Retain Top Talent

Do your employees feel underappreciated? Are you aware of your practices around the elements listed in this article. Is it time to take a hard look at whether your culture is one of appreciation, gratitude, and thankfulness?

Many companies have very weak non-monetary reward and recognition programs. Here are some ideas to experiment with for boosting employee engagement in your organization (I use the phrase employee engagement to be an alternative to employee productivity). Next to not defining success, a lack of a rigorous process for employee appreciation and recognition is the next biggest mistake I see at most companies in regard to employee engagement and productivity.

Here's an interesting I had not considered before regarding employee recognition - employee spotlights. There seems to be many ways to use these from on-boarding, to team recognition, to recognizing specifc employees who knocked it out of the park. A lot of faith-based communities use this technique to enable relationships to be built among their members. Have you thought of strengthening your employee at-work relationships through the idea of employee spotlights - particularly since strong work relationships is a key component of high-performing teams.

This is exactly what I am seeing over the last 6 months at many of my clients - a decline in employee engagement activities like celebrations, fun, team building, recognition, one-to-ones - all because your team members are out of sight - out of mind.

We should be doing the opposite - and reinvigorating our efforts around engagement, recognition, automony, development, training, coaching, mentoring - all the activities and initiatives that lead your employees to want to lean in and show discretionary effort like proactivity, initiative, doing more than asked, being inquisitive, problem solving VS. just trying to survive and do the minimum so they can stay on your payroll system.

I've been spending a fair amount of time in my recent consulting with clients talking about non-monetary reward and recogition programs. Next to defining success, this is the second most important issue of driving employee engagement and productivity - showing apprecation.

Do you have a systematic and rigorous process embedding appreciation into the fabric of your culture?

Some basic ideas about what causes employees to turn off and give you the absolute lowest level of effort or productivity they think you will tolerate so that they can stay on the payroll system.

I am amazed at how many companies violate these basic ideas - managers who are not well trained in managing/coaching, weak or non-existent reward programs, and the tolerance of abnormal employee behavior that is the opposite of your culture and values.

Are you allowing any of these key principles to prevent our employees from giving you their best effort?

I cannot stress enough the importance of a vibrant employee recognition and reward program. Here are some additional ideas to consider in recognition and rewards. Next to the lack of NOT defining success, a weak or non-existent recognition and rewards program is the secon reason you see a lack of engagement and productivity in your organization.

Do you celebrate personal milestones of your employees. One milestone not mentioned you should be celebrating are when your employees take part in non-profit, social activities that are not political - like helping at a soup kitchen, food bank, or organizing a dinner drive for local hospital workers.  Are all of your employees tuned into what's going on in the lives of their teammates?

I've seen many companies drop this caring, empathy, and recognition during Covid as if people don't matter anymore. NOW is when we should be emphasizing these personal milestones.

From one of my favorite publications - Psychology Today - on the importance of employee recognition and why most companies/managers struggle with this issue. It is the number 2 element of why you're not seeing appropriate levels of productivity from your workforce - you're employees don't think you care.

Many of my clients look to me for specific language and vehicles through which they can recognize their employees - showing gratitude, appreciation, and being thankful. Geniune caring human behavior. I find that many managers struggle to show their appreciation because they have never been coached on how to do it. Secondly, I observe during this hard economic time and health care crisis, many managers have lost their caring and sensitivity. Unless your culture reinforces the need to show it, most of the time appreciation, recognition, and thanking others just falls through the cracks. Is your organization guilty of this?

This issue of recognition is the second most important element behind defining expectations (employees understanding what their immediate boss expects of them). The goal is to drive higher levels of employee engagement (translated into productivity). Most stuides show 50-70% of your workforce is not engaged - primarlily around not defining expectations and not providing enough recognition.

I spent a lot of time today with one vistage group focusing on employee recognition. My research indicates that it's the next most important element in employee engagement/productivity - after defining clear expectations for everyone.

Many of my clients are at a non-existent to minor use of employee recognition to drive motivation and productivity. Here is a great framework and some creative ideas to executive on employee recognition. Which of these ideas is most relevant for your organization?

Wow - catch this quote in the article:

"Yet more than 40% of respondents say their employer does not offer an incentive/rewards program or recognize employees."

In my workshops on employee engagement (productivity) I teach that having a rigorous reward, recognition, and appreciation program is second to helping employees understand what is expected of them.

Why do so many organizations fail at appreciating their employees?

Although the example used in this article was about dissatisfaction among nurses not finding meaning in their work" the exact same issues affect your employees regardless of industry. Are you leveraging recognition and appreciation to motivate, engage, and help show employees how they matter to your success?

Almost all of my clients have some element of a recognition program in place. This article does a great job pointing out the mistakes and errors many employers make in launching or managing these programs.

Are you guilty of any of the recognition program mistakes or errors listed in the article?

Nice infographic regarding non-monetary rewards and recognition to stimulate employee engagement. Lacking a rigorous process for appreciation, recognition, and gratitude is the number two reason why so few of your employees are engaged, motivated, and productive. The number one reason is a lack of helping your employees understand what's expected of them in clear precise language.

How rigorous is your reward and recognition process. Shoot me a note and I'll send you the matrix we've created that allows you to gain a quick snapshot of where you stand on the spectrum of having an effective process in place.

Many of my clients lament about how their recognition and reward programs are not embraced with a high degree of passion from their workforce. In probing deeper, I usually discover that the primary reason is a lack of marketing and promotion. Like any other initiative, taking the attitude of "if we build it they will come" is not a particularly sound strategy. Are you struggling to generate a high level of passion around your employee reward and recognition programs?

I get this question a lot from my clients related to what are we measuring and how are we recognizing it in our people? Is it more about performance or behaviors?

Good article by BambooHR on the Dos and Don'ts of employee recognition. As I indicted earlier, many companies have just zoned out on the need to increase employee recognition, rewards, sensitivity, empathy during COVID. My argument is that we should all be doubling down to show how much we appreciate our employees.

Although many of my clients are finding great value in bonus.ly as a platform for managing employee recognition and rewards, the article pinpoints some of the issues leadership might be focused on in why should we invest in employee recognition and rewards at a significant level.

Here's one of the key points I've been advocating in my workshop for Vistate Groups - Managing Remotely in a Crisis!

Here's the quote that grabbed me in the article:

Three out of five employees believe employee recognition and appreciation is more important while working from home, yet only one out of five employees (26%) say their company has implemented new ways to reward and recognize them since the current pandemic started"

One of the most powerful elements to drive motivation, engagement, and productivity is showing appreciation, recognition, gratitude. It's shameful not to have a strong recognition program.

Employee recongition is such a powerful tool - and the benefits come from so many areas as this article simply describes. I keep scratching my head why more companies don't embark upon a path of creating a comprehensive non-monetary reward and recognition system.

Recognition is the second most important element of engaging employees to drive high productivity. Why then do most companies give it little focus or effort. In at least 75% of the companies I have engaged with in the 60 complimentary 90 minute workshops I've done for Vistage Groups there is no comprehensive program for non-monetary rewards and recognition.

The result is a shameful level of low productivity since the majority of your employees believe that you don't care if they work hard and put in extra effort.

Some good ideas from Insperity on rewarding, recognizing, appreciating, and showing gratitude toward the employees working remotely. Although many of these ideas represent the foundation of good employee recognition programs, I am still amazed at how many organizations are not practicing these basic fundamentals.