The team here at 1stChoiceAwards.com is proud to announce the arrival of our brand new CRYSTAL BLAST 4836 crystal awards sandblaster. This is the giant of all sandblasters. When it first arrived we weren't sure we were going to be able to get it into our production facility without busting down the walls! With a little tweaking we were able to get the job done!

It's a great investment. Since setting it up productivity has soared. This allows us to engrave the many crystal, glass, and marble awards we have to offer for our clients at a much faster pace. Our 4,000 square foot production facility is home to four sandblasting units, a laser engraver, and other necessary equipment to fulfill your need for recognition products. With eight full time production staff you can rest assured that no project is too large for us to handle. Whether it's one crystal award or one thousand crystal awards, we got you covered!

Below you will find a photo of four of our proud production workers and our brand new CRYSTAL BLAST 4836

 

Left to right: Ricki, Kevin, Chris, Tim. Combined these guys have 16 years experience creating beautiful crystal and glass custom engraved recognition awards.

Thank you for reading! And don't forget, we are the leading provider of crystal awards, glass awards, crystal trophies, glass trophies, recognition awards and trophies, engraved awards, custom awards... Whatever you want to call them, we got you covered!

1st Choice Awards offers Crystal Trophies and awards with great pricing. Custom engraved with your logo and text at no extra charge. Crystal trophies are timeless tokens of appreciation that are sure to bring out the best in deserving employees. They also make great years of service awards,achievement awards, team awards, etc....

Contact us today!

Employee recognition is not just a nice thing to do for people. Employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces and awards the most important outcomes people create for your business. When you recognize people effectively, you reinforce, with your chosen means of recognition, the actions and behaviors you most want to see people repeat. An effective employee recognition system is simple, immediate, and powerfully reinforcing.

When you consider employee recognition processes, you need to develop recognition that is equally powerful for both the organization and the employee. You must address five important issues if you want the recognition you offer to be viewed as motivating and rewarding by your employees and important for the success of your organization.

The Five Most Important Tips for Effective Recognition

You need to establish criteria for what performance or contribution constitutes award-able behavior or actions.

• All employees must be eligible for the recognition.



• The recognition must supply the employer and employee with specific information about what behaviors or actions are being awarded and recognized.



• Anyone who then performs at the level or standard stated in the criteria receives the award.



• The recognition should occur as close to the performance of the actions as possible, so the recognition reinforces behavior the employer wants to encourage.



• You don't want to design a process in which managers "select" the people to receive recognition. This type of process will be viewed forever as "favoritism" or talked about as "it's your turn to get recognized this month." This is why processes that single out an individual, such as "Employee of the Month," are rarely effective.

A Working Example of Successful Recognition

A client company established criteria for rewarding employees. Criteria included such activities as contributing to company success serving a customer without being asked to help by a supervisor. Each employee, who meets the stated criteria, receives a employee recognition award, custom engraved. The note spells out exactly why the employee is receiving the recognition award.

More Tips About Recognition and Performance Management

• If you attach recognition to "real" accomplishments and goal achievement as negotiated in a performance development planning meeting, you need to make sure the recognition meets the above stated requirements. Supervisors must also apply the criteria consistently, so some organizational oversight may be necessary.
  
  The challenge of individually negotiated goals is to make certain their accomplishment is viewed as similarly difficult by the organization for the process to be a success.



• People also like recognition that is random and that provides an element of surprise. If you thank a manufacturing group every time they make customer deliveries on time with a lunch, gradually the lunch becomes a "given" or an entitlement and is no longer rewarding.
  
  In another organization, the CEO traditionally bought lunch for all employees every Friday. Soon, he had employees coming to him asking to be reimbursed for lunch if they ate lunch outside of the company on a Friday. His goal of team building turned into a "given" or an entitlement and he was disappointed with the results.



• There is always room for employee awards and recognition activities that generally build positive morale in the work environment. TheTaTa Corporation, in Newark, NJ, has had a "smile team" that meets to schedule random, fun employee recognition award events. They have decorated shop windows, with a prize to the best, for a holiday.
  
  They sponsor ice cream socials, picnics, the "boss" cooks day, and so on, to create a rewarding environment at work. Another company holds an annual costume wearing and judging along with a lunch potluck every Halloween.

Rewards and recognition that help both the employer and the employee get what they need from work are a win-win situation. Make this the year you plan a recognition process that will "wow" your staff and "wow" you with its positive outcomes. Avoid the employee recognition traps that:

• single out a few employees who are mysteriously selected for the recognition,
• sap the morale of the many who failed to understand the criteria enough to compete and win, and
• sought votes or other personalized, subjective criteria to determine winners.

1stChoiceAwards.com offers the largest selection of Clear Crystal Awards, Clear Crystal Trophies and much much more. All engraving of of our crystal awards and trophies is free at 1stChoiceAwards.com. Please browse our store for the many options we have.

Below is one of our most popular clear crystal awards.

Chairman's Excellence Crystal Award

Details: Part of our crystal awards series, the

Chairman's Excellence Crystal Award

is available in three sizes. It doesn’t matter if it’s awarded to your chairman or by your chairman. It doesn’t even matter if you have a chairman. The Chairman’s Excellence Award is a powerful looking corporate award that’s designed to honor excellence in leaders at every level of your organization who’ve made distinct contributions that deserve distinctive recognition.

Material Specs: Polished Optical Crystal

Engraving Method: Deep Crystal Etching

Engraving Area: 

Small: Top 3"H x 3.5"W - Base 2"H x 3.5"W

Medium: Top 3.5"H x 4"W - Base 2"H x 4"W

Large: Top 4"H x 4.5"W - Base 2"H x 4.5"W
 

Packaging: Black Presentation Box

1stChoiceAwards.com has one of the largest selections of Crystal Awards. Crystal awards and trophies are most popular for corporate employee recognition. They come in many different shapes, sizes and themes. To name a few of the themes, Colored Crystal Awards, World Globe Crystal Awards, Star Crystal Awards, Crystal Flame Awards, Crystal Eagle Awards and much much more. I have featured one of my favorite crystal awards below.

Eternal Crystal Flame Award

Details: Part of our crystal awards series, the Eternal Crystal Flame Award is available in one size. Beautiful flame shaped crystal award complimented by gem-cut bevels for maximum perceived value. All engraving is included at no extra charge.

Material Specs: Polished Optical Crystal

Engraving Method: Deep Crystal Etching 

Engraving Area: 3.25"H x 3"

Packaging: Blue Presentation Box

Colored Crystal Awards and Trophies have become very popular over the last couple of years. 1^st Choice Awards has offers many different styles of colored crystal awards and trophies. From World Globe Awards to Golf Awards and Trophies we are sure you will find that perfect award. We have art professionals standing by ready to set-up your free artwork proofs. Below is just one example of the color crystal awards we offer. This particular award shows an example of our red crystal, but we also have many other colorful crystals, blue, green, yellow, black.

Fell free to contact us to take advantage of free engraving and next day shipping on in-stock items.

Noble Eagle Crystal Award

Engraved Crystal Paperweights are an ideal wayto recognize multiple employees on a limited budget. With great quantitydiscounts on all of our crystal paperweightsyou are sure to find a design that will suit your needs. Contact us today for a FREE personalizedproof.

 

Also feel free to browse our many Crystal Awards, Glass Awards, Crystal Vases, Bowls &Cups, Crystal Eagle Awards,and Best Selling Awards

Traditionally, employee recognition has not been a core public relations activity, but you can be a catalyst in your organization. If you are a PR manager, you can initiate it in your area. You could start doing it discreetly, not even telling others about the change, but doing it and observing the results.

You can spontaneously praise people – this is highly effective. To many employees, receiving sincere thanks is more important than receiving something tangible. Employees enjoy recognition through personal, written, electronic and public praise from those they respect at work, given in a timely, specific and sincere way.

This day-to-day recognition is the most important type of recognition. Day-to-day recognition brings the benefit of immediate and powerful reinforcement of desired behavior and sets an example to other employees of desired behavior that aligns with organizational objectives. It gives individuals and teams at all levels the opportunity to recognize good work by other employees and teams, and it also gives the opportunity for them to be recognized on the spot for their own good work.

Even if you aren’t a manager, you can be alert for opportunities to recognize others and take the initiative to do something. You can nudge your manager to do more of it and to encourage it in other departments.

The best formula for recognizing an individual for their efforts is:

• Thank the person by name.

• Specifically state what they did that is being recognized. It is vital to be specific because it identifies and reinforces the desired behavior.

• Explain how the behavior made you feel (assuming you felt some pride or respect for their accomplishment!).

• Point out the value added to the team or organization by the behavior.

• Thank the person again by name for their contribution.

Recognition is a key success factor even at higher levels of management. Dr Lawrence Hrebiniak, Professor of Management in the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, states, “What’s absolutely critical…is that the organization celebrates success. Those who perform must be recognized. Their behavior and its results must be reinforced…Managers have emphasized this point to me time and time again, suggesting that, as basic as it is, it is violated often enough to become an execution problem…Give positive feedback to those responsible for execution success and making strategy work.”