Effective recognition is key to improving staff morale—but many employees don't feel their contributions are adequately acknowledged.

Meaningful recognition doesn't have to come from formal awards and ceremonies. Staff want to feel appreciated for their daily contributions and valued both as professionals and as people.

Use the Customizable Staff Recognition Card to easily build appreciation into your employees' daily work. Choose from six different designs—then just print, cut out, and share.

Get Your Customizable Cards

How to use the recognition cards

Our easy-to-use recognition card template allows you to customize cards for your organization. You can add your logo for more meaningful branding, as well as include one of your organization or department's core values on the front of the card.

There are six different designs available in both color and black and white. Once you're done customizing, all you have to do is print the cards, cut them out, and share! Make sure staff know where to find them so they can start recognizing their colleagues.

How Mackenzie Health uses in-the-moment recognition to build a culture of appreciation

Mackenzie Health is a 506-bed hospital with 2,300 staff members and is located in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada. In the summer of 2013, nursing and HR leaders implemented a new corporate recognition program called the "Kudos Awards" as a tactic to improve staff engagement, particularly with respect to recognition, as there had been opportunity for improvement in Mackenzie's scores in this section of their staff engagement survey.

The "Kudos Awards" are divided into three types of recognition: the annual "President's Kudos," the bi-annual "Keep It Up Kudos," and the immediate and frequent "On the Spot Kudos."

"On the Spot Kudos" are designed to demonstrate recognition and appreciation in the moment, and more broadly to foster a culture of consistent appreciation. To make this initiative more meaningful and structured, leaders decided to tie the On the Spot Kudos to specific behaviors, and used focus groups to determine what those "kudos-worthy" behaviors would be.

Mackenzie Health's "On the Spot Kudos" Recognition Cards and Overview of Worthy Behaviors

Recognition cards are now placed around the hospital so frontline staff, managers, and patients can provide staff members with immediate recognition.