Like So Much Else, Your Awards May Need to Go Virtual

Even after the pandemic, many companies have fully adopted a remote or work-from-home setup.  Online meetings, which were once a novelty, have quickly become the new normal.

Even if your employees aren’t coming into the office, however, recognizing their achievements is still important for maintaining engagement and morale – maybe even more so, as they’re missing out on face-to-face workplace interaction and may be feeling isolated and forgotten about. Nowadays, the move to remote work will be a continuing trend after COVID, but the need to maintain connection will only increase.

Consider Hosting a Virtual Awards Night

If your company hosted an annual awards ceremony before social distancing, you may have considered turning it into a virtual event. While hosting such an event online poses a few challenges, it’s definitely worth doing.

If you don’t already have one, you’ll need a virtual conferencing tool, like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts. Advanced event planning tools specially designed for virtual events are also available, if more expensive. Whatever tech you’re using, be sure it can handle as many participants as you expect to show up. And definitely do a run-through using the system, and expect to have a few glitches during the event.

Just as with an in-person ceremony, you’ll need to plan your event carefully in terms of what happens in what order, and how much time you have allotted for each segment. If the pace of your event isn’t snappy, people may just get bored and log off.

You may want to have a “set” or appropriate visual backdrop for the space from which the event is hosted. Make sure that everyone you want to invite gets plenty of repeated advance notice of when and how to plug into the event, and if they need a passcode.

Maintaining the excitement

Of course, part of the fun of awards events is actually presenting the plaques or trophies. In a virtual ceremony you may have to forego this. You can also ship award items to winners ahead of time and have them open the package on cue and on camera during the virtual event.

If you want an exciting “the envelope, please” moment, you can inform each winner that they’re getting some type of award, but not the details, and tell them not to open the package before the big moment.

The event should have its own associated website if possible, where people can get information about it. In addition to your live stream of the event, you should record it so those who couldn’t attend can enjoy it later; this recording can be put on the website.

No Virtual Event is Complete Without Recognition Awards

As you plan your virtual recognition event, don’t forget to order personalized awards that are tailored to the recipients. Whether you’re looking to celebrate the amazing performance of your sales team or sending off retiring employees, you need engraved awards that match the achievement. When it comes to choosing the right award, you have a wide range of options, like acrylic, art glass, and crystal awards. If the situation calls for it, you may even go for an understated award plaque, instead.

No matter what you choose for your recognition event, don’t forget to personalize each award with the recipient’s name and achievement.