We are members of a great organization called Recognition Professionals International. I recently read these FAQs on their site regarding budgeting for a recognition program. I think you’ll find them helpful.
Q. What is an average budget for a Recognition Program?
What is the goal of your Recognition Program?This varies by company. I would recommend benchmarking what other companies in your industry or other companies of your size are doing. Any award program vendor should be able to provide benchmarking data like this.
Greg Boswell, O.C. Tanner, Inc.
This varies on what each company is establishing as its ultimate goal of the recognition program, the size of the company and its demographics, that is the beauty of recognition it can start small and grow with time and measurements of success!
Sandie Hodel, United Airlines, Inc
Very hard to answer. Ours is approx. $100 per person per year, but this includes funds for an annual recognition conference that only 500 attend each year.
Steve Richardson, Royal Bank of Canada
According to the benchmarking research I've seen, this figure can vary wildly. Some companies invest up to 2% of their payroll, others feel that .05 of 1% is sufficient. Some invest very little. One of the goals of RPI is to help establish some guidelines or standards but that data will have to be gathered over a period of time. A confidential format for sharing this information may make it easier to obtain.
Dee Hansford, Dee Hansford Consulting
Q. What factor is the basis for most Recognition Program budgets?
It really depends on your program objectives. Once again, consider what you'd like the program to accomplish and then work towards that goal.
Greg Boswell, O.C. Tanner, Inc.
Per capita.
Steve Richardson, Royal Bank of Canada
Smart companies are investing in recognition that drives performance and behaviors that further the mission and goals of the organization. Consequently, they are seeing bottom line results. I can tell you that while at Disney during the 25th Anniversary celebration, we saw a 15% increase in the Cast's satisfaction with day-to-day recognition by their immediate supervisors; an overall improvement of 32.6%. We saw correlating Guest satisfaction scores that were very high and showed a strong intent to return, which directly impacted the bottom line. After working with CalPERS for two years, we have seen their recognition scores improve 19%; productivity is increasing, as are customer satisfaction scores.
Dee Hansford, Dee Hansford Consulting