards. It shows you reward your current employees which in turn creates a “I want to work there” mentality for job-seekers.
Strive for Productivity
We’ve already mentioned the positive impact long service awards have on employee engagement but from a business perspective, it’s also beneficial for the company as a whole. Motivated employees strive to deliver productive results – in fact, a study by the University of Warwick found that happy workers were approximately 12% more productive.
These are some of the many benefits of a long service award. Find out below how we can help with long service awards and work anniversaries or contact us
