Monthly Archives: June 2017

Posted on

Where To Focus Your Leaders With Recognition

by

I’ve had two requests from clients from either side of the Atlantic ocean within the last two months, asking me to consult with them in helping their leaders give better and more frequent recognition.

It’s been fascinating to see organizational development folks and other leaders of various functional areas wanting to get their leaders on board with improving recognition.

Employee engagement and customer satisfaction scores were the trigger. These metrics were not the best and each client saw the correlation with their analytics and how a lack of recognition was a contributing cause.

In both companies they interviewed employees and identified ways they were not feeling appreciated and valued for their contributions on the job.

One of the companies went so far as to interview a sample of leaders who were doing well on employee engagement and customer satisfaction metrics.

What were they doing well?

They found great leaders demonstrated caring concern for most of their employees and were actively involved in acknowledging and praising their employees’ on the job.

These successful leaders knew how to make positive connections with their staff. (more…)

Posted on

A Recognition Strategy Is Not A Complete Solution

by

Creating a recognition strategy does not need to be a hard thing to do when you have the proper structure and guidance to follow.

My experience to date has been that companies are quite willing to invest time, money and resources to get the best people in the room and draft a written recognition strategy document.

And within a developed recognition strategy there should be a one-year plan of action to make the whole strategy come to fruition.

A typical recognition plan has various goals and objectives to be worked on and achieved by the end of a specified one-year period.

But I am finding there is something that happens between the crafting of a formal recognition strategy in a facilitated session and then trying to make the recognition plan component actually happen.

And that’s why it is important to remember that just because you have a written recognition strategy, it does not mean you have solved all your employee recognition needs.

Too many written recognition strategies stop right there on paper and do not become a living process tool.

What is it that stops a strategy from becoming a living document that is executed? (more…)

Posted on

Recognition Cannot Solve All the Problems in the World

by

Sometimes, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that because employee recognition programs and practices are such great things to instil properly in the workplace, they can solve all ills, HR woes and people problems.

Unfortunately, practicing positive recognition in the workplace and using recognition programs better and more effectively, will not solve world hunger, stop wars or bring peace and unity to the world.

That’s why I get concerned when I hear people say things like recognition can help your organization reduce absenteeism.

Recognition is typically an intangible expression of acknowledgement and valuing of an individual or team.

What you can recognize are people’s positive behaviours, their personal effort towards something or great contributions they have made.

You don’t recognize people’s genuine or chosen problems.

Here are some examples of what employee recognition cannot do. (more…)

Posted on

How To Overcome the 5 Most Common Barriers To Recognition

by

There are lot of things that can stop us from giving people the recognition they deserve.

I am going to give you the 5 most common barriers that people have given me as to why they don’t give recognition and I promise not to leave you hanging without some answers.

In fact, you will leave reading this blog post with solutions to overcoming each of these 5 barriers.

Here are the barriers:

  • Lack of time
  • Not knowing your people
  • Don’t know how to give recognition
  • No expectation to give it
  • Taking good work for granted

Pull out a note pad, open up a page on your touch screen tablet device or computer, and decide what you are going to do to remove at least one of these barriers from your life and vocabulary. (more…)

Posted on

Making Your Recognition Valuable and Meaningful

by

We all want to give people recognition that is valuable and meaningful.

The trouble is so few of us have been shown how to actually do this.

I think you can make something more valuable by putting in the extra time, effort and care needed to enhance the value of a person and their contributions.

Consider the jeweller who changes a diamond buried within the rough stone into a glorious and sparkling, multi-faceted gem.

This is exactly what you must do to give people the valuable and meaningful recognition they desire.

Like the diamond jeweller, valuable recognition requires specialized knowledge and techniques, and possibly tools and equipment to make it happen.

There is a simplified process for making diamonds I want to share with you.

I think you will find this process helpful, as I want you to think of yourself as bringing out the diamond in each of your employees. (more…)