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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've been suggesting this idea in the last 8 weeks of doing my Managing Remotely in a Crisis zoom webinar - send everyone company swag. This article reinforces that idea - and breaks down some different recommendations. The big question is whether swag is an effective reinforcement of positive experiences when folks are separated and isolated from being together?

Great list of employee reward/recognition ideas broken down in key categories. Are you testing any of these ideas in your company?

An overwhelming number of ideas that you could you use to immediately boost employee recognition. Just pick one for an immediate impact.

This article did a good job separating the ideas of recognition and appreciation. Sometimes, CEOs get confused over which one requires what tactics - or one gets ignored.

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?

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?

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?

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.

Here's a radically different approach to thinking about the experience your employees have around engagement, recognition, and culture. You might want to consider an empathy map.

Are some of your managers who lead the bulk of your employees having issues about their own engagement. Front line employees observe this attitude and become disengaged when their boss is disengaged.

Here's the quote that reinforced this idea:

"Leader disengagement often happens for the same reasons as employee disengagement. They don’t feel respected by their manager, they don’t feel like they have a say in decision making, and they aren’t kept in the loop in terms of communication. Finally, they usually don’t receive enough positive feedback and appreciation themselves as leaders. Lack of leader motivation and engagement tends to breed cynicism, sarcasm, and negativity in the leader."

Good ideas and reinforcement about employee recognition and appreciation. I liked giving shout-outs on social media to teams and individual employees and having managers write hand-written notes to their subordinates who then post those notes on the refrigerator so the whole family can see how much they are appreciated.