Employee happiness isn’t tied solely to their compensation and employee benefits. In fact, 82% of employees call recognition a significant factor in their happiness at work.
Recognition letters are a great way to show your employees you appreciate their contribution to the team and the company. But choose the wrong words, forget to personalize the text, or use one too many clichés, and there’s a real risk your recognition will fall flat.
We sat down with professional essay writers at EssayWriters to discuss the eight common mistakes in recognition letter writing and how to avoid them. Here are the dos and don’ts they have to share with you.
1. Describing performance expectations
The purpose of a recognition letter is to commend someone’s good work or extra effort, not to tell them what you expect of them in the future. If you describe performance expectations, that might undermine your letter’s key message (appreciation), all while potentially mounting pressure on the employee to show a specific level of performance.
To avoid this mistake: Focus on the past action you’re recognizing and the impact it had on the company or the team (or both). Steer clear of mentioning you expect the employee to demonstrate the same level of effort or input.
2. Suggesting areas of improvement
In a similar vein, a recognition letter isn’t about suggesting what the employee could improve in their work. If you include such a suggestion in the letter, it’ll probably be your employee’s main takeaway from your letter. Your appreciation might not even register with them.
To avoid this mistake: Once again, focus on the past action and its impact. If there are any areas of improvement that you want to suggest, you can do it in a separate email later on, during a one-on-one meeting, or during a performance review.
3. Mistaking quantity for quality
As many essay writers online have noticed, non-professional writers tend to conflate the length of a letter with its quality and value. If you attempt to make your recognition letter as long as possible, your waxing poetic about the employee’s achievement can come across as insincere, overtly flattering, or even plain boring.
To avoid this mistake: Stick to a three-paragraph formula for your recognition letter (not counting the greeting and signoff). The first paragraph details the action or effort you’re commending, and the second one describes its impact. The third one briefly reiterates your gratitude.
4. Starting with ‘Dear employee’
Recognition is meant to be personal. It’s all about singling out this one employee and giving them a shoutout for their individual contribution. So, when they read, “Dear employee,” in the very first line, that only signals that you probably don’t know their name and devalues them as one employee out of many.
To avoid this mistake: Add the employee’s name to the greeting. Depending on the established communication style between the two of you (formal or informal), you can stick with the “Dear + [first name]” or use its more informal equivalent.
5. Using AI to generate the letter
As EssayWriters’ essay writers fairly pointed out, AI tools can indeed streamline some tedious tasks. But since a recognition letter has to be sincere and authentic, an AI-generated one will always read too cliché and ambiguous, and it won’t capture your usual tone of voice. Plus, if it ever comes out that you used AI for the letter, you’re risking serious reputational damage.
To avoid this mistake: Write the draft yourself (or get professional help from EssayWriters’ top essay writers if necessary). You can use AI tools to improve or proofread your letter, but the initial draft must be yours.
6. Being too vague or generic
A vague, generic letter that simply reiterates “great job” without going into specifics isn’t going to leave a lasting emotional impact on the employee. Not including details in your recognition letter is also a sure recipe for coming across as insincere. A lack of detail makes any letter feel less personal, as if you copied and pasted template sentences from the internet.
To avoid this mistake: Describe the specific action or achievement you’re commending in the recognition letter. For example, to highlight the employee’s work with a specific client, thank them for how they handled a call with this client. Be specific in your description of the impact that action had, too. For example, you can disclose that the employee’s effort helped secure a big contract.
7. Using the wrong tone of voice
If your company’s culture allows a more informal communication style even between superiors and subordinates, a formal tone of voice in a recognition letter would feel out of place. What’s worse, your recognition letter might even come across as inauthentic if its writing style is nothing like the language you use in other communications.
To avoid this mistake: Stick to the same tone of voice and level of formality you show in other communications. For example, if you’ve been taking on a more informal, amicable approach in other emails and messages, don’t start signing off with “Sincerely yours.”
8. Getting to it long after the work is done
This isn’t a mistake you can make while you’re writing your recognition letter per se, but it’s still a common shortcoming worth mentioning. If you send your letter that highlights completing a certain task a whole month or two after the employee did it, it’ll only beg the question: Why did you wait so long?
To avoid this mistake: Get to drafting your recognition letter as soon as the deed is done and its impact is known. If you’re prone to procrastinating on such tasks, use the template below to speed up your writing.
Your cheatsheet for writing a recognition letter
If you haven’t gotten the hang of writing recognition letters just yet, we asked the experts from the Essay Writers service to create a template to help you structure it well. Here it is:
- Greeting: Use a simple “Dear [employee name]” or its equivalent that suits your usual tone of voice.
- What you’re recognizing: Describe the action or effort you’re showing appreciation for.
- Impact: Describe the positive impact the action had on the company or other employees.
- Gratitude: Reinforce your gratitude with a brief (but explicit) thanks that encapsulates the impact.
- Signoff: End with a “Sincerely, [your name]” or its equivalent that matches your usual tone of voice.
Final thoughts
A well-crafted recognition letter can make a big difference in your employee’s attitude toward their job and their perception of their role within the company. But while recognition letters can be a potent tool in your toolkit, not every employee craves to get recognized via a letter. Some employees would rather get a shoutout in front of everyone, for example.
So, know thy employees first. Talk to them one-on-one to gauge whether they’d prefer a recognition letter, a public acknowledgment, or a bonus like an extra day off.
