Employee recognition programs are prevalent among employers large and small, but many employees are still disengaged and feel undervalued by their employer.
Why are recognition programs failing? Possibly the main reason that employees feel unvalued stems from how managers and companies handle failure in the workplace.
Most of the time, these failures are little and overlooked by employees and their employers alike. It may be a dropped return call, grammar mistakes, or overlooked information missing from a report. But, sometimes a failure is big and impacts the team. How managers handle the failure is critical to whether or not an employee feels appreciated.
After Failure, Listen First
When an employee makes a mistake, you may want to reprimand them immediately, but pausing to listen can have a big impact. As it relates to employee appreciation, listening to an employee after failure demonstrates that you value them and their view regardless of the recent failure. It can be easy to reprimand an employee and then move on. But, this is a critical mistake because valuing employees is most critical after a failure, not after a success.
Most employees are only shown appreciation after a success. According to a SHRM estimate, most of the recognition an employee gets is negative. Listening to an employee who has just failed, validates that you care about their point of view, experience, and opinions.
Just simply listening speaks volumes about how much you care about the employee as a person. It says to them “I value you as a person and not just when you’ve done something for me.”
Too often, employees can be complimented on something they did well, but then reprimanded the next day in a manner that makes the employee feel as if all their previous successes are nullified by the recent failure. This makes employee recognition disingenuous. But listening first can change this.
As an added bonus, listening brings additional benefits. You may find out about ways you can better support your team. There may be external issues outside the employee’s control that you need to address with other departments or individuals. You may discover a few blindspots that will help you to better manage your team and help them to be more effective.
At the very least, you will find out what your employee is thinking and feeling. You will be able to better respond to them. Perhaps the employee sees the failure in exactly the way you see it and you can turn a reprimand into a mentoring session and discuss ways to correct the situation or avoid it in the future.
That will take away the contentious nature of the reprimand and get the employee off a defensive position. It turns the employee’s focus away from feeling unappreciated, embarrassed, shameful, or angry and redirects their focus on the task and what they can do to make things better.
Avoid the “Compliment Sandwich”
A bad piece of advice is to correct an employee between two positive statements about them. In theory, this was supposed to make the corrective part of the conversation easier to handle. Coined the “compliment sandwich,” the negative “meat” is sandwiched between two compliments, the “bread.” While this may have worked when the idea was first taught, it has long since lost its effectiveness. It has ruined many sincere compliments for employees.
“John, you did a great job today!” John sighs, waiting for the “but.” He wonders what will come next. What did he miss?
John’s manager is sincere, and not out to correct him through a compliment sandwich, but John’s experience with compliment sandwiches has taught him to always doubt a compliment. Never use the compliment sandwich. At best, it’s ineffective. At worst, it comes across as passive-aggressive.
Show Appreciation After Failure
Managers should still value and express appreciation to employees and it’s even more critical after an employee messes up. The message that “I still care about you as a person and value you as an employee” is an important message to send.
It is appropriate to say “Mike, this mistake doesn’t mean I don’t still love having you on our team!” or “Don’t think that because you messed up, I don’t appreciate all the ways you contribute every day!”
Even though you are correcting a mistake, make sure to express appreciation for the employee’s other contributions. But, don’t follow up with a “but” or a “however.” That negates the message. Consider how the following compliment comes across:
Example 1: “Susan, I really appreciate how detail-oriented you are, but bringing me this report late is unacceptable.”
Example 2: “Susan, you do a great job at being detail-oriented. How do you feel the process is going for these monthly reports?”
The worse of a mistake or failure the employee has, the more critical it is to show them empathy and reinforce the message that you value them and their continued contributions to the team. Although that’s a hard practice to incorporate, it’s critical for helping employees to feel truly appreciated by their managers. And it makes the recognition even more effective when things are going well!
Don’t Make It Personal
It’s easy to think negatively about the individual who’s messing up instead of attacking the behavior, but it’s important not to personalize behavior. Even though you may be sure that Pete doesn’t care about the quality of his work. Thinking “He’s an idiot.” or “She has a bad attitude” does nothing to solve the problem. Classifying employees in this manner usually does nothing more than justify writing them off. It can also hide manager biases and cultural differences, leading to intolerance.
Here’s an example that illustrates the point (even if it’s a little funny).
Say you have an employee that habitually shrugs their shoulders. It seems like a small thing, but eventually you conclude that the employee must be “clueless.” Instead, they may be trying to express non-confrontation when they disagree with what’s being said. If you write them off as “clueless” you are less likely to listen to them and more likely to enlarge their failures than you will other employees.
Your personal biases matter. Instead, confront specific behavior. “I heard you complaining about Hannah the other day and Rob the day before that” is a lot more effective than “You can’t get along with anyone on your team.” And, “You’ve been coming in late lately” is better than “You don’t care about your work.”
Don’t use personal attacks. When you address specific behavior, it allows the employee to make corrections. It also keeps them from getting as defensive as it’s a lot harder to argue with the fact that they were late than it is to argue with the assumption that they don’t care or are inconsiderate.
Don’t Wait for the Failure to be Huge
It’s a lot easier to correct a problem before it becomes huge or has a negative impact on the rest of the team. Address employee mistakes early on and be consistent. If you usually allow an employee to come in tardy for their shift and only occasionally get upset, they are more likely to write off your concern as “she’s in a bad mood today.” and not fix it.
Addressing issues before they become habits, or create big issues, like the loss of a major client, is much more effective. While the loss of a client is a big deal, only getting mad for a habitual issue after a big loss sends the message that it’s not really the issue, it’s the result that has you upset.
That can lead to more of a “don’t get caught” mentality that focuses on the negative results of employee actions instead of addressing problem behaviors. It’s far more effective to consistently enforce a policy around behavior than to manage fires ignited by specific behavior incidences that are an indicative of ongoing issues.
After Failure, Ask; “What did you learn from this?”
Asking employees to analyze and explain what they have learned after a mistake can provide unparalleled employee growth. Thomas Watson, a former CEO of IBM, once said; “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”
The simple act of rephrasing the employee’s failure into open-ended questions about what they learned and how they grew can turn the situation around. It turns a negative and embarrassing situation into a valuable learning and mentoring opportunity. Often employees can provide insights into their failures that are more in depth and retrospective than a chastisement from a manager can ever provide.
This was demonstrated by Thomas Watson, CEO of IBM as recorded by MBI concepts. Having survived the Great Depression, Watson had anticipated a post-war boom that had not materialised. IBM’s warehouses and the nooks and crannies of offices were jammed with unsold inventory. Watson faced removal and personally needed the extra supplies sold.
“A very large government bid, approaching one million dollars, was on the table. The IBM Corporation–no, Thomas J Watson Sr.– needed every deal. Unfortunately, the salesman failed. IBM lost the bid. That day, the sales rep showed up at Mr Watson’s office. He sat down and rested an envelope with his resignation on the CEOs desk. Without looking, Mr Watson knew what it was. He was expecting it.
He asked, “What happened?”
The sales rep outlined every step of the deal. He highlighted where mistakes had been made and what he could have done differently. Finally he said, “Thank you, Mr. Watson, for giving me a chance to explain. I know we needed this deal. I know what it meant to us.” He rose to leave.
Tom Watson met him at the door, looked him in the eye and handed the envelope back to him saying, “Why would I accept this when I have just invested one million dollars in your education?”
Thomas Watson turned the biggest mistake of this employee’s career into a momentous learning opportunity through a single open-ended question. The question also demonstrated care and value to the employee. Even while the employee expected the need to resign, he still voiced appreciation over the chance to explain his mistakes.
That consequences do and should occur as the result of certain failures does not negate a manager’s ability to still demonstrate value and care to an employee and allow them to be heard.
Foster A Culture of Peer Recognition Even In Times of Disappointment
It is no secret that peer recognition is one of the most valuable aspects of employee culture. Peer recognition fuels employee engagement on many levels. Therefore, it makes sense that if you can build a team that values eachother even when disappointments occur or an employee lets down the team, your culture of recognition will reach optimal effectiveness and employees will feel valued.
An example of this is retold by INC magazine. The Philadelphia Eagles looked like they were going to win another Superbowl. With only two minutes left to go, the Eagles were trailing, but had managed to capture the football. The Eagles’ offensive team, Nick Foles, the quarterback, deep into their opponent’s territory dropped back and prepared to retake the lead.
He threw the speeding football to wide receiver Alshon Jeffrey. Victory was certain.
Except it wasn’t. The ball went right through Jeffrey’s hands and the Saints regained the ball, winning the Superbowl. Alshon Jeffrey was devastated and dropped to the ground.
But, what happened next is a perfect example of peer recognition at it’s finest.
Foals went to Jeffrey’s and told him he loved playing with Jeffrey and the team wouldn’t have won any super bowls without him.
In the key moment of cutting disappointment because Alshon Jeffrey had failed, he had let down his team, his teammate reassured him and reminded him of his value and importance to the team.
Conclusion
Reinforcing an employee’s value and previous contributions to the team is most critical and impactful after that employee has messed up or failed in some way. Traversing failure successfully doesn’t mean that bad behavior is acceptable, but it does mean that employees know they are cared about and valued despite their mistakes. Employee engagement starts when employees feel that they are worth more than the most recent sum of their accomplishments or failures and are valued as individuals.
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.