You walk past the support desk on a Monday morning and see the same three sticky notes again. One says call back, another says waiting, and no one knows who owns the next step. That small drift is how recognition programs fail, because they praise effort but miss the work standard.
On high performing teams, recognition points back to a shared rule, not a personality trait. Some companies borrow from military tradition and use Challenge Coins 4 Less military challenge coins as a physical marker. A coin is not the reward, it is a reminder of what good work looks like under pressure.
Set Clear Criteria Before You Mint Anything
A recognition coin works when the criteria fits the work and stays easy to verify in records. If the standard feels fuzzy, managers start debating intent, and peers stop trusting the program. Start by picking one business outcome that matters each week, then pick one behavior that drives it.
Write eligibility rules that a new hire can read in five minutes and apply without guesswork. Link the rule to a role, a time window, and an artifact, such as a ticket note. Public sector guidance on awards highlights clear categories and fair access, which helps any program.
To keep the standard tight, test it with five real examples from last month’s work. If the examples lead to different answers, revise the rule until the answer stays consistent. That short test prevents a coin from turning into a popularity contest during busy quarters.
Decide up front how many coins exist at each level, and what triggers a higher level. A tier can reflect risk, such as safety wins, or cost, such as saved hours on repeat work. When supply matches clear criteria, the coin feels earned instead of arbitrary for everyone each month.
Design The Coin Around A Behavior, Not A Slogan
Coins force discipline because the surface area punishes long text and crowded design choices. That constraint is useful, because it pushes leaders to name the behavior in plain language. A good front side can carry one symbol and one short line that describes the action.
Keep the back side practical, with a date, a unit name, and a short proof cue. For sales teams, the cue can read: Log clean CRM notes within two hours after each call. For service teams, it can read: Close the client loop and update the case owner field.
Treat the design approval like any brand asset, with one owner and one final sign off. Ask reviewers to check three things, readability at arm’s length, correct naming, and clean spacing. If the coin is hard to read, it becomes a trinket that nobody remembers later.
Avoid values words that sound nice but fail under review, such as leadership or excellence. Instead, print the action that can be seen, counted, or checked in the same system. When a manager hands over the coin, they can repeat the same sentence every time.
Build A Fair Process For Nominations And Review
Coins feel meaningful when people know how decisions are made and who signs off on them. A simple workflow also protects managers, because it reduces lobbying and quiet side deals. Set a short nomination form and require one piece of evidence, such as a link.
Use a small review group with mixed roles, so one department does not dominate decisions. Rotate one seat each quarter to reduce blind spots and keep the standard tied to real work. If you work across regions, add one reviewer from another site to spot uneven judgments.
Many teams do well with a light scoring grid that matches the printed coin statement. For example, score met timing, met quality, and helped others repeat the method on a three point scale. If the nominee misses timing, return the form with coaching notes and a clear next attempt.
Publish a short monthly report that lists totals by team, plus one anonymized story of impact. This keeps the program visible without turning it into a public contest for attention each month. Transparency also helps finance partners, because they can compare cost to measurable changes over time.
Use Coins To Reinforce Training And Service Standards
Coins can support training when they mark a behavior that you already teach and measure. They work well after a new rollout, when people need repetition more than another slide deck. Managers should pair the coin with a two minute story that names the situation and result.
MIT’s guidance on recognition stresses timely, real contributions over vague praise and broad labels. That idea fits coin programs, because a late award feels random and a vague award feels unfair. Aim to present coins within a week of the action, while details still feel clear to peers.
Use coins to make service rules visible during handoffs, not only during awards meetings. A coin can sit near a monitor, in a badge holder, or in a small case. When someone asks why the coin exists, the answer should match the printed rule.
You can also use coins as a checkpoint in onboarding, after the first month of live work. New hires can earn one by meeting the same rule, not by completing training modules alone. That keeps the program fair across tenures, and it encourages managers to coach in real time.
A Simple Rollout That Scales
Start with a pilot that includes one team, one rule, and a fixed count of coins. That keeps the program honest, because you can compare results against last quarter’s baseline. After the pilot, collect three measures, then decide whether to keep, adjust, or stop.
Pick measures that are easy to capture, and hard to game. One measure can track speed, and a second can track quality from the same work stream. A third measure can track handoffs, using missing owners or missing fields in your system.
Good pilot measures often look like this in everyday operations, pulled from systems your team already uses:
- First response time on inbound requests, taken from your ticket system or shared inbox logs
- Rework rate on closed items, based on reopen counts or quality checks from peer review
- Handoff clarity, measured by missing fields, missing owners, or missing due dates in records
- Client follow up completeness, measured by a short checklist in the case note template
If the measures improve but trust falls, tighten the rules and shorten the nomination path. If trust improves but measures stay flat, pick a behavior closer to revenue, retention, or risk. The practical takeaway is simple, treat the coin as a small contract for one repeatable behavior.
