Aug 23, 2024 1:39:54 PM | Employee Engagement The Four Ws of Extraordinary Recognition

When – Every opportunity you get.

Your team has just finished a major project.

It’s taken months of meetings, deadlines and overtime. There have been challenges and successes. Now that it’s all done, it’s time to celebrate. You schedule a team lunch to recognize the great work everyone has contributed.

But if this is the first time, you’ve included strategic recognition in your plans, you may have missed a significant opportunity.

The best time to recognize – as soon as something positive happens.

Celebrating significant milestones is always a good idea. It’s a great way for team bonding, culture building and making everyone feel valued and engaged.

In the world’s best organizations, recognition is more than a way to call out occasional performances. Instead, it’s an everyday habit shared by leaders, managers and colleagues alike. Great recognition is specifically designed to help develop the winning behaviors that lead to great performances and the right results. incorporate

With that in mind, great organizations incorporate recognition into as many conversations and coaching moments as possible. Recognition is the positive reinforcement the helps someone understand that they are on the right track as they grow specific skills. As a feedback mechanism, this has an immediate and lasting impact on a team’s mindset, motivation and output.

To make recognition part of your everyday, add these four approaches to your recognition strategy.

1. Prioritize “everyday” recognition, combining it with less frequent formal, informal and holiday recognition.
   
   
2. Train managers, leaders and colleagues to opportunity spot. Every employee is working to grow in specific areas. Every time they do something that fuels that growth is an opportunity to recognize and reinforce.
   
   
3. Model recognition at your most senior levels, including it in team calls, huddles and meetings. When other see leaders using recognition as an everyday performance management tool…they add it to their toolset.
   
   
4. Give everyone multiple tools to recognize everyday, including simple verbal recognition, thank you cards, incentives and rewards.

How – Be truly empathetic.

There’s nothing quite like being celebrated in front of your entire team for your great work. The glowing presentation. The applause. The cake. It can be an extraordinary moment.

It can also be a harrowing, overwhelming, negative experience.

Recognition is an intensely personal experience. For some, a shining spotlight is the priority. For others, private thanks delivered by a manager is more meaningful.

Your challenge is to understand what approach works best for your employees, and that requires an investment in empathy.

The best way to be empathetic – ask, ask and act.

Empathy is one of those words that gets mixed in with compassion and generosity, but empathy is a little different. It simply means understanding someone’s perspective.

To understand how your colleague or employee best reacts to recognition, do three things:

• Ask them. While it sounds obvious, take the time to chat with your colleague before you have to recognize them. Sometimes, we can’t articulate what we want, which is why you can pose a scenario. “How would you feel if…” to better understand.
  
  
• Ask others. Want recognition to be a surprise? Ask other colleagues about what type of recognition and reward might be best for the individual.
  
  
• Act in an appropriate way. Deliver recognition in a way that is meaningful and memorable – whether that’s big and public, small and private, incentive-based or verbal.

“True empathy.” It’s a powerful difference maker to fuels recognition – and makes a difference.

Why – Behaviors > Performance > Results.

“What should I recognize?”

If you instantly answered “results” to that question – you may be missing out on one of the biggest opportunities to develop your teams and leaders.

Once upon a time, organizations would look at accomplishments as the primary recipient of recognition – you grew sales by this much, you achieved that KPI…

But studies have shown that there are more components involved in individual, team and company success than the results. The result comes at the end of a key three-part process worth thinking about to make recognition most effective:

Step Three – Yes, recognize the results.

“Achieving” is worth recognizing. We strive for our goals and recognizing that success inspires everyone to keep reaching further.

Best Practice: Find every opportunity to call out a result – not just sales or NPS scores.

Step Two – Shine a light on “performance.”

Great performances add up to better results – and they’re more frequent than the end of project/quarter/year accomplishments.

Build recognition strategies and best practices to call out great performances – both the occasional outstanding performances and consistent everyday excellence. Recognizing “performances” is surprising, motivating, and reinforces your culture’s values and approach to business.

Best Practice: Make it a habit to look for and ask about great performances – then recognize them in a way that is meaningful and memorable.

Step One – Behavior first.

Winning “behaviors” are the foundation of every success. Every person in your organization is working to grow in some area, to improve specific skills day-to-day. When you recognize their efforts in this area, you reinforce those behaviors – and great behaviors always leading to better performances, which ultimately create improved results.

Best Practice: Make behavior-focused recognition part of your daily coaching regimen. Small, frequent, verbal recognition delivers powerful encouragement.

Behaviors. Performances. Results. By recognizing on all three levels, you foster a team committed to excellence at every level of every day.

Who – The above and beyond.

There’s this phrase that gets used a lot in recognition:

“Above and beyond.”

Often, it refers to the types of performances that deserve recognition. This person went “above and beyond.” Of course, recognition leaders know that “above and beyond” performances are occasional, and only one element of a good recognition strategy.

But “above and beyond” still has an important place in appreciating people within your organization. It’s just that it should refer to who recognizes and who should be recognized:

Who recognizes – Go beyond…the manager.

“Managers are supposed to recognize employees.” That way of thinking is out of date – because it ignores the purpose of great recognition. Great recognition helps people to grow, connect to your organization, and deliver meaningful performance.

To encourage and support those goals, you need everyone involved in recognition – manager to colleague, peer to peer, customer to employee. When everyone recognizes every day, you build an organization focused on growing, developing and delivering.

Who gets recognized – Go beyond…the sales team.

When it comes to recognition, don’t stop at the sales department. Everyone – from IT and HR through marketing and operations plays a vital role across your organization. Celebrate their work, growth and results to demonstrate the right behaviors – which lead to the right results.

Get everyone involved – Go beyond…the expected.

Your biggest opportunity is to create an entire culture dedicated to recognizing the successes, wins and development of everyone in your team. That requires frequent communication, from internal training (make recognition a component) to regular reminders in team meetings and huddles. When more people deliver recognition, talk about recognition and remind everyone to recognize, it becomes a critical part of your organization, and a great way to retain, inspire and empower employees.

Go above and beyond and watch a significant rise in the impact of off your recognition.