11 Employee Recognition Wall Ideas to Engage and Inspire

Effective employee recognition has the power to motivate and satisfy your workforce. When this happens, better team-wide performance is almost inevitable.

Fortunately, recognizing employees isn’t all that hard. For example, you can send employees handwritten notes. Or shout out top team members’ hard work on social media. Or celebrate Employee Appreciation Day. Or even distribute physical rewards like gift cards or food baskets. Each of these ideas will make employees feel valued.

Here’s another idea: create an employee recognition wall for your company. Here are our favorite 11 employee recognition wall ideas you can use to engage and inspire your team—plus reinforce company values in the process. We have a lot to cover, so let’s get started…

What is an Employee Recognition Wall?

An employee recognition wall, sometimes referred to as a recognition board, is a display that allows users to congratulate each other for their hard work, milestones, and achievements.

These recognition walls can be virtual or physical; include written text, images, and videos; and recognize specific accomplishments, celebrate significant events, or just add fun to a workday. Whatever you use your recognition board for, it will certainly help build better culture.

Virtual Vs. Physical Employee Recognition Walls

Some companies use a recognition platform to create virtual walls to improve the employee experience. These recognition displays live on the internet and are available via a URL that is texted, emailed, or linked in company comms channels.

On the other hand, a physical recognition wall is typically made with colorful paper and includes graphics, photos, and other imagery. They are typically placed somewhere within the business that employees traffic.

A digital wall has a few advantages (but we’re biased, of course). A virtual gratitude wall is:

• Accessible: These boards can be reached by any employee using a URL, no matter where they happen to be. This is great for hybrid and remote employees.
• Permanent: A virtual recognition display can exist for as long as teams want it to. After all, it doesn’t take up physical space or require much human resources labor. 
• Fun: With a digital wall, staff members can use a broader, more engaging range of content for social recognition. For example, they can add videos and GIFs to their posts, making them a much more vibrant way to highlight employee achievements.

How to Choose the Right Employee Recognition Wall for Your Team

You want to create an employee recognition wall—but you haven’t decided if it should be a virtual or physical display. Which is better for your team?

Simply put, it comes down to this: which kind of board will your team engage with most? That’s the kind of board you should create to motivate employees and increase their happiness.

Here are some considerations for choosing the right employee recognition wall:

Create a virtual recognition wall if

• You manage a remote team or your staff spends most of their on-the-clock hours at a computer. They can easily visit the board when they have time and leave peer recognition when it’s convenient for them.
• You want to recognize many employees. Digital boards empower human resources teams to run large scale recognition programs that involve many users.
• You want flexibility. Virtual employee recognition walls can be printed as posters and books, or displayed as a slideshow for public recognition in common areas.

Create a physical recognition wall if:

Your staff has limited technology skills. Physical media may be easier and more comfortable for them to use. 

You want a board to be in a single location. If you have a single, high traffic area that would be a great place for a physical wall.

You only need to recognize a few employees. With a physical board, it’s easier to fill up empty space with other related posts or messages.

11 Employee Recognition Wall Ideas

Now that we have the basics out of the way, we can talk about specific employee recognition wall ideas. The 11 ideas below will keep your team happy and engaged—guaranteed by our experts.

We’ve included ideas for both a physical and virtual employee recognition walls. So no matter which one you plan to use for your team, you’re covered.

1. Employee of the Month

It’s a classic employee recognition idea for a reason: the employee of the month board. This will allow you to recognize hard working employees and can be done via a virtual or physical recognition wall. If you’re looking for a way to spice things up, you could create a “Wall of Fame” in conjunction with your employee of the month board. Then, team members who earn employee of the month status three or more times get added to the “Wall of Fame” too. This is a great way to honor top talent.

2. Peer-to-Peer Shoutouts

Management shouldn’t be the only ones who participate in the employee recognition game. Peer-to-peer shoutouts are a special way to acknowledge an employee’s achievements and build a positive work environment. Simply allow individual team members to post on your company’s recognition board. Doing so will improve team engagement.

3. Celebratory Messages

You could create an employee recognition wall for a variety of celebratory messages. For example, you could recognize individual achievements and milestones. But you could also post happy birthday messages or acknowledge significant personal events in your employees’ lives. The point is, your recognition board can be used to celebrate anything that matters to your team members, not just their work performance. Taking this step is a stellar way to improve company culture.

4. Customer Testimonials

Here’s a wild employee recognition wall idea: highlight the awesome things customers say about your company. All you have to do is post the customer quotes, reviews, etc. on your recognition board. Just remember to shout out the team members who helped facilitate the testimonial, too, if possible. While this isn’t one of the more traditional employee recognition wall ideas, it will boost morale. Win!

5. Old School Polaroids

If you’re planning to create a physical employee recognition wall, this one’s for you. Buy an old school Polaroid camera, then take pictures of your team while they work. You might capture Sarah typing away at her computer. Or Will assisting a customer. Or Jerry dancing in the break room. These images will add an element of fun to the workday and increase job satisfaction.

6. Video Love

Are you set on a virtual employee recognition board? Acknowledge team successes via video. It’s pretty easy: instead of writing, “Great job, [Insert Team Member], you crushed it on the last project!” You record yourself speaking those words. Then you post the recording to your recognition wall so that your entire company can see it. Trust us, your team will love it.

7. Throwback Achievements

Don’t forget about past employee accomplishments. Create a dedicated recognition board to remember the individual and team achievements of yesteryear. This will help your employees feel valued. After all, you’re still jazzed about the awesome work they did months ago. As such, a throwback achievements board really boosts employee morale in the present.

8. Spotify Playlists

Let your inner rockstar show and create a music-themed recognition board. You can go about it in different ways. For example, you could ask each of your employees to create a short Spotify playlist, then give a prize to the employee who creates the most listened-to collection of songs. Or you could spotlight a specific employee each month and create a Spotify playlist with songs that describe that individual. Both ideas are bound to improve workplace engagement.

9. Pet Spotlights

Some of the best employee recognition walls have nothing to do with work. In some cases, they don’t have anything to do with employees either. They exist to bring happiness to the workplace. A “Pets Spotlight” board falls into this category. Instead of highlighting team accomplishments, shine a light on your team’s furry friends. It will make your employees smile—we promise!

Bonus points if you make your wall competitive. Imagine the fun of a pet costume contest!

10. Handwritten Notes

Handwritten notes are an endangered species, which is why you should add them to your employee recognition wall. Simply write a few nice words about an employee on a piece of paper, then pin it to your physical recognition board. As long as your handwriting is legible, this is a great way to recognize individual achievements because it’s unique and fairly easy to do.

11. Themed Recognition Walls

Finally, consider giving your recognition board a special theme every month. For example, you could go with a mythology theme and have individual employees drawn as Greek heroes to recognize them for their hard work. Or choose an eighties theme and hand out employee awards based on songs from the decade. “And Cassie wins the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ award for her dedication…“

The Benefits of Employee Recognition Walls

An employee recognition wall will do wonders for your company’s success. Once you invest in this simple tool (or employee recognition software), your team will become more engaged, stick around for longer periods of time, and increase its productivity levels. Let’s cover each of these benefits in greater detail:

Employee Engagement

Your employee recognition wall will supercharge employee engagement.

Why? It helps create the kind of company culture where employees feel appreciated. People naturally engage with things that make them feel good. By recognizing hard work, you’ll boost employee morale, which will make your staff want to work harder for your brand.

Employee Retention

Your employee recognition wall will improve company retention metrics.

When employees feel valued for their efforts, they enjoy their jobs more. Higher job satisfaction leads to better retention because workers are less interested in alternative employment.

This is important because it can cost $1,500 to replace an hourly worker and 100% to 150% of a departing employee’s salary for technical positions. That’s a lot of cheddar!

Team-Wide Productivity

Your employee recognition board will enable your team to be more productive.

The right recognition idea will improve employee morale, which will increase engagement and retention. Happy, engaged, and experienced team members get more done.

Recognition walls can motivate employees, too. They’ll see others receive praise and think, “I want that!” Generally speaking, a motivated employee is a productive employee.

How to Make Your Employee Recognition Wall Successful

Our employee recognition ideas will get you started, but if you really want to make your own recognition wall successful, keep these four tips in mind:

Recognize All Team Members

Your recognition board will backfire if you only recognize a handful of employees. So spread the love and make sure everyone on your team feels valued. Doing so will encourage individuals to work harder, build team spirit, and otherwise add to the collective success of your organization.

Celebrate Big and Small Wins

Use your employee recognition wall to celebrate everything. Janet closed a six figure deal. Celebrate. Bryan finished designing the new website. Celebrate. Leslie finally got everyone’s coffee order right. Celebrate. Your recognition board should be in constant use.

Use Visuals Whenever Possible

Visuals pack a serious punch. When possible, punctuate written text with an image or meme. Even better, shoot a video to highlight team achievements and express gratitude. While this may take more of your valuable time, the extra effort will not go unnoticed by your team.

Use Technology for Recognizing Employees

There’s nothing wrong with physical employee recognition walls. In some cases, they’re the preferred medium. But more often than not, your employee recognition program will benefit from technology. Virtual recognition boards are more inclusive and allow for more varied content. You just need to find the right piece of software for the job. Speaking of which…

Build a Top Level Employee Recognition Wall With Kudoboard

If virtual sounds like the way to go, Kudoboard is the perfect platform for all your employee recognition wall. It’s group boards are build for celebration, appreciation, and (most importantly) recognition at scale. 

Plus, it makes building a wall as easy as one, two, three. Simply create a virtual board, add your company’s branding, and invite your employees to join. Then, post written messages, images, GIFs, and videos to celebrate their efforts.

Your entire team will see the praise you heap on others and can even join in the fun themselves. If it’s a wall of group messages meant to recognize a single person, you can even attach a gift card as an employee reward.

The end result? A more engaged workforce who feels appreciated for their efforts and motivated to work hard in the future. In other words, a world-class team who can achieve lofty goals.