Today, as your workplace continues to change and evolve, you likely find yourself at the receiving end of extreme reactions from your people. It may not be verbal, but you'll be aware of it through their disengagement and declining productivity. In such uncertain times, what can you do to improve your workplace's situation?
Employee Recognition is one of the solutions that will undoubtedly pop up in your head. After all, do it well, and you can see morale, productivity, performance, customer satisfaction, and retention soar to unreal heights. So, can Employee Recognition truly save the day?
Well, not exactly.
For many organizations, employee recognition is not working out in its intended way. Recent studies have revealed that more than 45% of people feel underappreciated at their workplace despite a recognition program. So, even putting aside the odd 33% of people from an HBR article that disliked receiving recognition, something is going wrong here.
Recognition programs are often bereft of intrinsic motivation
When employee recognition is required, it's easy to find yourself tempted by the good old Rewards and Recognition Programs (R&Rs). But here's the thing – you can never truly achieve employee recognition or build your organization's culture through R&Rs alone.
It's simple – in R&Rs, the reward takes priority as you tie Recognition, feedback, and your organization's culture with monetary or superficial compensation. With that shift in focus, your people will remain engaged at the workplace for all the wrong reasons, chasing vanity metrics till the end of time.
Not to mention, these programs gamify the system or even pit your team members against each other, which, in reality, is genuinely detrimental to team performance and collaboration, effectively demolishing all hopes of building a positively motivated culture. Not the most desirable of outcomes, is it?
The best part is how this issue with R&Rs has existed for far longer than you might think.
Remember Frederick Herzberg? The old chap knew the exact factors meant for job satisfaction and were valuable for building an organizational culture with his motivator-hygiene theory in 1968. Yet, they were lost in the annals of history, replaced by something that is nothing more than a small appetizer in a massive feast – optional but never a must.
Keeping that in mind, it is undoubtedly a pleasure to receive an employee of the month badge and similar rewards every once in a while, but is it what truly that your people truly desire?
Your people require growth and purpose
In Dan Pink's Book, DRIVE, he describes how human motivation is mainly intrinsic and that this motivation's aspects trisect into autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Autonomy is your need to direct your own life and work, Mastery is the desire to improve, while Purpose is the reason for which you exist.
"But what does that have to do with my team?" The positive effects brought by R&Rs last only for a short while, as the need for growth, learning, and development grows ever so strong – that is where true motivation, productivity, and workplace engagement lie. That need is the strongest in Gen Z, to whom career progression and involvement in an organization's decision-making takes priority over everything else.
So keeping that in mind, people require three things:
- Growth-driven Recognition that allows them to work on their strengths and weaknesses.
- Consistency in feedback and praise.
- The workplace prioritizes non-monetary and qualitative rewards.
So, how do you go about fulfilling these? Let's find out.
Driving change through social recognition
When we talk about employee recognition, R&Rs are only a tiny part of the whole. Social Recognition is what constitutes the rest of it. However, even if people realize that they tend to ignore the sheer potential of social Recognition and how it can be much more than just a means to keep your team happy.
You see, social Recognition can also function as your vehicle to drive the volume of meaningful feedback in the workplace. And as the driver of your workplace's culture, you certainly want to push that volume to its maximum.
This concept entails a shift to strategic social Recognition in which you and your team members recognize their blood, sweat, and tears while assisting them in maximizing and channeling their efforts in the right direction. It's a surefire way of promoting transparency and cultural growth. But are there other possible benefits of shifting to strategic social Recognition? Let's find out.
Your performance reviews become smooth and effortless
With social Recognition that assists your team in identifying both the good and the bad, they'll have an easier time reflecting on their work, allowing for performance maximization and driving growth throughout your workplace. You will have an easier time predicting and diagnosing the outcomes of the strategic deployment of human resources.
The principle here is simple – why spend so much capital on superficiality when, using social Recognition, you can bring out their true potential while keeping them satisfied?
Maintaining track records will become much simpler
A strategic deployment of social Recognition will assist you in maintaining a track record of your team member’s performance. Not to mention, it's an effective way to track their progress and overall contributions to the organization's growth and achievement of goals.
This way, you can build a track record of your workplace's cultural integrity, growth, and development. At the same time, this delivers the answer to maximize your organization's performance straight to you on a platter. Delicious.
The negative connotations tied to "feedback" disappear
It's pretty alarming how, over the past few years, feedback has taken negative connotations due to preconceptions that it is bound to be evaluative, judgemental, and a hit on their professional character when the reality is far from it.
You can move away from this through social Recognition by helping the person reflect on three things: What are the things that they could've done better, what they've done right and should maximize, and how they can integrate their goals into the overall organizational goals. The main idea here is to drive away from feedback as something to dread instead of a way to receive learning through guidance and coaching.
Your workplace will see increased returns
Research by Saïd Business School on employee well-being, productivity, and firm performance revealed a surprisingly significant and robust positive correlation between satisfaction with the company and productivity. Higher well-being at work correlates positively with more business-unit-level profitability. All this just by recognizing your members the right way.
Developing transparency and involvement in the workplace
As discussed before, one of the main things a member desires is to have a say in managerial and organizational decisions. Social Recognition helps them as they begin to understand their weaknesses and strengths and learn to maximize what works for them. They gain a position that allows them to see the best course of action for their organization, allowing them to become involved with and influence decision-making.
Not to mention, peer-to-peer recognition will enable them in seeing all the productive work happening in the workplace. The shift then also results in boosting both morale and overall workplace visibility.
R&Rs and social recognition carry distinct messages
There’s no doubt that R&Rs have their own place to serve within an organization, given how effective they can be on a short-term basis and with the right framework. But for building a culture of growth-driven and meaningful feedback, social recognition is truly the way to go.
You see, with these two approaches, you promulgate two messages, “Grow and develop by recognizing and being recognized,” and “Get rewarded for recognizing and being recognized.” The former is what an excellent, feedback-driven social recognition brings to your workplace and the latter happens through R&Rs.
So, as long as you keep that in mind, you’ve surely got employee recognition in the bag. The only thing left is understanding how to run feedback-based social Recognition program in your organization effectively. But we can save that for later, can’t we?
