The Employee Recognition Effect

Recognized employees feel valued and appreciated, leading to increased job satisfaction and overall happiness at work. 🌟 Positive morale creates a ripple effect throughout the organization, improving teamwork, communication, and camaraderie among employees. 🙌 

Yet according to research, 51% of employees state they would like more recognition for their work, demonstrating that HR leaders are underutilizing employee recognition programs as an effective business practice. 📊 

In this podcast episode, I dive deep into employee recognition and its profound impact on employee satisfaction and productivity with our guest @Nelson Scott. 🎙️

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

👉 What employee recognition programs are?

👉 Key components of a successful employee recognition program

👉 The role of recognition in boosting employee morale

👉 Implementing effective recognition strategies

Nelson Scott, a full-time consultant, speaker, and trainer since 1995, Nelson sees his programs and writing as opportunities to remind audiences and readers what they already know and challenge them to build on their knowledge to make the right hiring decisions and use staff recognition to increase employee engagement and reduce staff turnover. 📚Nelson has authored three books on the topic:

👉  Thanks! GREAT Job! Improve Retention, Boost Morale and Increase Engagement with High-Value, Low-Cost Staff Recognition (2011)

👉  13 Reasons Managers Are “Unlucky” When Making Hiring Decisions (2012)

👉  Thanks, Again! More Simple, Inexpensive Ways for Busy Leaders to Recognize Staff (2023).

🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about Nelson Scott at:

https://twitter.com/nelsonscott_

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelson-scott-bbaa4711/

www.GREATstaffrecognition.com

#employeeappreciation #employeeengagement #employeeexperience #employee #employeespotlight #employeerecognition #employeebenefits #humanresources #teamwork #employees #business #companyculture #hr #employeewellness
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🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at:  https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟

 Aesha Tahir is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, and columnist.  She delivers high-energy presentations that challenge audiences to leverage their focus to what matters most at work and in life, their health. Audiences love the practical strategies she shares. She helps the organization

🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟

My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com

Follow me on IG and LI to learn more

https://www.instagram.com/tone_and_strengthen/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aeshatahir/

Transcript

 Welcome to the nine to five wellness podcast,  a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement.  I'm your host Aesha Tahir. 

 Hello and welcome to nine to five wellness show.  Today, we are going to talk about the employee recognition effect.  We know from research that recognized employees feel valued and appreciated, which leads to increased job satisfaction and overall happiness at work. Now, positive employee morale  creates a ripple effect throughout the organization.

Thank you  Improving teamwork, communication, and camaraderie among employees. Yet, what we see is that 51 percent of employees state that they would like more recognition for their work, which demonstrates a need for HR leaders and wellness practitioners to  have more employee recognition programs as an effective.

Business practice for organizations. So on this LinkedIn live we are going to delve into this topic that holds immense power in transforming workplaces,  which is employee recognition and its profound impact on employee satisfaction and productivity. And for that, I have a very special guest with me. Nelson Scott. He is a full time consultant, speaker, and trainer since 1995. Nelson sees his programs and writing as opportunities for To remind audiences and readers  what they already know and challenge them to build on their knowledge to make the right hiring decisions and use staff recognition to increase employee engagement and reduce staff turnover.

Nelson has authored. Three books on employee retention and recognition.  On this very topic. So I am going to let Nelson take it from here and introduce his books and his work. Welcome, Nelson.  

Thanks, Aisha. I appreciate the opportunity to join you today.  

I'm so glad you're here. So tell us more about your books.

Well, as you mentioned, I've written three books two of which actually are particularly focused on, on recognition. The first one was called Thanks, Great Job and that really focused on how recognition can be used to improve retention, boost morale, and reduce turnover. And the real emphasis is on simple, inexpensive ways of doing that.

That was written about a decade ago, and more recently I've written a book called Thanks Again, which is a follow up, I guess. And it's more simple, inexpensive ways for busy leaders. To recognize staff in between those four books actually took a bit of a detour. And I wrote a short ebook that was called 13 reasons managers are unlucky when hiring.

And, which is  not unrelated to this topic. Really, I'm really focused on providing my clients, the people I speak to, with the tools and techniques they need to hire, engage, and retain their clients. The right stuff.  

Wonderful.  I recommend all the listeners to check out these books. I have read the first one.

Thanks. Great job. And that's was the inspiration to have this podcast interview. I want to talk about what are employee recognition programs, like what shape and form they can take.  

Well, the emphasis in my work is really on What frontline leaders can do you know whether that's a school principal, a department head, someone with a small clinic perhaps  those are the type of people I really want to focus on.

What I know about those people is they're busy people and they don't have a lot of money for staff recognition. So really it's kind of a mindset and we, we want to create an environment or a culture where people feel valued and respected as individuals. And appreciate for how they contributed.  How they contribute and what they achieve.

It's a workplace where people feel comfortable being themselves. It's where they feel they belong.  

 So, what are some of the inexpensive, affordable ways to have employee recognition programs?  

Well there are a number of ways that we can, I guess save money. One is first of all, realize that it's not what you do.

It's not, you know, it's not a trinket or a trophy or a certificate that you give people that really makes a difference. It's your words. It's what you say that, that really is important. It's how you explain things.  Actually, one of the things I do is I talk in terms of, I use the acronym GREAT to remind people of what the ingredients are of meaningful staff recognition.

And  to begin with, the message must, recognition must be inspired by a genuine sense of appreciation of what the person did.  We make that message stronger by making it relevant and tying it to what the organization says is important. Its mission statements, its values, its goals. We make we make it explicit by being specific and describing what the person did that we appreciate so that we It shows that we're paying attention.

We also want to find appropriate ways to recognize people. There's no, there's no magic one size fits all approach to recognition. It has to be tied to the individual, focused on the individual. What are their interests? And more, also importantly, what are their recognition preferences? Some people like to be recognized in public, Some would prefer to be recognized privately.

And finally, we want to be timely about recognition.  Provide the recognition soon after the event. The longer we wait, the more the fizz, the excitement is lost. We don't remember exactly what the person did.  

Great.  Which is also your acronym. Okay, let me summarize this. So, it is Genuine, and then R is for Relevant. 

Think, okay, so now this is like a memory test for me. E is for?  

Explicit. 

Explicit. And then A, appropriate, and T is timely. 

That's correct. 

 So let's talk about the timely part of it.  Because normally managers or supervisors, they would wait till the end of the project to give recognition , to the team.

Should it be delivered in regular intervals? What do you think the good time frame is? 

Well, I don't, again, there's no magic answer, but I do think we, we don't wait until the end. We, we recognize people for how they're contributing that in ways that is moving us closer to where the goal is for the organization.

Some people would suggest that people need to be recognized about once a week. And that probably goes back to a 12 question survey that Gallup has used and a lot of people are familiar with. And one of the questions is, have you been recognized for doing your job well anytime in the last seven days?

I'm not sure that is, that's necessarily what that means, but it does tell us recognition should be delivered regularly. You know, you made reference to research. Other researchers said, you know, people can't remember being recognized any time in the last  six months or things like that. And that's way too long.

So I think recognition should occur, you know, frequently throughout throughout The project or whatever people are working on.  

As often as possible would probably be a good frequency, right? And especially if you find somebody who has done a great job or exceeded your expectations.

That's when you should pause and recognize. The employee. 

Yeah, one of the things I suggest is just keeping a staff list and noting each time that you recognize someone and take a look at this list from time to time and, gee, I haven't recognized her for quite a while. Let's find a reason to thank her for doing her job well. 

Keeping a list would be helpful. Be very helpful in this regards.  So according to a research study by quantum workplace as I was trying to get ready for this interview, I was trying to just read some research and this particular research study came up and what it suggests is that employees who are recognized.

There are three times more likely to be engaged at work.  And when organizations have a formal recognition program, they experience 31 percent less  voluntary turnover, which is a huge cost to the organizations and businesses if they have a high turnover, because they have to do it.  Train the employees again, they have to find , the new employee for that position again.

So what are some of the other benefits though that the organizations  would you know, have if they were to have  a recognition program?  

Well, I think you hit up on a couple of really important one. One is you know, people just feel more engaged.  And secondly, people are less likely to leave.  Bob Nelson, who's written a lot about recognition, says that  people will take a job for more money, but they'll leave for more recognition.

And people  have told me, and I've seen in the research that supports this, that people do leave a job where they don't feel appreciated.  They don't feel they belong, and so on. So what are, what are some of the other benefits? Well, I think it's good,  let's talk about wellness. It's good for people's mental health to be recognized.

The Canadian, pardon me, the Mental Health Commission of Canada has identified 12 factors that contribute to mental wellness at work and recognition is one of those. But the interesting thing, there are several other factors that relate. back to, to recognition. Part of it is just the organizational culture.

Is it a culture where people feel respected and trusted and appreciated and valued for who they are? And Recognition can do that. Another one is clear expectations and leadership. Well, if we go back to being really specific or explicit in describing what people do, that's one way of making expectations clear.

The other one is when recognition is relevant, where we're saying, you know, this is, it becomes a strategic tool to remind people what is important. Too often when companies will go through a strategic planning process and nothing happens, nothing really changes it. It's like going to Las Vegas. What happens during strategic planning stays in the executive offices and it's a way of getting that message out.

Another one factor is involvement and influence and recognition is, it's just, again, valuing people, valuing their opinions, and letting them know they appreciate it. And you know, another one, I guess one more I'll mention is, you know, we talk about work life balance. Here in Canada, the federal government is considering legislation to give people the right to disconnect.

Well, part of, I don't think that, you know, it's nice to have the legislation, but really part of the respect that we show for the people that work with us is we don't phone them on the weekend with a question, a work related question, or in the evening. We allow them to have their own lives. And so we respect the fact one of the themes I develop in the late in my latest book is that you know, recognition could be time should be family, family friendly.

It should, we should recognize the importance of families. Something as simple as, you know, we, one of my, the number one tool that I identified in the book is, is thank you notes. Well, rather  than just sending thank you notes to  staff members, send it to their families and say, thank you for sharing your spouse or your, your your parent or your child with us.

And, and they're important to us and this is how they contribute. That is going to be powerful in creating that more  life balance as well.  

I want to highlight something that you've mentioned a couple of times,  that with employee recognition, you create a sense of belonging.  I want to really just highlight over here.

Pause and take a note of it. Because if you take a look at human psychology, which  according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we as human beings, we are motivated by certain  So the most basic are physiologic, which are like food, water a roof over your head. Now, once those are taken care of, you have needs that are centered around love and belonging and self esteem and self actualization.

So this recognition, employee recognition, directly addresses the higher level needs that a human being has, which is respect, self esteem, status, recognition, and then sense of connection with the rest of the team or your workplace people at workplace. Second thing I want to highlight are the thank you notes.

Tell me a few ways that  the thank you notes work and actually increase the sense of belonging and engagement at work?  

Well first of all, a thank you note, a handwritten thank you note is what conveys a message that the person is valuable enough that you're willing to use. So I'm willing to take a little bit of my time to write the note because if I do that I mean,  Obviously, I, you know, it's, it's handwritten.

Nobody else can do it for me. You know, you can't get that effect with a, with a email or a letter that comes out of a printer. Something,  you know, a silly little thing I recommend to people is that they never write thank you notes in black, black ink or red ink. Black, because it looks like it comes out of a photocopier.

It's like everyone's getting the same message. And, and, and I've found, I, people have given me examples of letters they've got that clearly  are dear occupant. It doesn't, the person writing doesn't know the person they're writing it to.  And the reason we don't use red ink,  Well, we all went to school, didn't we?

We know red is never going to be good news. So the color I use whenever I write a thank you note is always green. Green has lots of, it's just that I color. I like a color that I think that happens  take it. So I take my green pen. I write my little thank you note, address it, and  I can put it in people's mailbox at work.

And I would probably do that most often, but occasionally I will actually mail it to somebody's home. You know, think about what you get in the mail. You get bills.  Don't even get a lot of those anymore because they're electronic, but we do get some bills. We get a lot of advertising, but we don't get very many handwritten letters or notes in the mail.

It really stands out among all that other. Parent the, the family members see it before you get home. Yeah.  The other thing is I, I get the most colorful, the biggest, the most colorful stamp I can find and put on that envelope. Again, just a small thing. And if I can find a stamp that's themed to something that's important to people, I'll I will do that.

Whether it can be a historical event. For example most recently in Canada, they, we, they published a stamp that highlighted the solar eclipse. There's stamps that come up for Christmas, for Eid, for and other religious holidays throughout the year Hanukkah and so on. So that can happen.

Or, you know, just a stamp that's maybe for Black History Month or something like that.  It's just,  it becomes relevant to the person, important to the person that's receiving it. The stamp is selected with the person in mind. 

 That's like personalization, customization. And then as you said that the other person finds it they can relate to it.

So it's relevant to them.   And it's so nice to have something in the mail, right? Just something shows up in the mail, especially if you weren't expecting it. Like I had a thank you card from one of my clients yesterday in the mail and I opened it, it was such a pleasant surprise. I, I wasn't expecting it and it, it just felt so good.

So  one of the things I believe at home. In organizations and workplaces.  What the expectation with the  employee recognition is that it's always going to be top down, right? So the management or leadership is going to recognize employees or team members for their outstanding performance or achievement.

Which reinforces organizational values for sure, but does it have to be always top down?  

No, actually,  you're right. I'm glad you mentioned that because we think of recognition as slowing down when in fact it can come from any direction. I mean, I think one of the most powerful types of recognition is peer recognition.

Because first, it's not as, we kind of expect it from the boss. We don't necessarily expect it from our co workers, but you know, we really trust our co workers. Somebody who is, is, works next to us understands what's required to do the job better than anyone else in the organization. And when they say thank you, that's it.

I'll give you one example that was actually in my first book and that is A grade one teacher, this was in school obviously, a grade one teacher came to the kindergarten teacher and she said,  you know, I always appreciate getting kids that were in your kindergarten class. They are so ready to  start grade one. 

That's the kind of Mark Twain once said, I can live on a good compliment for two months. Well, that certainly it's a kind of compliment.  So that happens. But the other one that we sometimes, I mean, and we can recognize, you know, suppliers and things like that, people outside the organization. But the other thing is we, recognition can flow up.

We can thank our boss for the type of leadership she's providing to us. And again, that's even more unexpected. And we can do it, you know, and we don't have to wait until National Boss Day on October 16th. We can do it anytime. And We can just, you know, you know, thanks for your leadership. Thank you for  making sure we had the supplies we needed to do this, that type of thing.

Thank you for the freedom you've given me to make the kind of, to make decisions within my area of responsibility.  

 It can be the other way around where your employees are recognizing the manager, because I think  a lot of times people don't realize that people in C suite and leadership are also human beings.

And they have the same needs as us. So when they get recognized for good leadership skills or something that they did well for you it's the same way it works the same way they feel good to and the positive behavior is reinforced.  So we talked about Written praise that you can write thank you notes or write thank you on sticky notes or use a card and mail it. 

What about financial benefits  like bonuses incentives? What do you think of those? 

Not much.  Why so? Why? Because  we really, most risk, most organizations can't afford enough to, to give a bonus that really is significant for that. And what happens, there was another story that I tell, tell again in the first book and that was the wife of a friend of our, a friend of mine. Was talking about it, where he worked, the company gave out bonuses.

Well, one time they gave out a bonus,  a fairly significant bonus, I guess, and a bonus was tied to the success of the organization, the lack of,  you know reducing injuries, all those kinds of things, you know, which really most of which weren't even within the control of the people that were getting the bonuses.

They only would contribute in a small part of it. So that, that was fine. That was nice. The next year the bonus was lower.  It was a much smaller thing and she says, you know that they're really upset about that because everyone counts on the bonuses and when they  run up the credit card bills because the bonus is coming, they can pay it off and so on.

Another, just give me another example. I was met an Australian on a trip one time and he was talking about. His sister who worked for an IT company or something, and he said, you know she just got a  25, 000 bonus, and I said, wow, that's great. He says, no, not really, the previous year she got 50, 000, she's looking for another job,  you know, and it becomes, The bonus becomes kind of an entitlement and so on you know, and all the way bonuses, it's like a paycheck, you know, everybody's entitled to a paycheck.

What you really earn in an organization is recognition.  That's, you know, that's the, that brings in the emotional income, which is at least as important as the financial income that we get.  Yes. And people don't remember don't remember getting bonuses. I remember Chester Elton in one of his books talks about the fact that, you know, a few months later, people don't even remember they got a bonus.

Yeah,  it becomes part of the paycheck.  Okay. I worked hard and I got this 

and you get a tax bill with it.  

That's a good one  for sure, Nelson. I'm 

very sensitive because here in Canada, our deadline is Tuesday,  filing our income tax. I know you in the U.

S. We have 

done it. We have done it. Yeah. April 15th. You've 

gone through the pain.  

So it's, it's on your mind.  

It's on my mind, yes. 

Yes. It's on top of your mind. 

 How can  organizations measure the impact of recognition programs? Like, what are a few key ways to identify that the recognition program is actually working?

I guess one of the ways of doing that, well, I mean, we talked about turnover and things like that, doing exit interviews, but also doing stay interviews to see how people Or feeling about how they're recognized and other things about the job. We can do a more traditional type of survey, though. I would suggest probably only use pulse surveys, really short surveys that maybe only asks one or two questions, and one of the questions maybe  Do you, are you satisfied that you are recognized frequently enough for doing your job well?

I made up that question. It's a really bad question. Don't ask, don't ask that question, but you know, ask a question.  Give me a few minutes. I can come up with a much better question. One of the things, one of the ways I ask questions is Kind of four parts to the question. The first part is on a one to nine scale, how satisfied are you with the recognition you're receiving?

Right. 

The second question is, you know, explain that reading. Third question is how satisfied on that one to nine scale could you be with recognition and what would we have to do? 

Right. 

To, to get that different score. And that, which is really useful because often when you just say, are you satisfied recognition on a one to five scale and they give you three and you don't really know what it means, you have to guess or you have to go back and start asking.

This way, that type of question I just described will give you almost an action plan to move forward.  

Right. Right.  The employee feedback and surveys. Those are easy to conduct, and also, you could  Ask questions about how to implement a better recognition program.

One of the things I would probably include would be the frequency, right? If the frequency is enough or not, which we talked about earlier, but just throwing it back to the team members and asking them how frequently they want to be recognized. And I know we also talked about the, the.

Recognition being appropriate like what medium are you using? Is that, is that the kind of medium or the kind of recognition that your team members want?  It could be a multiple choice question in which you can give some choices to your employees, as in what type of recognition, what form of recognition would work best for them. 

 Surveys are great.  

Yes. Yes. And another possibility is just doing, having someone do a focus group. It could be a staff member or it could be someone from outside the organization. And and just ask a couple of those questions and people will come up and they will explain  how they feel about the recognition and what they feel could be done differently. 

 Adjusting and evolving the recognition programs through surveys is important because you might have something in place for years  and maybe it's not working anymore. So it's always a good idea to throw a survey out and ask your team members and employees and see if there are any adjustments to be made, or you need to evolve your recognition program, as in where probably you are sending once a year holiday card to all of your employees, but that is going unnoticed. 

And you want to start sending in something else, and maybe more frequently,  like a  thank you card every quarter, or even more so, send some text messages. I know we talked about that text and email does not have the same effect, but I feel, I believe, email not so much, but, text messages, people read it and you can save it and still show it off to your friends.

Like that's the biggest thing with the written message, either through text or cards or sticky notes  that people want to show it off. They want to brag about like how well they did and how happy the leadership and the team members are with their work. Would you agree with that? 

I would agree with that.

In fact, if you look in the cover of Both my books. I'll pull, I'll hold this one up because it's bigger. 

Yes. 

Oh, yeah. 

That's a, 

that's a sticky note. And the second one my graphic designer said,  put another sticky note on as well as a thank you card. And we do that because it's quick and it's easy to do.

You talk about text messages. What if you're commuting? Not if you're driving, but if you're on the road.  If you're on a bus or a train or something, commuting to work,  you could just be sitting there texting. Something else that you can do is you can leave a voicemail for people,  you can leave a note on their desk that they'll discover when they come in, you know, sneak around late at night.

Or not late at night. Before you go home, leave a few notes. You've got this little tool here. Record a video message and, and send it to people. You know, there's, and these are all really quick, little, inexpensive ways of recognizing people and, and, you know, as these, as we said at the beginning with, you know, these, most leaders,  front line leaders, most leaders, period, are, are busy people and in many organizations they don't have.

Very much money if and then some no money at all for recognition. They're prohibited from spending money on recognition  

 Those are some very good tips. I love the idea of video which I I Do make a lot of videos. This is a video interview, too And I did not say Think of it though, and you're right.

Like if you're commuting on a bus or a train or subway, you can easily record like a 30  second message. It doesn't take more than 30 seconds to recognize someone, thank someone, but you record it and hit send.  And that is going to just brighten someone's day. And I like it that all of these  tips and techniques that you have shared with us, they're not costly because a lot of organizations don't have the budget for it.

 You don't have to invest a lot of time. You just have to keep it front and center in your mind though. That this is something that needs to be done and it's a priority.  Great. So, Nelson, can I just pick up on something you, you said, I think,  or something you said made me think about that.

The power of recognition is that it's often unexpected.  It's not planned. I mean, other than, you know, we get into formal programs and once every five years, they bring people together and they say, well, let's see what you all have in common while you've been here for five years. And during those five years, you haven't died and you haven't been fired. 

But apart from that, Jim, you survived, and that's all we really recognize. Well, it's pretty meaningless, and nobody says that. But in fact, when you think about it, that's exactly what we're recognizing people for. But the unexpected, the quick little note that you do you talk about holiday cards, birthday cards, and so on.

Well,  make them a recognition tool by adding a little note saying, you know, in the last Here's a couple of ways that you've contributed that really stand out in my memory. And do that. It's a small little extra, but I think it makes that  routine. A birthday card becomes something special. And the neat thing is, people keep, keep  sticky notes.

They keep thank you notes that we send to them. I've had people send me thank yous for the thank you notes I've sent. They've sent me pictures of the note I wrote sitting on their desk. Somebody even said What am I supposed to do when I get one of these? Should I thank the person that sent it? And I said, of course you should, because we really want to,  we want to have behaviors that's repeated.

And if that's a behavior we want repeated, then we should thank people for doing 

it. Yes.  , send thank you note to the sender too, because that's how you can recognize them for their action. And we want that positive reinforcement both ways. 

, Nelson if people want to get in touch with you, where they can find you, and where can they learn more about your work?  

Well, of course I'm on LinkedIn. That's probably a good place to find me. I do have a, I'm also on X. Though not very often. I have a website, which are probably a little bit out of date.

But it's called great staff recognition. com. Great staff recognition. com. When you're there, you can sign up for a newsletter that I send out every Tuesday. . And I'm just delighted if people contact me. I just, I love talking about staff recognition. I'm passionate about it.  

I can tell you shared so many golden nuggets with us. So thank you. And I'll include the links in the show notes of our podcast episode.

  Thank you so much, Nelson, for sharing your wisdom  on staff recognition and employee recognition.  

Thank you for the opportunity to do so.  

Thank you. 

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