A well-known Gallup analysis found that “only one in three workers in the U.S. strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days."
The same study found employees who don’t feel adequately recognized were twice as likely to say they'll quit in the next year. But as the talent market pendulum swung rapidly in 2022 and 2023, the Great Resignation became the Big Stay.
Employee retention is up, but engagement is down
Quantum workplace research revealed a sharp drop in job market confidence since 2022, mirrored by a similarly sharp drop in voluntary turnover rates, as measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data implied that “when employees are not confident in the job market, they are more likely to stay at their current organization.”
The current employment climate may motivate employees to stay when they wouldn't otherwise, but that’s not an ideal outcome. A workforce that stays because they’re afraid to leave isn’t likely to perform as well as a workforce that stays because they're intrinsically motivated by a connection to the purpose and value behind their work.
That dynamic has already begun to manifest as a measurable decrease in employee engagement, across a wide range of industries and locales.
For the first time in nearly a decade of upward progress, Quantum Workplace data revealed a downward trend in engagement, starting in 2023.
There’s never been a bad time to foster employee engagement, but now might be one of the best. While engagement can be a complex and multifaceted issue, employee recognition is one of the most simple, direct, and cost-effective ways to support it.
How recognition influences employee engagement, culture, and performance
Recognition is not just about feeling good. Effective employee recognition reinforces relationships, values, goals, and culture. When employees give or receive recognition, they share what matters most to them, and also learn what matters most to their colleagues and their organization.
Mission and purpose
Recognition is an opportunity to connect the dots between employee contributions—strategic, tactical, or cultural—and the overarching mission and purpose of their organization. At a time when alignment has precipitously plummeted to its lowest point in the past five years, strengthening this connection is more important than ever.
When teams recognize great work often, they build stronger alignment. Each recognition moment gives a practical example of their shared mission and purpose. Employees see how their work connects to the bigger picture.
Employee engagement
Recognition’s impact on engagement is manifold. If we define employee engagement as the emotional connection a person feels toward their organization’s goals and values, recognition is the substrate that supports its growth.
Each time someone is recognized for exhibiting the core values they share with their organization, it’s a reinforcing factor, not just for them, but for anyone who sees or hears it. Each time someone’s work visibly and positively influences the world around them, regardless of the breadth of its orbit, it’s often a motivating factor.
With so many benefits and so few drawbacks, building more recognition into the day-to-day employee experience is an easy way to bolster engagement.
Employee recognition examples
There are a lot of ways an organization can foster a more recognition-rich culture that supports engagement and retention. Here are just a few that apply nearly anywhere.
Welcoming new hires
Whether your organization is 10 or 10,000 strong, bringing a new team member into the fold is a momentous occasion. Every new employee brings their own unique skills and cultural influence to the team, and that alone is worth celebrating.
Tools to welcome new hires
There are numerous ways to recognize new employees. Some organizations present a new employee spotlight on social channels, send out emails, post Slack or Microsoft Teams messages. Some DEX platforms offer a way to streamline all of these activities into a single automated workflow.
Celebrating work anniversaries
Every day an employee stays at your organization, they’re learning, making contributions, building and strengthening relationships, and driving everyone forward. That’s worth celebrating!
Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a decline in average employee tenure for every age group. That makes each year an employee stays an achievement worth celebrating for both the individual and the organization.
Most organizations celebrate annual employment milestones. But even anniversaries can be a lot to keep track of, and there are few things more demotivating than having your work anniversary forgotten when others are being celebrated.
It’s essential to have someone or something keeping track of anniversaries, and it should really be something. It’s not just a bandwidth drain to have a person handle all of this. Even the most dedicated person will still forget things from time to time, but an automated system won’t.
Tools to track and celebrate employee anniversaries
You can set a calendar reminder for every new hire, and at a smaller organization, that might be sustainable. For larger teams, having a tool that manages this automatically can be a major boon.
For example: Haystack users can highlight upcoming work anniversaries automatically with a card in their employee dashboard.
Celebrating employee birthdays
Birthday celebrations can be a little more challenging than work anniversaries. Some people would rather not bring attention to their birthday, and it’s important to respect their preference. The easiest way to know someone’s preferences for celebrating their birthday is to ask during their onboarding.
Tools to track and celebrate employee birthdays
Just like work anniversaries, birthdays can be tracked with a simple calendar reminder, but as team size increases, a dedicated solution can add a lot of value.
For example: Haystack users can highlight upcoming employee birthdays automatically with a card in their employee dashboard.
Employee shoutouts
Shoutouts are simple, direct, powerful, and diverse methods for giving recognition. They can be given verbally in person, over the phone, on a video call, on Slack or Teams, on your company intranet, on a bulletin board, or tucked into a paper airplane, just to name a few.
Shoutouts from senior leadership
Recognition by senior leadership is often delivered during an all-hands meeting, or in a company-wide update. Individuals are sometimes singled out for an outstanding achievement; however, it’s much more common to see senior leadership recognition be given at the department or team level.
For example: “Congratulations to our legendary Customer Success team for another quarter with zero churn. This is a perfect example of our 'customer obsession' core value in action.”
Shoutouts from management
Management recognition is one of the broadest and most common formats of employee recognition given in many organizations. Management recognition can be formal or informal, and given at a group or individual level. A department head may recognize the contributions of a team, or a team lead may do the same for a direct report.
Typical examples of this type of recognition flow predominantly in a one-way stream from managers to their teams or direct reports, but that one-way flow is not always optimal.
It’s crucial to understand that managers also benefit from recognition. The vast majority of available literature focuses on encouraging managers to recognize their reports, but giving and receiving recognition are two sides of the same coin.
It’s essential to establish an environment where managers also receive recognition, not only because it feels good, or reinforces their own alignment with their team and organization. Each piece of recognition is also a vital tool for understanding what really resonates, and why. Receiving recognition can make giving impactful recognition easier and more effective.
Shoutouts from peers (peer recognition)
Peer recognition is a powerful recognition format that can largely be broken down into two primary formats: informal and formal.
Informal Peer Recognition happens without any external mechanisms. For example, someone might show their appreciation for a colleague’s willingness to stay late, help out on a project, or cover a shift. Informal peer recognition can be given in myriad ways, from written to verbal, sent via text, Slack message, email, or any number of other mediums.
Informal peer recognition is rarely tracked, so while it does provide some of the benefits employee recognition offers, it can’t always deliver the full spectrum.
Formal Peer Recognition is often structured in a way that allows it to be tracked and amplified. Many purpose-built recognition platforms and intranets, like Haystack, can do both.
In a formal peer recognition scenario, the same shoutout from teammate to teammate can be broadcast across a much larger audience, extending both its reach and benefits.
Cataloging is another common feature of a formal peer recognition program. This gives individuals an easy way to look back on the contributions they made, and hone in on which ones had the greatest impact. The same opportunity is afforded to managers during coaching moments like 1:1 meetings, as well as evaluations, like quarterly or annual reviews.
Employee recognition badges
Badges are a type of employee recognition that can be used in numerous ways, but they’re most often used to mark achievements. While physical badges are still used in some scenarios, digital badges are a common choice.
Just like with other types of recognition like shoutouts, authenticity is key for meaningful employee badges. If badges are given out for reasons that don’t align with organizational culture, their influence on engagement is likely to be minimal.
Digital badges are an opportunity to showcase an organization’s unique character and culture. Similar to physical badges, they need a place to be displayed.
In-depth employee profiles
Employees are more than their name and role. They contribute to organizational culture through their past experiences, their education, and the parts of themselves that make them unique. Skills, interests, affinities, and hobbies are also integral components of the package any employee brings along with them.
Catalog of success
Recognition for contributions through shoutouts, anniversary celebrations, and badges is a powerful step toward building an engaging organizational culture, and employee profiles are also a perfect permanent home for all of those things.
Internal resumes
An internal resume is a great way to recognize impactful initiatives an employee spearheaded or took part in. Just like badges, shoutouts, and other forms of employee recognition, an internal resume is right at home in an in-depth employee profile.
An in-depth employee profile can help to celebrate all of the things an individual brings to their organization in one place.
Quick tips for giving recognition
Having an employee recognition program in place will help increase the overall frequency, but there are a few simple factors that can take your recognition program from plain to powerful.
Make it authentic
It's easy to tell when recognition is authentic, and it doesn't take much extra effort to make it so. Think of something someone did that made an impact in your day, week, month, or year. Call it out, and share why mattered. For example: "Thanks, Fatima, for staying to help close when Eric was suddenly out sick. You saved us all from having to stay late. I appreciate it so much!"
Make it timely
Don’t wait until the next quarterly or annual review to show appreciation for great work. By that time, the event will be so far off that the impact of its recognition is weaker. In the worst case, someone who does deserve recognition will go for weeks or months thinking a contribution they made wasn’t appreciated.
Make it clear
The clearer the reason someone is being recognized, the better they’ll be able to understand how to repeat that behavior, and to recognize it in others. Similarly, if that recognition is visible to others, it will stand as a clearer example of behavior or actions to emulate.
Make it equitable
Ensure everyone is eligible for recognition, and that they know what it takes to earn it.
“Employee of the Month” is a typical structure that sounds good in theory, but doesn't often achieve the intended effect. If only one person receives recognition while others make recognition-worthy contributions that are ignored in the meantime, the benefits of the program are reduced dramatically.
Recognizing great work and great people
Effective employee recognition is as much about recognizing the people that make contributions as it is about recognizing the contributions themselves.
As you work to develop your own recognition programs, whether grassroots or formalized, consider ways to implement some of these learnings to maximize its impact on DEX and employee engagement.
