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As important as customers and clients are to a business, the backbone of any successful business is its employees. Good employees are hard to find and keeping them can be even harder, especially in these economically challenging times when bonuses and raises are few and far between. This gives HR departments an added challenge when it comes to employee retention. One way to boost morale and to encourage employees to stick around is to develop a solid employee recognition program. A popular part of these programs are certificates of appreciation.

Blank certificates are inexpensive and there are FREE certificate of appreciation templates available for download for your favorite word processor. This means that certificates can be printed up in a matter of minutes because all the hard work, layout, and wording have already been completed. All that’s left is to put the person’s name and the date on it, hit the print button and you’re done. Generating several certificates for an awards program can be accomplished in only a few minutes!

There are templates for virtually any occasion you can think of. Appreciation for attendance, excellence, safety, and production are just a few of the dozens out there. And if you’ve got an occasion that requires a certificate of appreciation template that isn’t out there, since they are templates, making changes to cover your needs is a snap. Most templates can be downloaded from the company that makes the blank certificates. The best part is that they have designed the templates to the exact specifications of the paper so there is no chance of error.

And to dress up the entire process, putting the finished certificate in a frame takes only a couple of minutes for each one. Great frames can be purchased for as little as a couple of dollars each. Combined with the minimal cost of the blank certificate, being able to give out certificates of appreciation is one of the least expensive, but most productive ways to implement an employee recognition program. Low cost, ease of production, and flexibility with the certificate of appreciation templates makes presenting those certificates the most beneficial part of your program.

Safety is a concern for all companies, if you’re an office or a manufacturer you will want to keep safety fresh in the minds of your employees.

Safety Border Paper

Safety is a Bright Idea Recognition Pin

Safety Casual Certificate

Safety First Vinyl Banner

Employee recognition has become one of the most useful tools that a human resources departments has in its arsenal to build employee morale and improve employee retention. In today’s economy, bonuses and raises can be a little difficult to build into a budget, so alternative methods for rewarding employees for their efforts and accomplishments have to be put in place. One great way to show employees how much they’re appreciated is with a plaque award.

Plaque awards come in a couple of styles. The first style is a full plaque. These are very nice for special presentations and when the employee needs to have a special honor bestowed on them. The prices for these plaques can be in then $10 to however much money you want to spend range, and makes for a very nice award. However, if you have quite a few employees that need recognition, this can get very expensive, very quickly.

The other type of plaque awards is an expandable one. These have a main plate with the award title on it, such as employee of the month, with space for additional, smaller plates to be added. This means that the plaque can be awarded multiple times and displayed in a prominent location like the reception desk where everyone can see the award. Not only will the employee know they’ve received an award, but everyone who sees it can know that their efforts have been appreciated.  Having their name on one of those smaller plates and receiving a certificate or small plaque to go with it gives them a sense of satisfaction on multiple levels.

Finding the ways to let employees know the company does appreciate their work and effort isn’t as easy as it used to be. With bonuses pretty much out of the budgetary question, the alternatives have to be ones that will show that appreciation in an economical manner. Plaque awards are a great way to build employee morale and to boost retention and you don’t have to break the budget to do it. Check out all the great plaques available and see just how they can work into a recognition program in your company.

Keep employee morale positive with office humor posters, notecards, mini cards, and gifts.

Dreams I Humor Print

Creative Accounting I Humor Print

Finance I Large Poster

Low Hanging Fruit I Humor Print

The Bermuda Cubicle I Humor Print

If you walk around virtually every office in the world, you’re going to see a lot of common denominators. You’ll find the usual computers, pens and pencils, family pictures on the desks and walls and even some plants. But somewhere, either in an office or in a public area, you’ll find something that will make you laugh out loud, or at least give you a chuckle. Most of the time the culprit is an office humor sign hanging on a wall.

Some are simple drawings with a funny caption below it that is designed to garner a laugh. Some are like the motivational pictures, but the heading is something totally hilarious. Regardless of which type it is, these signs not only bring a funny moment to whoever sees it, but they do a great job of boosting morale in the workplace.

When employees work a job for a while, especially doing production work, the tasks can become tedious. This tedium can cause an employee to be a little less attentive to detail and can even slow production. By having signs in break rooms and in public areas that are funny, the employee sees it and the humor breaks that tedium. An employee that’s thinking about the sign they just saw is an employee that’s plugged back in to their job.

One way to really take advantage of office humor signs is to change them out on a regular basis. Signs that have been hanging for a while have been seen by everyone and have lost their appeal. But swapping them out for new ones keeps the humor level high and employees will look for new signs all the time. This keeps a level of anticipation in the office and that also works to boost morale.

Humorous signs in the office definitely builds morale and used properly can work on multiple levels to do so. And the best part about is the fact that these signs are very inexpensive. Even the large ones aren’t very expensive and the humor level can be increased with the size of the sign. Regardless of what kind of sign it is, or even the content of the humor, these signs give everyone in the office something to look forward to.

When it comes to giving inexpensive awards for any occasion, there are almost as many choices for awards as there are occasions to give them. There are all kinds of certificate designs and styles from the rather plain all the way through the super fancy that look absolutely awesome and the recipients will be pleased to get. And they can be used for any occasion as well, since you are buying blank certificate stock, so you can define what they get used for.

For instance, doing certificates for school projects and as awards for special events is a breeze. All you have to do is select the appropriate pre-designed certificates and you’re almost done. After that, all you have to do is fill in the recipient’s name and the reasons for the award print it off on any laser or ink-jet printer and you are done. There are templates for most of the stock certificates that load up in your favorite word processor that makes taking care of the layout and wording a snap. After that, just have the certificate signed by the principal or event sponsors and you’ve just created a fantastic award that anyone would be proud of.

And certificates are inexpensive as well. Certificate stock is very inexpensive, and even if you add in labor dollars to have them laid out and printed, they’re still going to be about the most cost-effective award you can give. Even if you put them in a nice frame for a full presentation, you can still expect the entire award to cost less than $10. That makes inexpensive certificate awards cheaper than just about any other award you could give.

Regardless of why you’re giving a certificate for, whether it’s as an award at a dog and cat show, for success at completing a class or course of study, or as an award for a fishing or hunting competition, the ability to create the awards in a very few minutes means you can give the actual certificate at the close of the event. You don’t have to wait weeks, or even months, to distribute the actual certificates to the winners. This kind of instant gratification is a great encouragement for future events, and means the recipient can show off the award when they win it.

There are other awards you can give, but in terms of bang for your buck, and to give the recipient something they’ll appreciate for years to come, an inexpensive certificate award is certainly one of your best options. Take a look at the certificate stock available and see what would be best for your next event. You’ll be amazed at what all you can find, and what occasions you can apply it to.

As with every department in an organization, especially in this economy, trying to find ways to make that dollar go as far as possible has become more important than ever. However, finding ways to improve team morale is just as important. Even more so, actually, as morale is impactful enough that cutting a few dollars here and a few dollars there can mean the difference between having a job and having a company that has to shut its doors. Even when it comes to something as seemingly unimportant as the employee recognition budget, making sure you’re getting your money’s worth is a definite key to success.

Right off the bat, one would think that dropping an employee recognition programaltogether would be the best way to recoup those dollars. The truth is that will cost the company more dollars in terms of lowered team morale and decreased productivity than it would if the employee recognition budget were actually increased. Employees need to have that recognition and acknowledgment that the team’s efforts are being noticed and that the company actually cares. Without that recognition, it affects how they feel about working for the company and their overall attitude. So that means cutting the program out completely is the absolute wrong answer as a way to improve team morale.

The best way to improve team morale is to show the company appreciates their efforts. While the team also understands the need to economize, that need for recognition to build and keep team spirit is worth the money. With the difficulties everyone seems to be having, there is a level of gratitude that there are jobs to begin with, let alone one with extravagant bonuses, perks and benefits. However, even with that need to economize, employees still need that recognition. That means finding the ways and means with the existing employee recognition budget to give out the awards and rewards that will keep morale from slipping.

That’s where doing such things as printing your own certificates and awards in-house comes into play. Also, using inexpensive, but personalized, employee gifts can be used as incentives and rewards that will improve team morale. The need to recognize the efforts and accomplishments of the employees is important, however that doesn’t mean you have to spend tons of money to do it. The employees appreciate the recognition as much or more than the award that memorializes it.

When it comes to keeping good employees, companies have developed employee retention programs and some are willing to try just about anything short of using a ball and chain to prevent an employee from leaving. They’ll use monetary incentives, benefit inducements and a whole host of other techniques to try to maintain the employee loyalty that keeps them there. While there are no sure-fire ways to ensure an employee will stick, there are a lot of little things that will keep an employee from looking to change jobs in the first place.

Granted, paying an employee a competitive wage for their efforts is the main way to keep them on the team. Also, having health insurance and other benefits in place also encourages an employee to stick. But as powerful as those two incentives are, very rarely are they capable of having the impact that good quality employee recognition does.

Employees want to know that their efforts are noticed and that they’re a valid part of the company instead of being just another timecard. When employees get that recognition, whether it’s a certificate or award, a nameplate on a plaque or even the recipient of “special” employee gifts like stationery and post-it notes, that lets them know they’re being seen. While there are some employees that could care less whether anyone knows they’re around, good employees appreciate the recognition because it makes them a part of-instead of apart from, a team.

These are the employees that, when given the recognition they deserve, are willing to work the extra hours, are willing to go that extra mile for the employer, customers and clients. They’re even willing to work for a company that will recognize their efforts rather than work for one for more money that doesn’t. Knowing what an employee wants in order to be that loyal employee isn’t very difficult. They want the company to be loyal to them, and that is what an employee retention program provides.