For the last three decades, employee surveys have repeatedly pointed to recognition as being one of the critical ingredients in employee satisfaction, morale, motivation, and retention.
Rewards and recognition practices--positive management, has reached an iconic status as the preferred means of motivating human performance. In light of the time and resources dedicated to these methods, it seems appropriate to examine the effects of positive systems and processes with the same lens we apply to other organizational systems. If they have a positive effect on employee engagement and discretionary effort, then the ROI will be validated and the investment of organizational resources they receive will be substantiated.
To try and fulfill their employees' need for recognition, American companies spend in excess of $100 billion every year on merchandise, awards, and cash rewards. In addition, millions of dollars are spent on management development in an attempt to teach managers and supervisors how to use verbal positive reinforcement to "recognize" employee improvement and value added behavior. It is believed that positive words about job performance will make their employees feel wanted and respected.
But mysteriously, after these efforts, surveys continue to reflect employee dissatisfaction with the "recognition" they are receiving.
According to the 2005 Employee Recognition Survey conducted by WorldatWork and the National Association for Employee Recognition, nine out of 10 of the 614 organizations surveyed had an active employee recognition program; yet when the Gallup Organization surveyed some four million workers on the topics of recognition and praise, they found that two thirds of those surveyed felt they had received no recognition on the job in the last year.
Employers clearly seem convinced that the delivery of these tangible rewards achieves the key objective of fulfilling their employees’ need for recognition, yet another contradictory survey finding reports that up to seven out of 10 of employees are marginally or actively disengaged from their work.
So, are employee recognition programs ineffective, or is there disagreement between what employers define as recognition and how employees define it?
Surveys do not actually define what is meant by the word recognition prior to asking survey questions about that topic. They use the word in the survey without clarifying its meaning. Apparently, those who create these surveys assume that it means the same thing to everyone.
According to one employee recognition survey, eight out of 10 (81 per cent) organizations with recognition programs "recognized" employees with certificates or plaques. Almost six out of 10 (57 per cent) gave away company merchandise and gift certificates, more than four out of 10 (44 per cent) handed out jewelry and more than a third (38 per cent) office accessories.
The word recognition carries a constellation of potential meanings, depending on the context of its use. If I was an employer and several thousand of my employees said in a survey that they were dissatisfied due to a lack of recognition, I would like to know exactly what that response meant before I threw money and solution strategies at the problem.
When survey data reports employee dissatisfaction because of insufficient recognition, American business leaders commit enormous amounts of time, energy, and money to recognition strategies. The ambiguity that surrounds the meaning of the word raises some questions about exactly what the surveyed employees are dissatisfied with. Management should pinpoint precisely what this word actually means - what is it that employee are asking for?
In my 30 years as a management consultant, I observed firsthand the negative effects of misdirected reward, recognition, and positive reinforcement tactics. This convinced me that a crucial step in addressing employee recognition is to listen to what employees on the receiving end of these processes have to say about the tactics being used on them.
Recognition is More Complex Than We Thought
The practice of using praise (positive comments about an employee’s behavior or results) appears to be an easy solution to employee requests for recognition. Unfortunately, praising employees for work behavior or results quite often leads to employee embarrassment, distrust, and poor management/employee relations.
Employees report sensing management intentions behind positive comments as attempts to control them, even if the supervisors say that they are only attempting to appropriately acknowledge the employee's effort. Employees report feeling uncomfortable and devalued by the experience. Supervisors and managers report the same discomfort, but feel pressured by leadership to compliment their employees for good work.
In my view, a "recognition gap" exists because the survey data present contradictory findings that indicate a discrepancy between the amount of recognition organizations report delivering, and the level of recognition employees report receiving. Apparently, when employees ask for recognition, they are expressing the need for something more complex than a plaque or service pin. They are asking for something more than well-intentioned verbal expressions of supervisory gratitude.
It may be that from the employee’s perspective, recognition refers to positive information about their work activity — information about their performance that is not limited to management-driven reward and recognition events.
It is my suspicion, that employee’s perceive themselves to be appropriately recognized only when their performance feedback is embedded within the mechanisms of traditional organizational performance measures and within the now extinct daily dialogs between a supervisor and an employee about work issues.
Perhaps, employees are more comfortable with information about their performance that evolves during performance discussions unmediated by management intentions to recognize the employee’s efforts. If this is true, how does this change a supervisor’s strategy for managing and improving employee performance? How does an organization control the employee’s sense of contribution and affect that employee’s organizational commitment and engagement? More about that in part II or our series.