One challenge recognition program owners experience is how to get everyone in their organizations consistently using their recognition programs.
Today, I am going to share with you ways to move people, or induce them into action and steadily use your programs to recognize others.
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It may be natural to recognize a person after they have done something extraordinary. But what about motivating someone before they begin a task?
That’s when a little inspiration might help.
The word inspiration comes from “inspire”, the Latin roots which means to inflame or to blow in to. This is like blowing air over a low flame to make it grow and glow brighter.
How do you replicate that with the people you work with?
What does blowing inspiring air over a low flame of an idea look like in the workplace?
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Managers are dealing with more work from home employees than ever before. And the current COVID-19 pandemic is looking to keep employees working at home for the next foreseeable future. You must recognize and reward your employees better and you must also enhance the total employee experience, even at the home office. Follow these suggestions to make the work-life experience a better one for your staff.
Roy is no longer writing new content for this site (he has retired!), but you can subscribe to Engage2Excel’s blog as Engage2Excel will be taking Roy’s place writing about similar topics on employee recognition and retention, leadership and strategy.
Each of us has varying levels of confidence and proficiency with being able to recognize those you live with and especially those you work with.
For some, they had upbeat and positive parents, teachers, and coaches, who inspired them to grow and be successful. They regularly received words of encouragement, appropriate praise, and recognition for their accomplishments.
Others had life situations where they always needed to overcome negativity, received put downs at school, and a lack of sincere concern for the welfare of others. Even where they worked had toxic bosses and a lack of appreciation for their contributions.
No matter the route you took in life, or the role models you had in your life, they now expect you appropriately praise and recognize your employees.
But we all have different abilities and attitudes around giving meaningful and effective recognition.
What can we do?
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One of the four criteria for the different levels on our Recognition Maturity Model is the variable of consistency.
If there is one thing, I hear all the time from recognition managers and program administrators; they hope to have more people consistently recognizing employees. And they also speak of wanting greater consistency of recognition across all areas of the organization, be that by departments or geographic locations.
Consistency is so important that is even one criterion on our Recognition Maturity Model, which you can learn more about here.
But what do we mean by giving consistent recognition? How can you make this happen across your organization?
Dive in to learn more about consistency.
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You have probably already seen it in your organization.
There are some leaders—directors of departments or senior leadership team members—who not only stand out for what their employees achieve, but who know are great recognizers of their staff. Employees like and trust them and they produce top results because of how they are treated by their leader.
Why is it that great leaders are also great at recognizing people?
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In my training sessions I ask managers in attendance different questions to help them get grounded about employee recognition. I also want to discern how aware they are of the impact a lack of recognition has on their employees.
What I can assure you is, a large majority of managers already know that unrecognized employees are at risk.
The most common factor identified is that unrecognized employees will lack motivation, are demotivated, or have no motivation at all. This leads to underperformance or low performance.
Most managers realize that when employees are not appreciated it will frustrate them, they become unhappy, and could well be looking for another job so are at risk of leaving the company.
In fact, research by Dr. Jean-Pierre Brun at the Université Laval in Quebec City, found that the absence of employee recognition is the second leading cause of workplace burnout and stress, right after workload.
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Have you tried to train your people on how to give better recognition and it didn’t work? Were you able to measure the transfer of learning back to the job? What was the business impact of the recognition education delivered? Have employees reported improved recognition?
There are many reasons why educating and training managers and employees on recognition giving can fail. Authors and education experts, Tim Mooney and Robert O. Brinkerhoff, suggest bold actions for achieving business results in their book, Courageous Training. They provide a useful list of eleven possible causes for training failure.
I will unpack each one of these causes and then discuss how it relates specifically to employee recognition training. I want you to overcome the typical problems associated with training people effective recognition skills. (more…)
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:
Let’s tackle these questions by learning how you can make recognition giving a regular habit in your life. (more…)
Whether an inside job or working from the outside in, motivation on the job is no easy task.
I have always loved the simple explanation for motivation that it is your “motive” to action.
This made me think of the sign I saw the other day that said, “I dream of a better world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.”
However, motivation from a scientific viewpoint, is always described as the psychological factors we all have such as needs, desires, wants, or drives within us that cause us to do the things we do each and every day.
The tricky part is applying this oft-misunderstood concept on the job. (more…)