Companies are turning to employee recognition as an internal strategy to boost employee engagement and positively impact such metrics as productivity, ROA, ROE, and retention of both employees and customers. For example, companies that have a formal strategic recognition program in place had a voluntary turnover rate (i.e. people choosing to leave) of 14%, vs. 18% for those who don’t.
Here are several guidelines to make your recognition more impactful:
- Tie your recognition not only to performance results (the “what”) but also to your organization’s core values (the “how”).
Those that do report (A) 29 % lower employee frustration, as well as lower turnover, (B) 79% (vs. 63%) of employees having a clear understanding of organizational objectives, and (C) performance reviews being deemed to accurately reflect work done 62% of the time, vs. 50%. - Reflect recognition frequently throughout the year, not just at the annual performance review.
Many new dashboard systems, such as Execute to Win, make it easy for managers and employees to make regular entries in the employee’s electronic record. - Broaden your recognition process to enable employee peers to input recognition of events and actions.
This makes for richer feedback (beyond just the single data point of the manager’s perception) and builds a culture of mutual accountability for developing all members of the team.
The key to all this is to move away from using recognition as a reward with tangible results and toward the spirit of feedback for learning and growth.
