One of the best ways to reward employees is to provide them with employee recognition certificates that testify to their outstanding performance in the workplace. After all, meeting esteem needs through recognition from others is important for most people. Such certificates may be supplemented with small tokens such as mugs or gift certificates and even time-off.

The main reasons for creating employee recognition programs are to boost your employees’ morale while encouraging higher levels of performance. In fact, an element of competition can even be introduced to such programs by tying the awarding of employee recognition certificates to the achievement of specific results. However, some management experts argue against doing so as those employees who do not earn a certificate may end up demoralized. According to them, it would be better to give certificates to all employees who achieve a certain performance target; doing so could even promote teamwork within the organization as workers help each other to meet set targets.

Managers who are planning to implement employee recognition programs can easily download templates from the Internet, but it would be better to create your own certificate which has been customized with your company logo to make it seem more specific to the company. The paper used should be of heavy stock such as parchment. The name of the employee should be hand-written on the certificate, and of course, signed by hand by the manager or other top official of the company. Finally, the employee recognition certificates should be presented in a folder or other special holder to protect them from damage.