Employee Recognition's Role in Modern DEX

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 those who don’t feel adequately recognized were twice as likely to say they'll quit in the next year. Despite that, organizations move forward, and that persistent progress masks a pervasive cultural deficit.

Confidence in Inconfidence

As the talent pendulum swung rapidly in 2022 and 2023, the Great Resignation became the Big Stay, and hyperbole aside, retention became a less pressing concern for many organizations.

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 reinforce the notion that employees are more likely than ever to stay whether or not they’re recognized, satisfied, or engaged—but that’s not necessarily an ideal outcome.

For the first time in nearly a decade of upward progress, Quantum Workplace data revealed a downward trend in engagement starting in 2023. A workforce that stays because they’re afraid to leave isn’t likely to perform as well as a workforce that stays because they feel a connection to the purpose and value behind their work.

So, with that in mind, there’s never a bad time to foster engagement. And while engagement can be a complex and multifaceted issue, employee recognition offers a simple, direct, cost-effective, and often underutilized tool for supporting it.

Recognition’s Hidden Influence

Giving and receiving recognition isn’t just a feel-good activity. When it’s used effectively, recognition can be a learning opportunity—a reinforcement of interpersonal relationships, organizational values, goals, and culture.

Mission and Purpose

Recognition is an opportunity to connect the dots between employee contributions—whether strategic, tactical, or cultural—and the overarching mission and purpose of their organization. At a time when research indicates that alignment has precipitously plummeted to its lowest point in the past five years, strengthening this connection is more important than ever.

Whether they participate in a formalized recognition program or not, organizations with a strong practice of recognizing great work often build a stronger sense of alignment because each recognition moment presents another practical example of their shared mission and purpose in action.

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 success. And while in-person recognition may have traditionally limited the scope with which an organization could engage in this effort, the Digital Employee Experience (DEX) offers a wealth of avenues to explore.

Employee Recognition Examples

So, let’s look at a few ways any organization can foster a more recognition-rich culture that supports engagement and retention, no matter what tools are available.

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 get the job done

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.

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!

With the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showing a decline in average employee tenure for both men and women, and across all age groups, a long tenure is an even more remarkable achievement for both the organization and the employee.

Since it would be impractical to celebrate everyone’s tenure daily, 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 to put it bluntly, it should be something. It’s not just a bandwidth drain to have a person handle all of this, it’s an opening for errors to creep in. Even the most dedicated person will still forget things from time to time, but an automated system won’t.

Tools to get the job done

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.

Birthday Celebrations

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.

Shoutouts

Shoutouts are a 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.

While shoutouts come in near infinite formats, there are a few common structures that prevail.

Senior Leadership Recognition

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.”

Management Recognition

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.

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.

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 Effective Recognition

Having a mechanism in place to help a culture of recognition thrive is a crucial step, but it’s just as important for that recognition to be meaningful and effective. Below, we’ll cover some ways to help ensure that’s the case.

Authenticity

Recognition falls flat when it’s inauthentic. While authenticity can be subjective, it’s essential to ensure the recognition you’re giving is as authentic as possible in order for it to ring true.

A quick litmus test is whether or not recognition is authentic:

• Does it align with organizational values and culture?
• Is it authentic to you?

If it passes either one of those tests, it’s probably authentic.

Timeliness

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.

Clarity

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.

Equity

Equity is a common issue with recognition programs. “Employee of the Month” is a typical offender. If employees don’t know what it takes to earn this recognition, or if only one person can receive it while others make recognition-worthy contributions that are ignored in the meantime, the program isn’t likely to move the needle on engagement.

Ensure everyone is eligible for recognition, and that they know what it takes to earn it.

Recognizing Great Work and Great People

These are just a few ways to recognize the myriad contributions employees make every day.

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.

‍