It’s easy to get distracted by technology, people, and competing priorities in our lives and not recognize the great things people do around us. And then there are our workloads, which are often overwhelming, and stop us from interacting with people.
You might struggle with naturally being good at giving recognition. You were not outstanding in academic or sports at school. Home might not have been an exemplary place to receive praise or accolades.
Knowing how to give recognition is not always easy. You may be asking yourself:
- How do I give better recognition?
- How do I give recognition more frequently?
- How can I recognize more people?
Let’s tackle these questions by learning how you can make recognition giving a regular habit in your life. (more…)
If there is one thing I know from over 20+ years in the field of employee recognition, and that is that recognition programs always come equipped with their own set of problems.
You can guarantee whenever you introduce and implement an online recognition program that some challenges and issues will arise.
Hopefully, you will have others helping you administer your programs. However, even if you are the maverick, “Indiana Jones” of recognition programs, working solo on solving your challenges, the following suggestions should still help you. (more…)
Over 90 percent of organizations have at least one and often two or three recognition and reward programs in place. Like buying a new appliance for the home and reading all the instructions to start it up, the most important thing is making sure your recognition programs are effective and not just turned on. Check out these Top 10 Ways to Develop an Effective Recognition Program and see how you stack up. (more…)
Many of the attendees at my breakout session at the recent Human Resource Professionals Association were committed to wanting to improve employee recognition practices and their recognition programs where they worked.
One person submitted a question to me asking, “What would be the first 3 steps to take to start with Real Recognition?”
I am going to outline the three steps I would recommend you start with to make everyday, recognition – and specifically Real Recognition® – happen throughout your organization.
These steps are only easy if you commit to asking the hard questions of one another, being vulnerable enough to hear people’s responses, and then having the courage to act upon them. (more…)
Whenever you are dealing with people in the workplace you will always need to address performance on the job.
There are 2 sides of the performance coin. It is either good performance or its poor performance.
With employee recognition, I often get asked questions about recognizing poor performers. Recently, I was asked, “How do you recognize a poor performing employee without encouraging mediocrity?”
You know they have someone in mind when they ask this question. Consider the following questions to help guide you on this subject. (more…)
In the ever-evolving nature of the modern workplace, you can have far less face-to-face encounters with your staff and peers than you would like to. This makes giving personal and meaningful recognition a little more challenging.
Employee recognition is a felt phenomenon to begin with, so it must be given with feeling.
I was recently asked how could we emote better in our dialogue and written feedback with people?
I will examine these two areas of verbal and written communication and share my recommendations. (more…)
I was recently in a meeting with an organization who wanted to design a formal awards program and I think they were surprised with the additional insights I brought to the table that they hadn’t considered before.
I will outline a few of the critical elements needed for creating an effective formal awards program. These areas will be covered under five broad steps that entail quite a bit of work for each one.
Each of these steps will help you whether a manually administered awards program or one simplified through technology. (more…)
Practice recognition giving on daily basis.
Strive to give recognition every day to help you gain confidence in this skill. Research shows managers who recognize regularly have higher results from their employees than those managers who are not consistent recognizers. Don’t worry if you stumble through your first few spontaneous recognition expressions. The important thing is, you tried your best, and the next time will be even better. Like anything in life, perfect practice always makes perfect.
Learning about effective employee recognition practices and skills requires developing clear, behaviourally focused learning objectives.
But I find there is a problem in most organizations. When I ask how much focus is given to recognition practices in their leadership or management development curriculum the answer is often zilch.
Or at best they talk about recognition and motivation at the 30,000 feet level with no practical skills, know-how, or insights on how to get better at giving recognition.
Yet these organizational leaders are concerned when employee engagement survey results reveal poor, or at least below average, employee perceptions of the recognition given. (more…)