When looking to collect votes to determine award recipients, Recognize's Nominations feature can be an effective way to facilitate 'secret voting systems' that identify top employees (e.g. 'Employee of the Month'). For an overview of Nominations from a Company Admin's perspective, see the video below.
Use the quick links below to jump to different sections of the article:
Enabling the Nomination Feature as a Company Admin
Publicizing the Program & Nomination Period
Submitting a Nomination as a User
Reviewing Nominations as a Company Admin
Enabling the Nomination Feature as a Company Admin
In order to activate the Nominations feature, the following actions must be taken:
- Click 'Menu' in the top right-hand corner of your screen
- Select 'Company Admin' from the drop-down menu
- Once in the Company Admin portal, click 'Settings' from the left side menu
- Scroll to the Nominations section in the settings
- Toggle 'Allow Nominations' to ON to allow the Nomination option for your Nomination Badges
NOTE: Once enabled in the Settings, refresh the browser to make sure the company admin is updated.
- Toggle 'Message is required' ON/OFF depending on whether you'd like your staff to include why they are nominating an employee
- Toggle 'Allow quick nominations' ON/OFF
NOTE: Quick Nominations are where managers and company admins can rapidly nominate employees based on recognitions. No reason is required. If you create quick nomination badges, managers and admins can nominate staff based on recognitions in the Recognitions pane in the company admin or the manager portal.
- When 'ON', allows Nominations to be sent to an entire team
NOTE: You can now also send or receive a Nomination for an entire department or country.
- If desired, set a global limit for how many times a user may be awarded as the winner of a Nomination badge
NOTE: Global limits set in the Company Admin settings will override any Badge-level limits in place. If you don't want to limit these badges, you'll want to leave this blank.
Customizing Nomination Badges
You'll need to create special Badges specifically for Nominations. This can be done within the Company Admin portal.
- Click 'Menu' in the top right-hand corner of your screen
- Select 'Company Admin' from the drop-down menu
- Select 'Custom Badges' from the left side menu
- Click 'Nominations' from the upper right menu
- Click 'Create Badge'
- Complete the following fields for each badge:
- Title (e.g. 'Employee of the Month Nomination')
- Description (text that will be listed on the nomination)
- Additional details (text listed on the top of the badge page)
- Limit award winners to (limits how often the winner(s) can receive the badge by time period)
- Quick Nomination (enables users to link a specific recognition to a nomination)
- Allow Sender to Nominate Themselves (option for self-nominations
- Enable (activates the badge)
- Show in badge listing (shows the badge in the Recognize badge menu)
- Badge Sending Limits (per user - optional restriction)
- Roles (optional - restricts nomination sending to certain roles - e.g. Mangers)
- Click 'Save' after making updates
Publicizing the Program & Nomination Period
Once you've created a Nomination Badge and you're gearing up to start accepting nominations, you should notify your staff. They'll need details for the program and parameters for the voting process in order for the campaign to be successful. Additionally, be sure to clearly publicize the nomination window (the time period in which people can submit nominations), and the criteria for nominations well in advance to give your staff plenty of time to submit them. To make things easier, we've created an email template you can use to announce your nomination campaign. Also, see our FAQ article for how to make an Announcement.
NOTE: 'Nominations' are not publicized on the Recognize Stream nor in user profiles.
Submitting a Nomination as a User
During active Nomination campaigns, staff can easily submit Nominations through the Recognize portal by following the steps below.
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Log in to Recognize via your company's user authentication method
- Click on the 'Recognize' button in the top left main menu
- Select 'Nominate' from the center of the page to switch to the Nomination form
- Then, complete the following fields for each Nomination:
a. Choose a Badge (make sure to choose the correct Nomination campaign's Badge if there are multiple campaigns running at once)
b. Choose a Recipient (type-in either employee name or team name, if your company allows team Nominations)
c. Type a Message (reason for Nominating this employee, if your organization is requiring a message) - you can also attach files, images, or links here
d. Click the 'Nominate' button once you've completed the above steps to submit the Nomination - Once submitted, your 'Nomination' will be privately registered in Recognize and viewable only by Recognize Company Admins
Reviewing Nominations as a Company Admin
Throughout the voting period, Recognize Company Admins can log in and review submitted Nominations via the Company Admin/Nominations portal.
- Click 'Menu' in the upper right-hand corner of the screen
- Select 'Company Admin' from the drop-down menu
- Select 'Nominations' from the left side menu
- Filter for nomination period, if needed, above the table
- Filter by badge, if needed, in the top right-hand corner of the screen
- Click 'All votes' in the top right corner to view details or export all nominations regardless of badge or time period
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View details for nominations during a certain period for a program and 'Award' winners by clicking on the 'View' link within the table for that line item
- From here, you can see submission details such as the reason for nomination and any attachments
Selecting a Nominations Campaign Winner
- Click 'Menu' in the upper right-hand corner of the screen
- Select 'Company Admin' from the drop-down menu
- Select 'Nominations' from the left side menu
- Select 'View' next to the nomination program you wish to select a winner for
- Select 'Award' next to the employee you would like to award as the winner of your nomination program, which will mark that the user has been awarded for reporting purposes
NOTE: This will not automatically send the winner a Badge or Points. If you wish to Recognize the winner of your nominations program with a Badge and Points, this will need to be created separately and sent manually.
Awarding a Nominations Campaign Winner
When you have selected a winner of your Nominations campaign, that winner will not be automatically sent a Badge or Points (although this is something we have on our roadmap as an enhancement in the future). Currently, if you wish to award a winner with points, a separate Badge with points attached must be created and sent to the winner manually. We recommend giving only Company Admins access to this Badge to ensure that it is used appropriately for the intended program. To find out how to create Badges, see our how-to article: Badges: Step-by-step Instructions