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Employee Engagement

AVC Corner: Enhancing Employee Recognition

Dear colleagues,

In early 2021, my team and I will announce some exciting news regarding employee recognition at NC State. I cannot reveal all the details yet, but I want to make you aware of the work taking place before we make our announcement.

A group of university employees has been working since May 2019 to enhance the employee recognition programs that University Human Resources coordinates. NC State has three signature recognition programs: the Service Awards Program, Pride of the Wolfpack and Awards for Excellence.

That group is also looking for ways to encourage university partners to improve their existing recognition programs and to find new and innovative ways to show their employees how much they are appreciated. Those partners already manage about 50 of their own recognition programs and/or events.

The group members began their evaluation of university recognition programs with the help of a consultant. The members also sought feedback from employees about the programs. They are using what they have learned over the past year to:

  • Launch a new peer-to-peer recognition program.
  • Enhance the Service Awards Program, Awards for Excellence and Pride of the Wolfpack.
  • Refresh UHR’s recognition webpages.

I am sure you are wondering what prompted us to do all this. Many of you provided that prompting through your responses to specific statements in the 2018 University of North Carolina System Employee Engagement Survey. Thirty-nine percent of respondents said NC State’s recognition and rewards programs were meaningful to them, but 29% said they were not. One in five employees said they weren’t recognized regularly for their contributions.

In 2020, the survey results were slightly better. Forty percent agreed that NC State’s awards and recognition programs are meaningful to them, but 28% disagreed.

We are not satisfied with those results. We want an overwhelming majority of employees to feel that they are appreciated and their contributions to NC State matter.

We know that employee recognition programs help retain employees, increase employee engagement and satisfaction and encourage high performance. That is why we are focusing our efforts on enhancing our recognition programs and events at NC State.

I look forward to revealing more details about what we have been working on regarding employee recognition early next year. I hope you are excited about this news as I am.

Best regards,

Marie Williams
Associate Vice Chancellor for Human Resources