Employee recognition is such an important part of operating company day-to-day. Do recognition right, and it’ll make your highest-performing employees want to stay and encourage everyone to do their best. Do it wrong, and it will drive your best people away.
And with only 36 percent of employees reporting that they feel engaged at work, your best employees may already have one foot out the door. Avoiding these recognition mistakes will help you draw them back in – and attract the best new candidates for your open positions. Let’s take a look at some of the most common employee recognition mistakes, so you can avoid them.
1) Failing to Personalize Recognition
Employee recognition should always be personalized to the person receiving it because different people are going to speak different languages of appreciation at work. One person might love being publically shouted out about their achievements, while another would prefer a private, quiet word of praise that doesn’t put the spotlight on them.
So, when it’s time to hand out incentives and rewards for high performance, reliability, and other positive attributes, you need to know what sorts of incentives motivate the different people on your team. Perhaps Carl would appreciate some extra paid time off to spend with his family, while Tina would prefer a cash bonus, and Alison would like words of praise and thanks from her colleagues. Personalizing recognition makes it more meaningful and reassures your employees that you see them as unique and valuable individuals, not just corporate drones.
2) Not Giving Recognition in a Timely Fashion
You should always give recognition as soon as possible after the praiseworthy behavior occurs. If you save it all up for an annual review, you’re giving your employees a whole year to grow resentful and disengaged because, as far as they can tell, their efforts are going unnoticed and unacknowledged. Plus, waiting to give praise and thanks to your employees could leave them confused about which behaviors, exactly, they need to repeat to earn more accolades and help the company reach its goals. Make sure your recognition is relevant to the behavior you want to reinforce and comes in a timely fashion so that morale stays high.
3) Recognition Only Comes from the Top Down
It’s not that management and leadership shouldn’t be offering recognition – they absolutely should be. But recognition shouldn’t only be coming from leadership. Peer-to-peer recognition is also an important part of an effective employee recognition program.
People feel good about themselves and about their jobs when they receive praise at work, whether it comes from a colleague or from a boss.
Praise and recognition exchanged between peers strengthens team relationships, and fosters closer collaboration between colleagues. When you build a company culture in which everyone is welcomed and encouraged to recognize one another’s contributions, strengths, and achievements, you’re creating an environment in which everyone feels supported to do their best work – and in which everyone is getting the regular recognition they need to maintain a high level of engagement with their work.
4) You’re Not Recognizing Everything You Could
It’s easy to put together something for employee anniversary recognition, or recognition of meeting performance goals. But it’s not just the big stuff you should be celebrating. Not all of your employees are going to be the top performers, but all of them do deserve some praise and recognition for what they bring to the table – and if they don’t get it, they might very well find another company that will give it to them.
Take the time to recognize each of your employees’ strengths and accomplishments, even if they’re not top performers. For example, maybe Greg is never late, or Alex is extremely reliable. Maybe Myrtle goes above and beyond to offer the best customer service she can. Maybe Jennifer is extremely helpful to her coworkers and very well-liked as a result. These employees need to be celebrated for these attributes, because they each have their role to play in making the company a success.
5) There’s No Transparency in the Recognition Program
The minute a whiff of favoritism enters your employee recognition program, it will begin to lose effectiveness. There needs to be total transparency into the recognition program so that everyone knows how recognition works at the company, what they might be recognized for, and how they can receive incentives and rewards. When the path forward is clear, employees will be empowered to set goals and work towards them.
Employee recognition is so important for your company. Take care to avoid common recognition mistakes, so your employees will feel inspired to continue doing their best.
