“Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary.” – Margaret Cousins
Appreciation is a simple thing, yet highly underrated and even underused. A simple gesture or a few words of appreciation can significantly impact a person. And it is high time we realize that.
A little praise can help you lift employee morale. Especially when you have a remote workforce, recognition is a must.
Before the pandemic hit, remote working was not that prevalent. But now, most companies are switching to either a fully-remote work model or a hybrid model. So, the importance of appreciation has swiftly increased.
Today, we’ll walk you through virtual employee appreciation ideas. These ideas will help you get appropriate rewards for virtual employees.
Let’s start exploring!
Why is Virtual Employee Recognition Important?
The past two years have been the years of virtual interactions. Be it personal conversations or professional discussions. Virtual platforms took over coffee shops and office spaces.
A large part of the population continues to work from home. They have been starting at their regular hours, doing their jobs, and logging off without entering their offices.
There are some obvious benefits of remote work. Like, remote employees can skip the travel, save on costs, handle personal matters during breaks, spend time with family, etc.
However, the downsides of remote work are evident too. For instance, working from home can be lonely. Employees might struggle with their work, understand their role, or even struggle to interact with the teams. Often virtual employees feel left out without personal interactions with team members, managers, or supervisors.
Here, virtual recognition can help immensely. Virtual recognition ideas can be a great way to ensure that they get over their loneliness, connect with co-workers in other locations, and consider themselves a part of the team.
While there are several virtual employee appreciation ideas, employers or leaders must focus on those that can help in the development of the employee. Also, the ways to recognize employees virtually must be so that they become motivated to accomplish their goals.
Virtual Employee Appreciation Statistics
If you are still wondering about the importance of employee recognition for remote employees, you must look at some numbers.
Below, we have listed a few statistics highlighting the importance of virtual team recognition and appreciation.
- A survey suggests that recognition is the most crucial aspect for 37% of employees.
- 65% of employees have not received recognition or reward for their good performance in the previous year.
- About 64% of employees say that appreciation and recognition are more important for employees working from remote locations.
- 53% of the remote employees feel left out or lonely in a virtual workplace setup.
- A company might witness average savings from $2000 to $6500 per person annually for remote half-time work.
- The workweek is longer for remote employees. A study found that remote employees spend 10% longer logged in each week. That means a virtual employee might spend up to six days a week working remotely with an addition of four or more hours weekly.
Virtual Employee Appreciation Ideas
Among the many virtual employee recognition ideas, we have picked a few meaningful ones that can work wonders for employee motivation.
Let’s see what these remote team recognition ideas are!
Personalized thank you cards can be awesome
One of the most underrated recognition ideas for virtual teams is sending personalized thank you cards. Whether physical or digital, sending a simple thank you card is a thoughtful way to appreciate employees.
Since gratitude shows an emotional connection from the leader or manager, it increases belonging towards the organizations. Also, it strengthens the relationship between virtual employees and managers.
Give a social media shout out
Public accolades work very well when it comes to boosting employee motivation. You must use this virtual recognition idea to celebrate employees’ successes when they accomplish a goal.
All it takes is a quick social media post for the virtual employee praising their efforts towards achieving the specific goal. It is an easy, cost-effective, simple, yet impactful virtual employee appreciation idea that you must think about.
Virtual celebrations and experiences
Virtual experiences matter a lot when you have employees working remotely because they are most likely to miss out on office events.
Be it concerts, music festivals, or simple birthday parties, remote workers mostly miss these gatherings. Hence, offering remote workers virtual experiences and celebrations can be an outstanding virtual recognition idea.
Celebrate work anniversaries, birthdays, and milestone achievements to make the employee feel valued. You can host a virtual party where the team can gather and send wishes.
Along with such virtual parties, you can also send gift cards, goodies, etc., to make it more special.
1:1 appreciation meets
The most significant disadvantage of remote work is that the employees cannot meet the team personally. So, primarily, the connection between the remote teams and leaders does not grow much.
But if you consider one employee recognition idea for virtual teams, you might successfully establish a strong relationship. The idea we are talking about is face-to-face appreciation interactions.
You can connect with every team member over Zoom, Google Meet, or Skype and appreciate them for their performance. Though virtual meetings do not replace personal interactions, they are good enough for telling employees about their excellent performance.
A yummy meal delivery
Everyone loves food, and the best part is that you can get tasty meals delivered to your remote teams. For instance, you can send a home delivery to your remote team when you gather for a team lunch.
You can also send food delivery vouchers as a virtual recognition idea. We are sure that your remote team will enjoy the free meals and feel connected with their co-workers.
Virtual class and learning sessions
Besides encouraging employees to achieve business goals, you must also show interest in their personal development.
When you think about employees’ career and personal development, they get the encouragement to perform better. So, another way to recognize employees virtually is to help them grow.
You can offer your remote employees opportunities to upskill themselves. You can conduct virtual skills training sessions or e-learning courses to ensure employee betterment.
Start the initiative of virtual happy hours
Apart from celebrations and events (which might or might not happen for many companies), start setting a time for fun called ‘virtual happy hours.
Virtual happy hours aim to let the remote teams socialize with their co-workers and get to know them. You can have this short virtual event once a month, play online games, interact, share weekend plans, etc.
Such one-hour events can play a big part in connecting the employees and also invoke a sense of belonging in remote employees.
Choose an employee of the month/ week
It takes nothing to execute this virtual recognition idea, and it is not a new concept. But then, you can be sure that it’s effective.
When you recognize your remote employees with certificates and awards, they get the instant boost to perform better and consistently. You can either give awards based on performance or hold a specific work-based contest, program, etc., to choose a winner.
However, make sure you don’t give awards too frequently as that might reduce its value.
Cheer for employees’ achievements
Not just the professional achievements, try to keep up with the personal achievements of the employee too.
Have informal conversations to know what employees are doing outside the office. Did they buy a new home? Are they getting married? Did they complete pursuing a degree?
Acknowledge these personal achievements too to build a stronger relationship with your remote workers.
Set a special day for remote employee appreciation
Keep aside a day for virtual employee appreciation. You can hold a virtual meet, set up themes, ask employees to dress up, etc.
Let the leaders speak about employee performances. Have fun, easy conversations, discuss future visions, and ensure that the appreciation meet becomes a memorable and unique. You can also send them meals to maintain the personal touch for the day.
Remote Employee Appreciation Gift Ideas
Besides the recognition, gifts also play a vital role in boosting employee morale. You can make your remote employees feel like a part of the organization by giving gifts.
Here are a few remote employee appreciation gifts you can consider for your remote workers.
A surprise day off
After stressful days of hard work, who doesn’t love a surprise day off?!
This remote employee appreciation gift might be the best thing you do for your team.
Since your remote employees work longer and their work-life balance is often blurred, give them a day off to spend with their dear ones. You can also give them a day off on their birthdays or work anniversaries.
Such day offs will help them relax and rejuvenate while bonding with their families. The beauty of this virtual recognition idea is that it is easy yet powerful enough to make your remote employees feel happy and appreciated.
Wellness gifts
This is a unique remote employee gift idea that you can consider. After 2020, mental wellness and physical wellness have become a priority. So, giving wellness perks Is how you can show your employees that you care.
Several wellness perks can help in boosting your employee morale. Here are a few of the best virtual wellness benefits to offer:
- Healthy snack baskets
- Meditation app subscriptions
- Care hampers containing masks, sanitizers, etc.
- Fitness bands
Gift employees OTT platform subscriptions
What can be better than entertainment and relaxation after long stressful work hours?
It might seem out of the box, but offering subscriptions to favorite OTT platforms can be one of the most amazing rewards for virtual employees.
A different gift for remote employees, this gifting idea might be simple, but it surely does work wonders.
Your remote employees are stuck at home with long hours of work.
So, sending them their favorite OTT subscriptions might be the best thing you do to reduce their boredom.
Gift a useful sit-stand desk converter
The work environment and space where your remote employees log in must be suitable for productivity. While some employees use spare countertops dining tables, others use make-shift workstations.
There might be different challenges facing virtual employee workspace. In the future, this might be a reason for absenteeism.
So, avoid such situations by proactively gifting your employees a sit-stand desk converter.
Converters work well with virtual workspaces. They are convenient, easy to use, and less expensive than desks.
Send local treats for employee accomplishments
When your remote employee has achieved a milestone, small gifts can play a big part in motivating them.
You need not invest a lot of money in the rewards for virtual employees. Simply send them a gift card for any local nearby restaurant or coffee shop. You can also get flowers or cakes delivered to their place from local shops.
Such small remote employee appreciation gifts can be really rewarding for employee productivity and performance.
Set Up Your Remote Teams With Multiplier!
You must first set up your global teams to try these employee appreciation ideas. But setting up remote teams and managing them isn’t easy at all!
But then, we can help you to do that!
With Multiplier, you can easily set up your remote teams and start working with them within the best possible time.
The comprehensive Multiplier platform covers everything related to your remote teams – payroll, taxes, local insurance, policies, and social contributions. Our solutions like remote onboarding, being the EOR, providing benefits and compensation can help you manage your remote teams effectively and efficiently.
Curious to discover more about Multiplier? Schedule a demo with us right away!
