How much time do you spend rewarding and celebrating your team?
Earlier this year I was invited to join a panel of internal communications experts from across the UK and US to discuss the topic. During the webinar for WorkProud, entitled The Value of Gratitude and Pride: Enhancing Employee Engagement and Recognition, the seven-strong panel talked about the importance of taking the time to reward employees, and explored different options for doing this.
Here are some of my key takeaways from the session on employee engagement and recognition:
- Reward and recognition is about so much more than staff surveys:
I’ve always been very clear that reward and recognition goes far beyond tokenistic staff surveys, and this was a view shared by the group. Surveys are a useful starting point for looking at how valued and appreciated people feel, but you have to go underneath that to understand why people feel the way they do. Conversations are crucial in getting the richness of understanding that you need and going beyond the data to find out what’s really going on.
- It’s important to understand how people want to be recognised and personalise the experience:
Who do people want recognition from? How do they want to be recognised? The more tailored and personal it is, the more recognised people will feel. Don’t send “Dear colleague” letters to people due to incompetent technology, make people feel seen.
- Beware of schemes that might have unintended effects:
Beware of creating something counter-cultural. You don’t want people doing things just to get the rewards. Take extra care with incentives linked to KPIs – for example, safety, where people may simply stop reporting issues.
- Ensure your reward and recognition schemes feed into your organisation’s overall goals:
Align reward and recognition to your values and behaviours, and make sure there is a clear strategy. There has to be an outcome. Why are you recognising people? And be clear on whether your initiatives are aiming to reward behaviour or outcomes, as these are two very different things and may need to be recognised in different ways.
- The danger of ‘toxic gratitude’:
Don’t be tone-deaf and launch schemes to try to cover over times of difficulty and change. Nobody likes mandatory fun. Ensure your foundations are right before launching. If they’re not and you’re all over social media talking about how great your organisation is and how much you love your staff – yet you have a really high turnover – people are going to be eye-rolling and making comments.
- Social media can be great, but use carefully:
Social media can be a very timely recognition tool when used strategically and properly. But there should also be an awareness of how people want to be recognised. Some people might love to see themselves mentioned, and enjoy sharing with friends and family, while others might be mortified. It comes down to being confident in your knowledge of your teams and your organisational strategy for reward and recognition.
- Never underestimate the importance of small moments:
Reward and recognition don’t always have to be about big schemes and grand gestures. Can we make more of the moments of connection we have every day? For example, email footers, the AOB section at the end of meetings. Look at what you’re doing on a regular basis to thank people. It doesn’t matter what schemes you have if you’re not acknowledging good work one-to-one on a regular basis. Managers should be helped to acknowledge good work and create these moments for their teams.
If you’d like some help with your reward and recognition strategy, drop our team a message at info@redefiningcomms.com
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