Employee recognition works. It boosts engagement, increases connection, and increases the profitability of employees. We know that employee engagement increases the happiness of both the giver and the receiver of the recognition. Peer recognition increases engagement where flow is more likely to occur.
Studies across countries and years continue to demonstrate that employees who feel recognized are more likely to work harder. (Here’s a recent one by Captera.) But while 75% of employers state they have a recognition program, only 58% of employees even know those programs exist (Bersin & Associates). Sadly, some recognition programs fail to impact employees.
Understanding why recognition impacts employees so much makes it easier for managers and HR professionals to implement the right kinds of recognition and to create the greatest impact. When we understand the phycology of employee recognition, that understanding assists us in speaking better to the human experience, creating more profound experiences for employees.
Peak Performance, Flow, And Self-Actualization
Peak performance is usually called “flow” and requires engaged employees. While not all engaged employees experience flow all the time, flow cannot occur for employees that are not engaged.
Flow is often called an enlightened experience and is part of Maslow’s self-actualization. It is compared to spiritual experiences and is the place where creativity and innovation occur.
Peak experiences are so important that our parent company highlighted them in the 2022 O.C. Tanner Culture report, which describes the three critical components of employee peak experiences.
In psychology talk, peak experiences, or flow, is a result of self-actualization, made famous by Maslow in his Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow placed self-actualization as the pinnacle of his pyramid. He defined it as the true sense, and desire to become what one is meant to become. It’s achieving our highest potential.
But, people can’t achieve self-actualization if they don’t have other, more base needs met first. We are stopped by our greatest unrealized need. Maslow’s hierarchy theorizes that unless the needs below a stage is met, that stage can’t be realized.
Physiological Needs: Food, Water, Warmth, Rest
Physiological needs of food, water, warmth, and rest need to be met. Employees who are struggling for survival will have difficulty ever reaching a state of engagement and flow.
This is where adequate pay, benefits, and time off come into play. If employees are able to provide for their family’s basic needs and able to take time off to rest and recover, then they will seek for the next need to be met.
Security Needs: Security and Safety
Individuals need security. Under Maslow’s security needs rests the need for psychological safety. People want to experience autonomy, or control, over their lives. They need to belong and feel connected so that they feel physiologically safe. Relationships are built. Feeling safe is an important human need.
Recognition helps to fulfill this need by providing job security. Recognition helps to reassure the employee worried about job security that they are doing a good job. It helps them to know what activities and behaviors are most valuable to their employer. This in turn motivates the employee to focus on those important aspects, making them more valuable.
Effective recognition helps employers to traverse employee failure better. It should be sincere, not forced or fake.
Love and Belonging Needs: Relationships and Friends
After security is met, employees need to feel like they have relationships at work. Love and belonging in the third basic need of humans. Employees should feel that they are part of a team and that others depend on them.
This need is so great that Gallup asks employees if they have a friend at work as part of their employer surveys conducted quarterly across the country.
Recognition also helps to build psychological safety through increased connection to their job, colleagues, and employer. It increases the sense of team and belonging. Employees who are recognized feel like they belong more at work. They feel appreciated and they feel like others depend on them. This is invaluable in creating a sense of security.
Esteem Needs: Prestige and A Feeling of Accomplishment
Toward the top of the pyramid of needs are esteem needs. People need to feel accomplishment, achievement, and mastery. They also need to feel respect or prestige from others.
Recognition builds esteem. It gives individuals a feeling of accomplishment. Even private one-on-one recognition builds the feeling of achievement. Often public recognition is used to create a feeling of prestige, but privately given recognition can also build it.
Recognition is the acknowledgment that an employee demonstrated mastery and went beyond
the normal protocols of their job. It’s giving thanks for a good job and for their efforts.
Self-Actualization: Achieving One’s Full Potential
At the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs comes self-actualization. Self-actualization is the ability of individuals to fulfill their full potential, be creative, and reach flow. In the business world, self-actualization is when employees are engaged.
From engaged employees, peak experiences occur, and flow is obtained. Flow is best reached when individuals have autonomy (the ability to control and make choices about their work), connection, and mastery (2022 Culture report).
Recognition builds and fulfills three of the core needs that come before flow. (No matter how much you recognize an individual, it won’t be enough if they can’t provide their family food, shelter, and clothing. Pay and benefits fulfill the most basic needs.)
When recognition is done right, it increases productivity because it meets the core flow needs. Engaged employees experience peak experiences, or flow, more frequently.
But, there are other physiological reasons why recognition increases motivation and performance besides Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Recognition lights up two parts of the brain and lowers stress-related activity.
How Recognition Builds Connection
Recognition builds connections at work. When people feel that they are part of a team, they work harder and persist through obstacles longer. Recognition increases the connection for both the giver and the receiver. Expressing gratitude fires dopamine in the brain, which creates increased feelings of happiness.
But, being recognized does the same thing. So in order to really use recognition effectively, you should integrate peer recognition as part of your workplace culture. Recognition builds greater connection between employees and their employer. It helps bind them better to the value they provide through their job functions, connecting them to their job role. And, it helps build connections to themselves because when they feel recognized for a good job, they feel greater mastery, which increases their effort and performance.
The Psychology of Recognition Awards and Rewards
The Amygdala is the part of the brain that processes strong emotions, particularly strong negative emotions. High stress lights up the Amygdala. Oxycontin, the happiness hormone, calms down the Amygdala.
When employees receive praise, or recognition, Oxycontin is released. It lowers their stress levels. Dopamine is released as part of the “rewards” center of the brain. It increases energy and the “feel good” feelings. Dopamine is released when employees are “rewarded” with recognition. It’s important to know that recognition is the reward, not a “prize” for conforming (the usual meaning of actual rewards which are used to control behavior).
Humans want to get more bursts of Dopamine and strive to recreate the behavior. Combined with Oxycotin, that’s why recognition has such an immense effect of inspiring positive behavior.
Conclusion
By incorporating peer recognition, employers can inspire increased connection, performance, and mastery. This will lead to more frequent peak experiences and flow. But for recognition to really be effective, it must be specific, timely, and frequent.
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.