Employee recognition programs are designed to value and engage employees, but why do they often miss the mark? Even though roughly 80% of all employers have a recognition program (SHRM), most employees still feel underappreciated by their employers. In the US, employee engagement was on the rise previous to the pandemic.
2019 numbers from Gallup showed that employee engagement had nearly doubled over 2017 numbers. But even then, the highest percentage of engaged workers rose to a mere 34%. Two-thirds of US workers still were not engaged. And, worldwide, engaged workers dropped to under 20%.
Employee recognition programs are missing the mark. Why?
1. It’s Not Really Recognition…Its Manipulation
Employee recognition programs fail when they are used as a tool to induce or compel employee behavior. Employee recognition is about genuine gratitude and appreciation for something an employee does. It is not setting the employee up as a good example to demonstrate that other employees are not doing well. That’s just using the employee as the battering ram to their peers.
Imagine this: You like your job. You try to keep your nose down and get work done. One day during a team meeting, your manager chastises the team for too many tardies, extended lunches, or early leaves. He calls you up in front of the entire team and says, “Jill is never late. She’s always on time and works her full shift. You need to be more like Jill!”
Do you feel appreciated? Recognized? Happy? Are you more likely to show up on time tomorrow or to show up late?
If you answered that, you wouldn’t feel appreciated in this situation, because this example was not employee recognition. But it’s done frequently, in various forms, across the world. Employee recognition is not about changing employee behavior. It is not about forcing, coercing, or manipulating everyone else to do differently. Employee recognition should never send the rest of the team the unspoken message that “you need to be better.”
It’s about gratitude, appreciation, and giving thanks. If you aren’t sure about the best ways to recognize employees without accidentally sending the wrong vibe, check out this article on the differences between prizes, awards, and rewards.
Action Item: When recognizing employees, don’t send the message that other employees should do better.
2. It Promotes Public Recognition Over Private Acknowledgement
Employee recognition programs tend to focus on public recognition. That’s often because public recognition is more easily tracked. The best way to show the results of a recognition program and to make sure it’s being implemented is to show public recognition.
The following types of recognition are all publicly given:
- Employee of the month
- Shout-outs in team meetings
- Social recognition
- Awards night
Public recognition isn’t bad. And if done right, it can create a sense of team and unity. But, if you only give praise in front of an audience, you miss the mark some of the time. We previously mentioned public recognition can feel manipulative. That happens most frequently when private recognition is missing, and individual team members don’t feel appreciated.
Underappreciated employees tend to become more disengaged and to feel greater negative emotions when others are publicly recognized.
The subtle, often untrackable, but essential part of employee recognition is private recognition. Personal and private recognition brings an employee recognition program from a “program” realm into the “company culture.” Private recognition speaks volumes to employees that you appreciate them because it’s not for show. It can’t be used as manipulation, and it’s more adaptable to an employee’s individual “love language” and thus more effective.
Action Item: Err on the side of private, instead of public, recognition.
3. It’s Doesn’t Give Employees The Right Information
Employee recognition is the most successful when positive feedback is specific. The exact form of credit can change from ineffective to effective through clear-cut feedback. Consider the popular recognition action of buying the team lunch. If all a manager does is buy lunch, the team will appreciate it and come to expect lunch if done regularly. At some point, a regular team lunch can become a distraction from work if it’s missed when it was expected.
But, if a manager expresses gratitude or voices that they want to celebrate a recent success, or the completion of a difficult project, then the team lunch becomes a more dynamic form of recognition. Check out other ways to recognize teams here.
Any form of recognition becomes more powerful when specific observations are expressed and recognized. By expressing specific recognition of the team’s success, or individual’s efforts, recognition redirects the attention back to work.
It takes observation to be specific in recognition. But, it’s even more important when you realize that employees perceive that most of the feedback they get from their managers is negative. It’s a correction, additional assignments, or a request to finish quicker. Regular, positive feedback is essential for a successful recognition program. The thanks platform allows employers to add company values to the program that can be sent to employees when others observe them displaying those values.
Action Item: Always provide specific, positive feedback when celebrating success with employees.
4. It Never Leaves the “Recognition Program” And Becomes Culture
Employee recognition becomes most effective when employee recognition and appreciation (link to traverse failure article) become a part of the corporate culture. One of the ways to make recognition part of the culture is to build recognition into the team vision.
As your team approaches various projects, take the time for the team to create a shared vision. Let each member contribute and help to decide what goals they have for the project and outline solutions to foreseeable challenges. Even the act of giving your team more autonomy while addressing challenges is a form of recognition because it says, “I trust you to make the best decision.”
Throughout the project, pause for regular check-ins. Allow team members to take a turn, ask for help, or share little successes they have encountered or witnessed by another team member. Note these little successes to be recalled at the end of the project and celebrated a second time.
Allowing the conversation and regular team discussion to include recognition teaches employees to recognize more frequently the little successes. It becomes more ingrained in the culture. It moves from a program into daily work life.
5. Recognition Only Goes One Direction
Often managers attempt to propel a recognition program to success themselves. But, employee recognition should move in all directions. Peer recognition has incredible benefits and acts as a catalyst for a successful recognition program.
But, it’s also ok to ask employees what they want to be recognized for. Ask them what they succeeded in this week that they are the proudest of? This is especially critical when employees work remotely because much of what they do goes unobserved by managers and team members link to new recognizing remote employees articles.
Another way to do this is to give employees a few minutes to talk about the challenges they’ve faced and how they overcame them. This gives everyone a chance to be heard and allows teammates to learn more about the individual challenges and skills of each other.
Conclusion
Moving employee recognition into the team culture takes subtle but intentional changes. For many managers and teams, these changes occur naturally. But, for all teams, recognition can become part of the culture, raising the percentage of employees who feel valued at work.
You might also be interested in these articles.
Appreciating Employees Isn’t just about Recognition: Traversing Failure
Tips for Recognizing Remote Employees
The five love languages of employee recognition
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.