Social Recognition Trends & Best Practices for 2024

Cloud-based platforms continue to be the gold standard for a comprehensive and complete recognition offering, with MTM Recognition’s Social Recognition Platform at the forefront. Our clients represent a wide variety of sectors, sizes, and locations, but we are always on the lookout for what features are trending among them. Overall, we’re seeing the social recognition platform become particularly… social! The 2023/2024 trends tend to include high levels of social functionality, as well as engaging & fun ways to recognize outside of the standard Peer to Peer. 

Themed Trivia

Hosting themed trivia on your site is one of the best ways to encourage users to access the platform! Over the past year, we’ve seen more than a quarter of our clients utilize the trivia functionality to spark some fun on their sites. The trivia is not graded and limits each user to only playing once. But we pull out all the stops for an educational (and sometimes silly) experience to make sure your workforce enjoys this new feature.

Employee Highlights on the Home Page

If your social recognition platform’s newsfeed is hopping, each employee may only have a few moments in the spotlight before their recognition is pushed down the feed for newer badges to populate. We’re seeing multiple clients highlight employees at the top and sides of the newsfeed in separate text & image widgets to keep the recognition going longer! Whether it’s a big time accolade like Employee of the Month, or even just highlighting a few of your hardworking banquet committee members, having a specific post dedicated to those employees can ensure they feel truly recognized on your home page. 

Holiday Point Cards

Both 2022 and 2023 were record-breaking years across our SRP clients for their annual holiday employee recognition! More than 10,000 employees were recognized with badges, point cards, and postcards thanking them for their service throughout the year. If you aren’t already thinking of how you’ll celebrate your workforce this holiday season, ask MTM for a few ideas – we’re happy to help! 

Recognizing for Personal Milestones

Keeping personal life out of work is so 2000. The new wave of recognition includes celebrating personal milestones like the purchase of a house, celebrating the birth of a grandbaby, or even enjoying pics of a new puppy. Use the Tell Me Something Good page to allow your employees to share their personal milestones on your Social Recognition Platform, or swap in a fun question towards the beginning of your team meeting each week like “What’s your go-to road trip snack?” or “What are you looking forward to this weekend?” Basic ice-breaker questions can help your team feel connected to one another. 

Recognition from the CEO or an Executive

Recognition becomes even more meaningful when it comes from a leader up the chain of command. Recognition from a leader can be given either via dataloads (in which you may select which leader you’d like the recognition to be from) or through a mass ecard issuance (in which case the executive themself may use a “send to all” button). Either way, recognition is sweeter when it comes from a leader. Give it a try on your next employee appreciation day or the anniversary of your organization’s founding! 

Onboarding/Welcome Badges & Point Cards

Your employee’s opinion of your organization begins even before their first day and many of our clients are taking note. Make sure your onboarding process is complete by providing your new employees with proper training on your recognition platform. One of the best ways to encourage new employees to log in and register their accounts is by offering a Welcome Point Card! This greeting card-sized gift will feature a branded cover, a welcome message & redemption information, and instructions on how to gain access to the system.

Wellness Event Recognition 

While recognizing wellness initiatives via self-reported badges is still common among our clients, we’re seeing more and more programs opt for a one-time dataload for completion of certain events like a company 5k or those who get flu shots. If you’ve already got the list of names & employee numbers, we’ll help with the formatting & badge creation so you can recognize all of your wellness warriors at once. 

DE&I Programs

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recognition programs have made a big impact within the past year! More and more of our SRP clients are choosing to add badges that celebrate our differences and encourage the completion of DE&I education programs. If you’re interested in adding either a few badges or an entire DE&I program, we encourage you to reach out to MTM to get started! 

Seasonal Site Themes

Keep your site up-to-date with the cutest themes for each season! Make your site spooktacular around Halloween with a splash of orange and black. Give the site a birthday makeover during the month of your platform’s launch each year with anniversary-specific graphics. The new Site Themes widget is a huge hit among our clients to keep the platform fun and fresh.

We’re excited to see what other best practices you’ve seen lately. Feel free to drop a comment below and we’d love to chat!