Recognition toolkit
Our recognition toolkit has been developed with the involvement and support of colleagues from across the council so that we can support each other to feel valued.
Download the recognition toolkit
During our last employee survey, 30% of colleagues who responded disagreed that they felt valued and recognised, so this is one of the top 3 priority areas that we are making improvements in this year.
The recognition toolkit is an important first step in creating a culture of people feeling valued – and when people feel valued, they are more engaged at work, which leads to better productivity and supports our aspiration of becoming an Employer of Choice.
In addition to making improvements in people feeling valued and recognised, colleagues also fed back that they wanted to be more "involved in decisions that affect me and my work" and so we wanted to make sure that our recognition approach was co-developed with the full input of a wide range of colleagues.
We set up an initial working group and an employee focus group in January this year who started to look at what good recognition might look like and consulted across the 4 departments as well. In addition, we did some benchmarking with other councils to learn how they approached recognition and to see what best practices we could adopt and implement here.
It became very clear from colleagues' feedback that feeling valued and recognised was about more than just praise, employees said they would like to be listened to more, have more regular visits and meetings with managers, have their views taken into account and would like to feel more connected within their own teams, the wider council and see more visibility of middle and senior managers.
This toolkit forms part of our wider approach to recognition and you will hear more about what other things we are putting in place over the coming months. As our proposals started to gain more traction, we expanded the focus groups even further to ensure we were on the right track.
The recognition toolkit can be used by both managers and colleagues alike, because helping people feel valued here is something we can all get involved in and support.
We would encourage everyone to have a look and think about what they can do to help us create a culture here, where people feel valued and supported.
One of the toolkit resources is a set of recognition cards in a range of designs to help you send a special message to a colleague or peer.
Recognition cards
We have designed a small range of cards to help you send a special message to a colleague or peer, whether they are celebrating a birthday, new arrival, did a fantastic piece of work or reached a significant milestone.
Our recognition cards are available to use as e-cards which can be filled out and sent by email or printable cards for you to fill out by hand.
Anyone can use the cards, whether you're a line manager wanting to give a card to one of your team members or if you just want to send a special message to a colleague.
View and download the recognition cards