Organic Recognition

I so often hear HR managers say, “I would love to put a more strategic employee recognition program in place, but we just can’t afford to add another program at this time.”  Or they sometimes tell me, “It would be a really nice thing to have, but we don’t see it as a priority right now.”   When I hear this, I can’t help but think how shortsighted these managers are being.  They perceive that employee recognition programs are just another layer to be added to their administrative function; or, at best, the icing on the cake they can do without for the time being.  They couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Integrated Workforce Recognition programs are not just “nice to have” additions to a business.  Strategic employee recognition needs to be part of a company’s DNA, an essential component within the company’s organism that directly impacts employee well-being and engagement.  That’s what made me think of the term “organic” when referring to employee recognition.

According to Wikipedia, the word “organic” can mean “of or relating to an organism, a living entity."   When we look at any organization, what we expect to see is a group of human beings interacting to achieve a common goal.  (Now this isn’t always the case, but it’s what we would hope to see!)  In any event, we are envisioning a group of living beings with talents hopes, aspirations and needs.  One of these real needs is the desire to be appreciated for good performance, to be shown gratitude for a positive achievement.  The only way for that to happen, is if the organization has invested in a plan and technology that allows recognition to flourish, grow, and touch EVERY employee, becoming a living part of that organism.

If employee recognition is not part of a company’s basic DNA, it’s never going to achieve the results that managers hope for.  To really work, employee recognition has to be grown from within through the creation of a culture of saying “thank you”.  If that culture isn’t “organic”, layering over an employee recognition program is simply just not going to work.

Peer-to-Peer Recognition?

There’s been a lot of buzz in recent years about adding a Peer-to-Peer Recognition component to your recognition process, particularly in the light of the social media phenomena.  Some say you don’t have to have an award component, just an acknowledgement from one employee to another.  Others say that without a monetary or gift award, the activity has less meaning.  Some say it has to be anonymous; others that the identity of the nominator is mandatory. So what’s a smart manager to do?

My take on the issue is simple.  Peer- to-Peer Recognition is more than just another layer added to your program or another tool in your recognition tool box.  I believe Peer- to-Peer Recognition is a foundation component of your program, but only if it’s a natural outgrowth of the recognition and appreciation culture you are creating.  What does it really mean when you recognize an employee for an extraordinary behavior or outcome?  It means you are celebrating that individual by recognizing his/her achievement.  Essentially, you are creating a culture of celebrating overachievers.  Opening this ability to your entire team can only engender an intensification of this culture throughout your company and lead to dramatically more recognition touches.

As to the implementation of your program, my advice would be to consult your employees.  Let them decide how and when they should recognize their peers, whether there should be an award, whether they should be named, and what are the criteria is for nomination.  The one aspect you would want to stress is that recognition should be for superior performance, not just simply doing one’s job.  And if that performance is tied to you company’s mission, tell me the bad part of that!

Then you can take advantage of recognition technology like ours to make the entire recognition process easy and accessible for all employees.

Gratitude and Motivation

There is a pretty clear distinction between what we call science and what we recognize as art. Science is cold facts, hard data, and measurable outcomes. Art is more elusive, difficult to quantify, impossible to measure, and in many ways subject to broad interpretation. I like to think of employee motivation as more than just a science, but as an art that can be mastered. In other words, how can a manager create a culture in which employees experience an intangible stimulus to perform at their best? I think the answer lies in the simple act of appreciation.

A recent poll conducted by Gallup Organization, found that 65 percent of surveyed employees do not feel appreciated at work. Unfortunately for both the employee and employer, feeling underappreciated can lead to pervasive negativity, low morale, and decreased productivity.

On the other hand, we know that gratitude triggers positive feelings in both the giver and receiver of gratitude. Since gratitude stimulates happiness and positive emotions in both parties involved, the more connected they will feel to their organization and colleagues. Therefore, it's not surprising that a small act of appreciation can lead to an increase in productivity, retention, and overall morale.

Great leaders have always understood the power of a simple thank you. John Ball, service training manager at American Honda Motor Company once said, “I try to remember that good, intelligent people actually need day-to-day praise and thanks for the job they do. I remind myself to get up out of my chair, turn off my computer, and go sit or stand by them to see what they’re doing, ask about their challenges, and find out if they need additional help. Most of all, I tell them in all honesty that the job they’re doing is important to me, to our company, and especially to our customers.”

What leaders communicate when they express gratitude is not only the recognition of a job well done, but the unspoken understanding that they truly value their employees and have high regard for them as persons. This understanding is not tangible, you can’t measure it. But is has the effect of motivating employees to want to do their best; to strive even harder to reach company goals. To me, this is the true art of motivation. And it really doesn’t cost that much.

The Psychology of Gratitude

I speak almost every day with company managers who feel pressured to validate their employee recognition and incentive programs.  Or if they don’t have such programs, they’re afraid they won’t be able to justify them.  They feel they’ll need recognition metrics that track their program’s impact on business goals and return on investment.  They know they’ll require tools that provide them real-time visibility into the performance of their programs.  They desire the ability to make informed decisions based on best practices.  They realize that there is a real science to good management of their employee recognition programs – increased recognition delivers higher employee engagement scores.

I started thinking about this as I sat with my family on Thanksgiving Day.  As we went around the table saying what we were grateful for, it occurred to me that sometimes the simplest things in life are the most important.  This got me thinking about my chosen vocation in life…helping organizations transform the potential of their employees and members into the highest levels of performance.  And yes, recognition metrics are a critical part of the programs we provide the organizations we serve.  But these programs and metrics are only one aspect of the entire transformation process.  There is another dimension to this transformation process and it may be the most profound yet simple aspect of the entire undertaking.

I’m talking about the ability to say a simple thank you; the human quality of being grateful.   UC Davis psychologist Robert Emmons once gave a talk entitled, “Gratitude is an Approach to Life.”  In it, he pointed out that, “The evidence that cultivating gratefulness is good for you is overwhelming.  Gratitude is a quality that we should aspire to as a part and parcel of personal growth.  Specifically, we have shown that gratitude is positively related to such critical outcomes as life satisfaction, vitality, happiness, self-esteem, optimism, hope, empathy, and willingness to provide emotional and tangible support for other people, whereas being ungrateful is related to anxiety, depression, envy, materialism, and loneliness.”

If being grateful in our personal lives can have such a positive impact on us, just imagine how a culture of gratitude could impact the behaviors, emotions, and attitudes of an entire organization.  Food for thought. . .

 

Social Media and Employee Recognition - Start the Conversation. . .

We all know the phrase “going viral”.  It may relate to a YouTube video or a late show comedy clip that everyone is suddenly talking about.  And that’s the point…everybody is talking about it.  It has somehow entered into the collective consciousness and grabbed people’s attention.  And through the power of social media, the conversation is replicated exponentially…reaching millions of people simultaneously.

Now there’s a lesson here for those of us involved in the employee recognition business.  Too many times, we recognize our employees for good performance and only a few people know about it.  What if that recognition was to go viral within your company so that not only everyone knew about it but they could congratulate the individuals being recognized or be congratulated themselves?   It would definitely get the conversation going… but more than that, it would begin to engender within your organization a culture of gratitude and congratulations for a job well done; a realization among your employees that their hard work and extra efforts won’t go unrecognized.

Success breeds success and when employees see each other being given a shout out, they can’t help but be motivated to desire the same recognition for themselves.  So it’s not just the recognition that goes viral, but the behaviors and attitudes that spell success for your company will be replicated over and over.

I believe the easiest way for a company to get the conversation started is to take advantage of the social media platform you already have (or will have).

Some ideas for going viral internally include,

- Use of Company Facebook and LinkedIn pages to recognize employees

- Social media integration: - let your employees opt in to having their recognition posted on their personal Facebook and twitter accounts.

- An internal “bulletin board” where employee recognitions are posted, employees can post congratulations and comments. 

- Incentra’s recognition platforms include social recognition modules that can scroll real-time intra-company recognition occasions  throughout each day.

- “Peer-to Peer” recognition - encourage employees to post recognition of others’ actions and efforts if you are not running a recognition software platform.

- Concerned about privacy?  Look into an internal social network designed specifically for business, such as Yammer, a password-protected site that provides a Facebook-like networking forum and a great space to recognize employees.

- The company blog is a perfect place to recognize the accomplishments of an individual employee or an incredible team.  Blogs can accommodate detailed descriptions, highlights, videos and photos.  Anyone can comment on the blog post and add to the conversation.

Integrating social media into your employee recognition program is a fast and economical way to create that collective consciousness of positive employee engagement we all hope to achieve.  Get the conversation started. . .    

  

One HR Leader Can Change An Organization

I was at an executive retreat last week in rural Texas with Colin Eagen of the E-Group (Washington, DC) and hosted by Pete Chambers of Inspirus and his executive team (Ft. Worth, TX). Thanks to Pete for a invigorating couple of days of enjoying the outdoors and engaging in thoughtful and passionate discussions about the exciting future of the Recognition business.

As we talked, one of the things we hit on was the fact that there are very few things that can have a major impact on every employee in an organization that aren’t decided by a corporate CEO or president. But. . .there is one thing that even a savvy HR director can do to literally change an organization, its culture, its employee engagement, and ultimately, its performance – that is to implement an enterprise-wide, workforce-recognition program.

There is so much proof that a strategic approach to recognition - based on a good recognition technology platform so that every employee is touched multiple times every year - improves engagement and business results (Gallup Consulting, Towers Watson, World at Work, etc.), that even if top management doesn’t “get” recognition, any decision-maker in HR who is willing to champion it can get a new program in place. . .and the organization will benefit greatly from that decision.

Here’s the key – new recognition technology (like that offered by our partners at Inspirus) makes it so EASY to develop a significantly better recognition process, that an undertaking that took ages just a few years ago, now can be done in 4 months or less. Think about that; one person with the guts to run with recognition can create a process that improves the lives and energy of every single employee, all while driving the culture that top executives want.

Here’s the other thing to think about - one of the directors at one of our clients did exactly what I’ve written about above and was singled out as a leader, lauded extensively and promoted for his efforts. Within a year of implementation, the Exec. VP HR noted that their new recognition system was “HR’s biggest win of the year.” Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. . .

The Importance of GIVING Recognition

At last count, there were 4,215 books on Amazon that dealt with Employee Recognition. From what I’ve read, the vast amount of this literature is about the importance of receiving recognition. But it’s important to remember that GIVING recognition is just as important in building a recognition culture. That is because the people giving recognition receive emotional benefits, plus, they help socialize the recognition process by delivering more recognition impressions throughout the organization. Let’s take a look at each.

There is a Chinese proverb that says “a bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives roses.” So too with giving recognition. Giving recognition is an altruistic act, and altruism has been shown by neuroscientists to be hard-wired into the brain to be pleasurable. Studies have shown that people who engage in charitable acts become happier after giving and that this feeling can last for several weeks.

As described in Shawn Achor’s “Happiness Advantage,” “The recognized employee obviously feels great, as do both the executive who made the recommendation and the executive who gets to deliver the praise. Everyone gets a mood boost as well. . .”

As far as the other benefit, socializing recognition with multiple “impressions” is important to building a recognition culture that improves employee engagement. That is because it is not just the act of recognition that is important, but it is “impressions” that are made on other people in the organization that lead people to understand that they are appreciated and cared for. . .frequently.

Managers play a key role in expanding recognition impressions as they tell others about the individuals and teams that they have recognized. This not only spreads the word, but also adds to continued good feelings for the givers of recognition, making those people happier.

Giving recognition. . .it’s as important as getting recognition.