Imagine if simply witnessing other people receiving recognition could cause employees to stay working for your company longer and increase their loyalty and productivity.

I am going to refer to a scientific study that does not focus on employee recognition but has some interesting and practical significance for recognition giving.

I read this study a while ago from the University of British Columbia called Escaping Bullying: The Simultaneous Impact of Individual and Unit-Level Bullying on Turnover Intentions (Human Relations, July 2012 vol. 65 no. 7, 901-918).

This study obviously addresses the extreme opposite of such positive practices as employee recognition, and tackles the not so nice topic of bullying.

What the study found was when individuals not directly bullied themselves were witnesses (indirectly or directly) to others being bullied they were more likely to leave their workplace than those directly bullied.

Think about the implications this could have on positive behaviours of praise and recognition. (more…)