Team recognition has often been a tricky and slippery slope. That’s because companies depend on employees working together but individual praise reaps the greatest improvement. This article will discuss how to reward your high-performing teams and ensure optimal engagement from each employee.
In the early 1990s, Levi-Strauss changed their pay system from a per-piece pay rate to a team rate. Instead of employees being paid for each pair of jeans they completed in a specific time period, they started getting paid for how many pairs the entire team completed.
Levi-Strauss hoped that this new method of pay would inspire greater teamwork and cooperation, and result in even higher production.
But, that didn’t happen.
Instead, contention among coworkers increased ten-fold. Eventually Levi-Straus had to hire deputies to help maintain the peace. The following year, production plunged to 77% of the pre-teams production rate.
Why did rewarding teams fail so horribly?
The Levi-Strauss experiment demonstrated that a blanket team recognition approach often results in opposite outcomes than intended. Instead of increasing production among the entire team, high performers slacken their effort so they don’t carry the weight of the slower workers.
How can employers maximize team success without demoralizing individual workers?
Team success is best achieved by utilizing
- Individual recognition
- Clear Feedback
- Timely Recognition
- Team Set Criteria
- Peers matter more than management
Improving Team Performance Through Individual Recognition
Ironically, teams tend to perform better when the top performers are recognized within a team. Appreciation shown for extra effort or performance tends to inspire other team members to put in extra effort.
The key to increasing an entire team’s production is to fairly give out awards and recognition. Blindly recognizing team members who have not performed above expectations can create resentment and decrease team performance.
Another flaw of equal team awards is the perceived unfairness of it. Team Members who spent more effort, contributed more skills, or who were more critical to the success of the teams should be awarded more. This type of awards or recognition is considered by most to be fair even though it’s not equal.
When awards are given out equally to all the team members, the recognition is generally not considered fair. That’s because even lower-performing employees recognize that their efforts weren’t as great as top performers within the team.
When top performers on a team are recognized, the entire team performs better as other team members increase their efforts toward the desired activities.
Team-Set Goals, Criteria, and Celebrations Increase Performance
One notable exception to individually praising team members is when a team has control over their goals and can set the criteria for success. When teams can meet together to discuss their goals, problem solve, and define what success looks like for specific projects, the success of the team soars.
Team-centric goals and expectations are helpful because each member of the team feels accountable for the goals and success of the team. Team members work hard to not disappoint or let down their colleagues. Success is celebrated as a team and failure is discussed and overcome.
When teams have control over their goals, problem solving, and success, celebrating together is also appropriate. Team celebrations that continue to unite and foster friendships within the team become events that further propel the team to success.
These events are the most successful when the team decides what is valuable to them for a celebration. This might be an early afternoon off work, a team lunch, or a casual day in the office.
Specific Feedback For Recognition
Recognition is most effective when it is specific. Instead of recognizing an employee for being “great” or “the employee of the month,” recognize for specific actions. Some examples are the employee who stayed late to get a report in on time, the coworker who spent time to make a new recruit feel welcome and comfortable, or the employee who spotted an issue and took the Maketime to stop production to fix it before an entire batch was ruined.
Specific feedback shows others what you value in work ethic, honesty, and creativity and others will seek to emulate the desired qualities.
Recognize Across Teams
Although individual recognition has been shown to greatly improve their teams performance, it can have a damaging effect on other teams if the praise is focused on only one department or team. Make sure that the culture of recognition is permeated across your entire company and that outstanding individuals in each team are being recognized.
This consistency will make employee recognition more effective and will eliminate a natural drag that occurs when certain teams feel forgotten or unappreciated. It is often easy to appreciate a great sales or customer service team, but don’t forget to look to other behind-the-scenes teams whose impact is less visible.
Make Recognition Timely
Recognition provides the greatest impact when it is given immediately. The workplace moves at a fast pace and very quickly new tasks, goals, and priorities overtake older successes. Recognizing in a timely manner has a greater impact because it reinforces great habits when they happen and before other habits and priorities can take over. Plus, everyone involved is more likely to remember the details and obstacles they overcame to reach success. Later recognition becomes more fluffy and by nature, less specific and effective. Even a simple “thank you!” given in the moment is more effective than a prize given at the annual event.
Utilize Peer Recognition For the Biggest Impact
As previously discussed in Peer Recognition: The Fuel For An Employee Engagement Explosion, employees favor praise and appreciation over monetary awards. But, praise for peers are often valued much higher than praise given by management. Peers are often seen as friends and their input and gratitude build the bonds within a team while a thank you from a CEO who may not recognize the employee they are praising in the hallway tends to be less relationship-building.
Employees want to feel like they belong and make a contribution at work. Peer recognition builds relationships, is often specific, heartfelt, and immediate. Peers seldom wait until a big recognition event to say “thanks for helping me fix my email!”
The very nature of peer recognition makes it effective because of who it comes from and how it is usually given.
As a manager, encouraging peer recognition is probably the most effective action that can be taken to improve employee performance. But, it doesn’t just happen because management asks employees to recognize each other.
It should be modeled, encouraged, and employees particularly good at recognizing others should be recognized for their efforts. Foster an environment of gratitude. Many companies have found that the Thanks Platform provides the tools for employees to effortlessly recognize each other. Managers can provide budgets for team members to gift as an award that can be chosen by the receiving employee.
Conclusion
Improving overall team performance is key to an organization’s profitability, performance, and long-term success. Team performance is often improved through timely recognition, peer support, and specific feedback. To learn more about how to improve your company’s recognition program, please click here.
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.