It’s The Everyday Recognition That’s A Problem

It’s time to let you in on a secret I have known for over twenty years.

When I started my business doing consulting and training around recognition practices and programs, I thought I would find all the organizations that had no recognition going on and save the world. It was a poor marketing strategy and no one from those organizations ever hired me. 

The interesting thing was it was always organizations that were doing recognition that hired me.  

It was always the same trigger that brought me in. Organizational leaders would call up whenever their employee engagement surveys came back and showed low scores for the statements or questions related to employee recognition. 

What was the disconnect? Why was it that their employee scores on the recognition questions were so low? 

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Build Your Recognition Programs From the Bottom Up

Designing and developing recognition programs take a lot of thought, planning, and creativity.

The best way I can recommend beginning is to consider the distinct programs falling under a pyramid. And like building most structures, the foundation is critical because it holds everything built on top of it.

That’s why you build your recognition programs from the bottom up. 

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How To Tie Recognition to Your Organizational Values

You must always remember one principle of recognition, and that is your organizational culture will drive recognition practices and recognition programs throughout your organization.

In like manner, it is the organization’s customary recognition practices and exemplary usage of your recognition programs that will drive your organizational culture.

No wonder so many organizations gear up their recognition programs to focus on recognizing people who live their values.

Look at the various ways in which you can tie recognition practices and programs to your organizational values.

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Do You Really Start With An Award?

A colleague at work described an interesting situation to me about a company fixated on awards.

It seemed the person responsible for purchasing awards and managing recognition was only looking at and talking about tangible goods.

They were looking at merchandise and all the different formats for awards, crystal, plaques, paintings, and sculptures – you name it, Rideau can provide exactly what they wanted.

But do you really start with awards? (more…)

Is There Any Hope In Getting Recognized?

It can be hard visiting an organization and then hearing how unrecognized their employees are feeling. Those responsible for employee recognition can often point to the latest employee engagement survey to prove the point.

The lowest scores I have seen hover around the same magic number of only 33 percent of employees feeling valued and recognized for their contributions in the workplace. Which naturally means two thirds of the company’s employees don’t feel recognized or appreciated. That’s a lot of people.

Most of these organizations focus too much of their time on formal award programs and ceremonies and neglect the more important everyday recognition. (more…)