Yep. It’s a week away.
We deem the first Friday in the magnificent month of March each year as Employee Appreciation Day.
Those with a cynical point of view believe organizational leaders only do something “cool” for employees on this day to serve their own needs.
That’s why people have asked whether organizations should still celebrate Employee Appreciation Day?
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Administrative Professional’s Day falls on the same Wednesday of the last full week of April every year.
Long gone are the days when this day was known simply as National Secretaries Day. For never the right reasons, secretaries seemed to be perceived “lesser-than” because of that title. It seemed they only typed and answered the telephone.
Now they have risen in profile and respect by their new title of office and administrative professional.
But how should leaders show their appreciation for their administrative professional?
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Each of us are unique human beings and are truly works-in-progress.
I would never expect that each person who writes and sends an anniversary or career milestone ecard, or any ecard, look exactly the same way. That would make them impersonal and insincere.
However, the recent experience of reaching my 15th year with Engage2Excel, previously known as Rideau Inc., provided some wonderful insights to learn from with the emails or ecards that I received from leaders and peers alike.
Let’s look at some messages sent to me and learn some practical principles when expressing recognition in writing on a long-service anniversary.
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It has been over 25-years ago since Dr. Bob Nelson originated Employee Appreciation Day on the first Friday in March.
There was a two-fold purpose for originating this day.
So, even with that brief history of the founding of Employee Appreciation Day, has it really changed things in the workplace? Is Employee Appreciation Day different from any other day of the work week?
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Heading every organization is a senior leadership team.
They play a critical role in providing strategic and operational leadership for your organization. And they also play an essential role in representing the organizational culture and showing what leadership should look like, by how they interact with one another and with employees.
They often leave your task to “read minds” on how each leader thinks about recognition. Hopefully, you have an exemplary executive sponsor who is a cheerleader and champion for the cause of employee recognition to draw upon.
But in a general sense, how do you find out what each of your executive leaders think about recognition?
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Knowing the right things to say is critical for giving authentic, meaningful recognition. Expressions like, “I want you to know how much I appreciate your help today with finalizing ABC’s incentive program launch. You saved the day for us, Kim, by getting everything ready to go,” makesuse of all the right words. Check out the Top 10 Powerful Words below for crafting amazing recognition and tune up how you give recognition.
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When you get involved in a specific discipline and area of practice like employee recognition, you end up grappling with how to define things that fit your frame of reference.
At the same time you hope you can engage others is seeing things as you do and accepting the definitions you develop.
Such was the case with defining recognition when I first began speaking and training on the topic in the mid-nineties.
A leading industrial company in Canada invited me to meet with them because they had just reviewed their employee engagement survey results. As is often the case, the responses to the questions addressing employee recognition were not so good.
In the first consultative meeting together I asked the leaders responsible for employee recognition what they were doing regarding recognizing employees. Following hearing about their existing programs and their total rewards strategy, I asked them if what they were doing was real recognition.
That’s when one of them sincerely asked me, what is “real recognition”?
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Has your manager ever recognized you in a way you really didn’t appreciate?
While not by my manager, I can recall twice where people recognized me in not the best way.
Each of these poor recognition events proved the person responsible for recognizing me had done no homework. In addition, it might well have been the individual transferring their own preference on to how they recognized me. And, I also think one was a cheap, quick and easy way out.
The bottom-line is I did not feel properly recognized.
Have you seen employees disappointed or feeling a lack of respect with how they’re acknowledged and recognized?
We will discover ways for finding out how people want to be recognized.
Remember, I alluded to two occasions where I received depersonalized recognition that meant nothing to me? Let me share those experiences with you so we can learn from them.
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A subscriber of our Authentic Recognition blog suggested I should write about the difference between recognition (more related to work) versus appreciation (more related to the person).
I asked them why this topic was important right now. It seems their organization uses the Gallup Organization’s Q12 engagement survey every two years. In the past year they focused on the recognition specific question/statement #4, “In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work”.
Her research, like many of us have found, led her to see that “recognition in the workplace” has so many meanings.
She wisely observes that “people fundamentally want to be ‘understood and cared for’ or ‘appreciated’ and would prefer that over ‘recognition’”
She asked for my thoughts on the differences between recognition and appreciation. Apparently, her organization will likely continue with using recognition. However, she wonders if more time should be spent on appreciation instead of recognition in order to improve the Gallup survey scores.
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Of all the recognition behaviors or practices I have studied, it amazed me that one’s voice ranked as the most important behavior in conveying authentic and effective recognition.
But we couldn’t argue with the content validation exercise conducted with employee recognition experts.
That’s why I want you to learn to better use your voice to communicate more meaningful recognition.
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