Looking at the past year of the Authentic Recognition blog is always an interesting reflective exercise.
Each year I never know what will appeal to my readers. Fortunately, analytic tools show the posts readers liked, and shared, the most. This provided insights I would never have expected.
Are you ready?
The top-ranked blog post for 2018 was Why Recognition Messaging Is So Important. Sending out the right messages about recognition requires a yearlong plan. You need a corporate recognition strategy, an annual plan with focus points, and identifying what you want to achieve by the end of a year. Then you’ll have the insight you need to create the right content. I am so glad that many of you resonated with this idea.
The second most popular blog post was Simple Ways To Find Time to Recognize People. We make recognition giving a harder task than it needs to be. And the biggest stumbling block for many of us is saying we don’t have time to do it. This post blows up that myth with quick and easy ways to counter the time excuse.
Sometimes we have tools we don’t even know how to use. It seems this issue transfers to recognition programs. Use Your Recognition Programs the Right Way, Right Now! was the next post on the list. Take a quick read and see if you need to tweak how you use your recognition programs.
I addressed a common shared problem for a lot of organizations in When Leaders Have A Hard Time Giving Recognition. This leadership issue will need your personal commitment to educate and coach your senior leaders on how to be better recognition givers.
A lot of employees struggle with the recognition they receive when it comes across as being impersonal. The fifth most popular post was If You Really Know Me, Then Recognize Me Properly. Finding out your employee’s interests, likes, dislikes, and recognition preferences, will go a long way to giving the right recognition.
And finally, an area that is coming to the forefront is Teaching All Employees How To Give Effective Recognition. Education and development of managers with giving recognition has been a mainstay curriculum item. But recognition is everyone’s responsibility and employees want to know how to give recognition to each other the right way.
Two of the top 6 posts for 2018 fell under the strategy category—not a high percentage, but it might be an indicator for you. Maybe we all need to look at recognition more strategically for 2019.
Recognition Reflection: What do you need to focus on in the New Year to make recognition a higher priority in people’s minds?
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.
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