Nearly every employer attempts to provide some sort of employee recognition. From the annual length of service award, to the summer barbeque, recognition exists almost everywhere. But, for many employers, recognition still remains elusive. Recognition done correctly increases productivity, longevity, tenure, loyalty, and engagement of staff.
Sadly, some employers spend large amounts of money on recognition, but don’t see great results because their recognition is being done wrong.
If you want to make sure to have an effective recognition program with great results, make sure you don’t do these 10 things.
Recognize Infrequently and Inconsistently
One way to mess up a recognition program is to fail to make it a part of company culture. Random, inconsistent recognition is more likely to be meaningless to employees. Inconsistency occurs when recognition is not regular and when contrary or inconsistent performance is recognized.
For example, some companies start off strong with a recognition program. They make a concerted effort to regularly recognize employees for the first little while. Maybe it lasts a week, or a month or more, but then the recognition becomes a lower priority than other activities.
Recognition becomes inconsistent. Managers recognize employees once or twice a month when they are reminded and otherwise ignore great engagement, results, and efforts.
Another way that recognition becomes inconsistent is by failing to have clear goals. When employees are recognized for a specific outcome, other employees often strive to meet that same outcome. If no further recognition is given, employees will give up and discontinue striving to meet those goals.
Even worse, some companies change what they recognize for as quickly as the weather. They recognize one outcome such as high sales, but then recognize the next month for sales guys who spent more time with each client even though their sales were down. This kind of inconsistency confuses employees about the real goals of the team.
- Sporadic recognition
- Inconsistently recognizing for the desired outcomes
- Only recognizing when the manager “remembers” and then quickly forgetting to recognize for a while again
Inspire Division Through Publically Given Praise Only to Favorites
Everyone needs regular appreciation and praise. On average, most employees would prefer to be recognized daily. That isn’t often feasible for managers who have many employees on their teams and are also occupied with meetings and other obligations.
But, some managers prefer to be stingy with compliments even when they are available to witness great performance by their employees.
Or, they remain blind to all but a few favorites on the team. As a result, they consistently recognize a few shining stars, but fail to see the effort, sacrifice, and engagement that another team member shows.
This can occur for several reasons. Managers have their own personality traits and it can be easier to gravitate toward the employees that are very compatible or similar to them. This makes it natural and easy to recognize the efforts of those employees.
Annoying, shy, different, or employees with diverse personalities can be overlooked even when their performance exceeds other colleagues. This can subconsciously happen with teams that have little diversity.
For example, it may be easy to see the start who comes in early and boasts about their successes at lunch. It may be harder to recognize the employee who comes in even when family issues arise and who are consistent, quiet, and dependable.
By focusing on only a few employees who get only sporadic praise, managers build resentment among team members and create division.
One way to overcome this is by first increasing praise quietly among individuals of the entire team. When the team isn’t so started for recognition, public praise can be given without creating resentment.
- Public recognition to only a few employees
- Being stingy with appreciation
Embarrass Employees When Recognizing Them
Every employee is different and not all employees enjoy the limelight. Some employees are truly embarrassed when they are praised in front of colleagues. Along the same lines, some employees enjoy a good laugh at minor mistakes when a tale of success is being told, but others hate it.
Take the time to know your employees and avoid embarrassing them. Embarrassment is a form of shame and even when dosed out unintentionally or in good humor, can create long-lasting negative feelings.
Instead, take the time to recognize employees in the ways that they are most comfortable. For some employees that will include a quiet, but sincere “Thank you” and for others, it may include a personalized note.
There are employees that enjoy a public kudos and don’t be shy about giving out public recognition to them!
- Embarrassment is an emotion that lasts longer than many other positive emotions
Recognize the Wrong Activities
You can probably think of a situation where you have seen bad publicity about a company for poor or harmful practices. Poor publicity can cause cost millions of dollars in damage and reputation loss for employers.
Usually these companies don’t intend to promote such poor habits. It happens when employers recognize activities without fully looking at how it will affect employee actions. Recognizing the wrong results can result in the wrong actions by employees and cause harm to the client and damage to the employer.
To avoid this,
Look at activities that your staff does that can harm your clients, partners, or other employees. When you analyze what results and activities you will recognize, make sure that you are checking for ethics violations and other shortcuts.
Rewarding a salesperson who loses most of their accounts within a couple of months may be motivating the wrong behavior. Make sure that manufacturing departments awarded for high production also have high quality in the products.
Make sure you are recognizing the right habits, behaviors, and activities. Identify the factors of recognition based on desired activities.
- Make sure recognition aligns to corporate values and mission
- Guard against recognizing results that can result from unethical activities
Recognize Everyone
Since everyone likes to be recognized, some organizations attempt to recognize all their employees. While company-wide parties and celebrations are appropriate for some events, its also important to avoid providing recognition “participation trophies.”
One of the ways this can happen is through employee of the month awards. Often employee of the month ends up either repeatedly recognizing the same employees over and over again, or rotating through all the employees.
When everyone is recognized in a general recognition, it loses its value. Instead, consider individual and timely recognitions. Recognize each employee for a special or outstanding job in the moment or shortly afterwards. This reinforces positive behaviors and feels more meaningful to employees.
- Recognizing all employees dulls the feelings of accomplishments and positive effects of recognition
Fail to Involve Employees in Recognition
Although managers should be focused on employee recognition, recognition shouldn’t be confined to managers. Maximize the effectiveness of your recognition program by providing tools for employees to recognize each other.
Peer-to-peer recognition is much more effective. Team members can recognize each other for going above and beyond much more frequently than if it’s confined to only supervisors.
Recognition becomes timelier when employees are involved. Peer recognition engages both the employee providing appreciation and the employee being recognized. It builds unity and encourages friendships among teams.
Sandwiching Recognition with Suggestions for Improvement
It has been recommended, touted, and even named the compliment sandwich. Pop culture uses it for comedy material.
But, combining recognition with suggestions for improvement doesn’t provide the benefits of true recognition. This happens often in the annual review.
The annual review is often listed as a form of recognition. Indeed, employees should be recognized for their contributions during an annual review. But, managers should not consider the annual review to count or provide the same benefits as good recognition.
There are several reasons for this:
- The annual review doesn’t recognize employees in a timely manner
- It often includes areas for improvement, which leaves the employee often remembering that instead of the compliments
- It often doesn’t include specific examples, but are vague in the employees accomplishments.
Focus Recognition on Publicly Seen Individuals
Another mistake that some companies make is to focus their recognition on the individuals and departments that interact with clients the most. This often includes the customer service and sales departments.
However, every team in your company is critical to the success of the organization. Take the time to really look at how each team affects the customer experience and advances the company vision. Then identify key drivers for each department and take the time to recognize employees that make a difference in their roles.
- Identify the specific drivers that make a difference within each department and recognize employees that engage.
Keep Recognition Contained to Recognition Events
Don’t contain recognition to scheduled, regular events. Recognition is most effective when it’s consistent, frequent, and timely. While annual recognition events can be fun and, when big, provide motivation for employees who want to attend, they can also have a short shelf life.
Most employees want to be recognized daily and Gallup recommends that recognition occurs at least weekly. Recognition should be regular and consistent.
Even if you feel like your team doesn’t deserve recognition in the “typical” sense, it’s still important to thank them for things that they do. People work harder when they feel like their efforts are appreciated. By noticing even little things that employees do, you can increase their engagement and productivity.
- Regular, informal, and timely recognition goes a long way
- A simple “Thank You” can be very effective
Give Meaningless Awards- One Size Fits All
Some employers fail to customize employee recognition, figuring that as long as they recognize employees, there isn’t a need to individualize the rewards. Admittedly, it is easier to have set rewards for employees.
But, recognition isn’t effective if it’s dosed out in a one-size-fits-all.
Real examples of this include the vegan who was rewarded with a steak dinner and the deaf employee who was given concert tickets. Recognition can be customized with anniversary videos and other personalized recognitions through Thanks.
Make sure your rewards don’t end up in the trash by providing individual recognition.
- Know your employees well enough to provide them with individual awards
- Or, provide a universal “currency” such as points that can be redeemed for a reward of the employee’s choosing
Conclusion
Avoiding these 10, common mistakes will make a world of difference to the effectiveness of your recognition program. Effective recognition doesn’t have to be entirely made up of large, extravagant prizes or events. Simple, regular actions will reap great rewards.
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition. Thanks is a subsidiary of OC Tanner.