EXCLUSIVE: Tui UK and Ireland has held its annual employee recognition event, which included 24 finalists and five overall winners.

Tui-Building-2014

The event is a culmination of the travel organisation’s recognition programme, ‘Saying… Thank you’, which also includes e-cards, £20 voucher awards and quarterly £100 voucher awards.

Cara Catlin, reward analyst at Tui UK and Ireland, said: “The scheme has been in place for three years. We have five categories that people can get nominated in.”

The five categories include: teamwork, financial and process improvement, sustainability, customer experience, and innovation and business transformation.

Catlin added: “We review these periodically and last year we introduced a new one, which was sustainability, to fit in with our overall sustainable development strategy.”

The annual recognition event, which was held on 10 July, awards a winner in each of the five categories.

“The really good quarterly nominations are put forward for the annual event,” said Catlin. “To give those people the recognition they deserve, it goes to the board to make a final decision on the winners, from a group of 15, so three per category.”

The winner in each category receives a cruise and £200 in vouchers. The finalists receive a £150 voucher.

Tui UK and Ireland’s recognition programme covers all 15,000 employees. Awards can be handed out by managers, or peer to peer.

Catlin added: “Anyone can recognise anyone, so it doesn’t have to be a manager nominating an employee, it can be a colleague nominating the person that sits next to them, to tell them they’re doing a good job.”

The communications campaign for the recognition programme includes television screens in reception and on the organisation’s intranet.

Catlin added: “Once the nominations are in, we talk to staff about the judging process, so they feel like they’re involved.

“In the lead-up to the event, we put all the stories about the nominations onto the intranet. They recognition starts really early on. It isn’t just a one-off event.”