By Brad Sutter (Contributing Editor)
Giving recognition to people can play a significant role in the overall performance of staff or a team. Giving people recognition for their achievements helps to put them, as well as the people around them, into positive working relationships with each other. Most of the studies done on recognition have been done in the workplace. Behavioral scientists have found that there is a tremendous upside for employee recognition, compared to the small cost of recognizing stellar employees.
Employee recognition helps employees feel as though they are appreciated and it gives incentive to other employees to be better at their own jobs. This happens because recognition is one of the fundamental human needs. People need feedback to move forward. Recognition is a form of feedback that should occur when employees are doing their jobs right, or going above and beyond duties at hand.
One other piece to the importance of recognition is that surveys have shown that millennials and Generation Z workers feel the need for more recognition than previous generations. A study by Sirota Consulting reported that 51% of workers are happy with the amount of recognition they receive. Your board may be full of baby boomers, but catering to the new workers of today is essential or you will not be able to keep employees.
Communication and Recognition:
Identifying and rewarding employees that should be recognized is another form of communication to your entire staff. The act of recognition tells your staff that you are looking for good work and willing to reward people for their extra efforts. Communicating to your staff like this prevents burn out, encourages people to do better, and stay longer. Even a beautiful glass award that someone can put on their desk from EDCO Awards & Specialties will do the trick.
Recognition is communicated to many facets of industry regularly; actors are recognized with multiple awards shows. Often, veterans are recognized for their service. Sports players are recognized with many different awards and trophies as well. Treating your staff like a premier sports team will communicate to them that they are special to you and without them, you could not make a difference in the world.
The Cost of Employee Recognition:
As mentioned above, the costs to employee recognition are relatively low compared to the long term payout you will get from recognizing them. The costs to employee recognition are:
• Implementation
• Training for Future Implementation
Implementation includes the time it takes to develop the program. The time it takes to give the recognition and the cost of the physical award, if there is one.
A company's gains from recognition are:
• Employees that Stay Longer
• Increased Productivity
• More Job-Focused Employees
Increased productivity includes the individual level as well as teamwork. Job focus means that employees are more focused on carrying out duties properly, which results in better safety and more consistent results. In turn, that all leads to happier customers and more money for your company.
Recognition and Engagement:
Job-focused employees are engaged employees. A recent Gallup survey showed that engaged employees make for a stronger organization. These people are better at their jobs than unengaged employees. Bestowing engagement on your employees is again as simple as recognizing them for tasks well done.
Engaged employees said that they tend to feel more strongly about the brands that they work for. They have a better understanding of a company's mission than non-engaged employees, and they have a more overall passion for customer acquisition and are better at it.
Employees that do not feel a strong bond to their company are more likely to do poorly at their jobs or job hop. Job hopping is where an employee will make many lateral moves in their industry because they are bored or do not feel as though they get enough recognition where they are at. Harnessing these people and the energy spent learning new jobs every few months would be much less costly than encouraging them to continue jumping from job to job.
Much of the time it is a simple as recognizing employees for the things they have done. This saves time and money by not constantly training new people for a position. If your talent does not feel appreciated, the chance that they look elsewhere for work is high. Take the time and recognize your employees. Your company culture and pocketbook will be better for it.
