Monthly Archives: September 2019

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What Leaders Want to Know About Recognition

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Vineet Nayar, an Indian business executive and former Chief Executive Officer of HCL Technologies, is the author of the critically acclaimed management book Employees First, Customers Second.

Nayar says that employees are the clear differentiator in the value zone for helping organizations grow faster and be more competitive. He further states that the business of leaders and management is to enthuse, encourage, and enable employees to continue creating this differentiating value for their customers.

Great leaders already know the power of employee recognition. But not everyone is like Vineet Nayar.

However, what all leaders want to know about recognition is four major points about the programs and practices that you are overseeing.

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How To Consistently Compliment People the Right Way

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How well do you consistently compliment the people you work with for their positive qualities?

To become more consistent and alert to the opportunities for complimenting those you work with requires gaining certain personal habits of communication and a level of understanding about compliments.

Let’s explore this further.

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How To Craft a Clear Purpose for Recognition

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I love reading the latest business books and business magazines that inspire me to think about employee recognition in a fresh new way.

For example, in the September-October Harvard Business Review (HBR) there’s a great article on Put Your Purpose at the Core of Your Strategy by Thomas W. Malnight, professor at IMD, Ivy Buche, associate director, Business Transformation Initiative at IMD, and Charles Dhanaraj, a professor at Temple University. 

Now, as you would expect from HBR, these academics are addressing purpose as it relates to business strategies. But I instantly saw the application of the principles in this article towards creating a recognition strategy.

Are you ready?

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Make Sure You Eliminate Bias With Judging Awards

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Most organizations have a formal awards program that is their “best-of-the-best” academy awards event. These formal award programs are truly the best performance ranking, or earned award, such as the top salesperson, or they are nomination based and selected by a judging committee.

Often the selected jurors are previous award recipients because they know the standard required to become an award winner.

But does using previous award winners as jurors who are peers of potential award candidates lead to bias in selecting winners? 

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The Best Leading Indicator for Employee Recognition

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All of us are striving to help people in our organizations feel valued and appreciated for their contributions and for who they are. We’re also tasked with showing everyone how to give more effective and meaningful recognition face-to-face and with using our online recognition programs.

And the only way we know how well we are doing is by measuring the outputs of recognition through our recognition programs and through employee perceptions on recognition received through engagement surveys. 

But is there another way that you can refocus what you measure that will lead to more recognition giving?

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Can You Please Tell Me What a Recognition Strategy Is?

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What exactly is a recognition strategy?

When you search out Recognition Professionals International’s (RPI) seven best practices standards you’ll learn that their first standard is Recognition Strategy.

RPI defines a Recognition Strategy as a written strategy statement and plan with specific program objectives, with recognition aligned to the organization’s culture (i.e. vision, mission and values) and the business strategy and objectives. They use a three-dimensional recognition approach of formal, informal and day-to-day recognition practices. This Recognition Strategy document typically outlines the procedures and processes used and the program delivery methods for the various types of recognition adopted.

My definition of a recognition strategy includes a few more features that help make your recognition strategy a working, actionable tool.

Let’s dive in to learn more.

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