We’re currently living through a period of unparalleled change, and change is always difficult to manage. To ensure your organisation successfully navigates these choppy waters, your employees will need to display motivation, agility and adaptability. But how do you go about achieving this?
A good place to start is by focusing on employee recognition. Recognition is the easiest way to develop these attributes in your workforce. Employees who are recognised are more inclined to both put in extra effort for your company and repeat desired patterns of behaviour.
At Achievers, we recently worked with researchers at Brandon Hall Group to produce a report on the ‘culture of recognition’, which discovered that just 49 per cent of employers provide performance-based recognition, while an even smaller proportion strive to make that recognition frequent, timely and inclusive.
Let’s examine each of these facets of successful recognition programmes in more detail:
Performance-based
If you want to get the most out of employee recognition, ensure that it relates back to the individual’s job role and responsibilities. That way, you’ll be encouraging the employee’s desired behaviour, which has a positive impact on your organisation and embodies your company values. Recognition that is only wheeled out for important milestones like work anniversaries is unlikely to persuade your employees to go the extra mile in their daily activities.
Frequent
According to our report, companies that recognise their employees frequently (several times a month) point to a 34 per cent higher culture of recognition than their peers who are less inclined to offer frequent positive feedback. Positive Psychology also states that “reinforcers delivered often and with consistency are less likely to… lose their effect, particularly in the case of new skills.” Despite this, our report also discovered that just a quarter of organisations provide employee recognition on a frequent basis.
Timely
Timeliness and frequency are closely linked, but they’re not identical. Timely recognition is provided in real time, as close to the action that it is praising as possible. Our report revealed that just 36 per cent of organisations offer timely recognition, meaning that the remainder wait too long to recognise and reward outstanding work.
Inclusive
For recognition to truly achieve its desired effect, it must be extended to every member of your business. Our report found that only 34 per cent of organisations surveyed satisfied this criteria. Establishing an inclusive culture of recognition involves leaving no one behind.
Find out more about Achievers' employee engagement platform.