Prepare Your Team
Motivated, Educated, and Engaged
Right Behaviors
Rewards and Recognition Programs
a sense of responsibility
The use of rewards and recognition can help individuals and teams develop a sense of personal responsibility and understand their role in maintaining your company’s food safety standards.
A strong sense of personal responsibility can encourage employees to demonstrate positive food safety actions. These rewards can also assist leadership with developing and enforcing desired food safety behaviors across the entire company.
It’s not just about prizes, it’s about recognizing the right behaviors.
planning rewards and recognition programs
The following considerations have been useful to Alliance members as they developed their own rewards and recognition programs and may provide guidance as you plan, implement, and evaluate your own.
Basic Principles
Consider the nature of the rewards and recognition programs.
- What behaviors do you want to reward?
- How can you leverage the observations from your food safety culture self-reflection to assist in defining reward and recognition expectations?
- Will you reward individual achievements, team achievements, or both?
- What will you name your program?
- Will you leverage that name on T-shirts, jackets, or other gifts?
- Are there opportunities to celebrate the rewards and recognition program—at least annually—through a Food Safety Culture Day or Week?
- Can celebrations be linked to existing events such as World Food Safety Day or Food Safety Education Month?
Know Your Audience
Take into account the regional and cultural norms of your team as you design the specifics of your rewards and recognition program.
For example: your self-reflection process may reveal a challenge to your food safety culture is a lack of teamwork and communication. Your rewards and recognition program could encourage teams to submit ideas collectively for food safety improvements. Ideas would be reviewed and recognized, and teams would have more opportunities to work collectively and a chance to communicate their ideas in a direct and formal way.
Some rewards or systems of recognitions may or may not apply to your organization or your employees. Cultural norms are not universal, even among facilities of the same company.
Examples of Rewards and Recognition
Think about the needs, wants, and cultural norms of your team. What rewards and forms of recognition will they most respond to?
- A dedicated parking space close to the entrance
- Breakfast or lunch with hourly and upper management
- Shout-outs during team meetings
- Food safety culture wall of fame
- Plaques, trophies, and/or certificates
