Employee Recognition & Employee Engagement

[Roy Saunderson]

Check out this latest study from Ipsos Reid which is highlighting that recognition or the lack of recognition maybe impacting lowered engagement scores in Canadian workplaces.

Apparently Canadian employees are becoming less loyal to their employers. According to these recent findings from Ipsos Reid's Build a Better Workplace syndicated study, 22% of Canadian employees are expressing decreased loyalty to their employer.

"Loyalty to one's employer is very dependant on recognition," says JB Aloy, Ipsos' resident expert on employee engagement and author of the study. "Staff who feel their involvement is not acknowledged are more likely to become disloyal."

What evidence do you see that employee recognition creates loyal employees?

Roy

[Terrence Seamon]

Roy,
This is a concerning study, especially in view of the documented link between employee engagement and profitability.
Once again the key role of management behavior in the employee engagement equation becomes crystal clear.
Terry

[Roy Saunderson]

Keen observation, Terry.

Interestingly, Recognition Professionals International, has "Management Responsibility" as it's second Best Practice Standard for recognition practices and programs.

A few years back we asked managers in the public sector acorss the United States and Canada how important it was for them to have senior leader involvement in recognition.

How important is it to managers to have Senior Leader involvement with Employee Recognition?
* 93 percent of managers indicate Senior Leader involvement is very or extremely important
* 75 percent of those managers stated Senior Leader participation was extremely important

Now consider the harsh reality when we asked what percentage were REALLY involved:

Actual level of Senior Leader involvement
* 21 percent of Senior Leaders are very involved
* Another 58 percent are somewhat involved

(Source: Roy Saunderson, “Survey on the Effectiveness of Employee Recognition In the Public Sector”, Public Personnel Management , Vol. 33, no. 3 (2004): 255-275)

Recognition definitely needs leadership at the helm!!

Roy

[Doug Shaw]

Roy - this is great stuff thanks. I hope you don't mind but I included it in a blog post today, referenced you of course.

Thanks so much for getting my brain firing this morning

[Roy Saunderson]

Thanks Doug for the courtesy on informing and the link to your blog.

Sure hope things get better at BT for you.

Roy (formerly from Leatherhead,Surrey )

[Rob Fox]

Roy,

I suspect that these findings would be replicated world over.

But the interesting point, at least for me, is the meaning of the word loyalty. I think it is often mistaken for inertia?

[Roy Saunderson]

You're right on Rob.

In my June 29th post for my Real Recognition Blog I wrote about my experience with "recognition" in 9 European countries in 13 days. So the issue is certainly worldwide.

The two factors that I saw which correlated with high recognition giving behaviours were;

1. Leadership strength, and
2. Degree of courtesy shown.

Meanings of words always intrigue me so I agree with that like the word "engagement", "loyalty" tends to come across as a on-sided definition where we are "supposed" to be loyal to a company with no expectation of loyalty to the employee.

We all have much to learn no matter what side of the border or ocean we live.

Best,

Roy

[Ben Simonton]

This is old news in that there is nothing new. It's like discovering that water is wet.

Every person has a basic need to be heard and be respected. The extent to which these needs are met dictates the extent to which employees unleash their potential creativity, innovation, productivity, motivation, and commitment on their work. Failing to recognize employee efforts, even mundane ones, is a sign of disrespect. The same is true for failing to listen and respectfully reply to complaints, suggestions and questions in a timely manner.

This is all about human nature and it is the same as it has always been. I admit that as a manager it took me years to recognize these needs as being valid and then more years to become reasonably proficient in meeting them. But the payback was huge, north of 300% in productivity per person and a workforce with great morale literally loving to come to work.

The disrespectful way that most managers treat their people makes one wonder why their people produce anything of value.

Best regards, Ben

[Roy Saunderson]

Ben,

Thanks for carrying the discussion along.

You're reference to "discovering water is wet" reminded me of a Zig Ziglar quote when he said, “People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”

But more importantly I echo you comments about building engagement upon respect.

Cargill Inc., has a recognition strategy model which shows the typcial formal recognition at the top a pyramid, with informal and day-to-day recognition flowing underneath. Then they have respect and common courtesy as being foundational values before you can even expect any recognition you give to be perceived as genuine or real.

We all know perosnally from expereince or from shared stories the atrocities in the workplace stemming from disrespect.

One of our jobs as recognition and engagement professionals is to stop such actions and call people on inapprorpiate actions or words thrown at people.

So thanks, Ben, for flagging some foundational principles. Let's all focus on demonsatrating a higher level of respect.

Respectfully,

Roy

[Stephen J. Gill]

Thanks for opening this discussion. In my work evaluating the impact of leadership/management development programs, one of the typical findings is that employees who receive feedback from their bosses are more likely to apply what they learn to achieving business results. I take this to mean, in part, that it is recognition for learning and application of that learning that makes a difference.

As a psychologist, I know (Please don't ask me to remember the citations.) that positive reinforcement is the strongest influence on repetition of behavior. I suspect that recognition, when done well and from the right people, is a form of positive reinforcement for most employees. When employee involvement is reinforced by recognition, it is more likely to be sustained over time.

[Roy Saunderson]

Stephen:

Sure appreciate you adding your thoughts here.

Receiving feedback from one's immediate supervisor or boss is powerful stuff. In fact, I often advocate that managers should implement regular 1:1 meetings with their employees.

This not only provides an opportunity to instruct, coach and provide positive feedback to the employee, it should also be a two-way experience. You should expect feedback on your own performance back from the employee. As soon as you make it two ways then there will be two people who grow and benefit.

Researched Benefits from these personal interviews include: Significant difference in organizational performance (productivity, leader-subordinate relations, participation, and teamwork). Improvements in personal performance also noted (employee performance, satisfaction levels, and personal stress management scores).

(Source: Boss, W.L. (1983). Team building and the problem of regression: The personal
management interview as an intervention. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 19, 67-83)

Thanks for your feedback.

Roy

[Skip Weisman]

What you say, Ben, is true, that it is old news, for us who are now engaged in creating engaged workforces. However, as you stated it took you years to recognize the value of the human nature component to employees wanting to feel valued for their contributions. Most managers/leaders in business are either totally unaware of this need, don't care about this need because they sign the paychecks, or are aware and do care but are uncomfortable and unfamiliar with how to do it right, so they do nothing which comes across as not caring, even though its not the case, but the results are the same. That's where we come in!

[Roy Saunderson]

It's a shame, Skip, that what you say is right on.

Besides us professionals coming in it also takes exceptional leaders to initiate a strategy around such practices, putting life and meat behind the culture of the organization, and then establishing core practices and expectations around what should be happening (or stopping!!) in an organization.

Culture drives recognition practices and recognition can reinforce culture.

Accountability then follows right behind to keep things in check.

I guess we will all have to see what we can do one person and one company at a time!!

Take care,

Roy