Three Important (but Subtle) Forms of Employee Recognition

Recognizing employees is important.

Regular readers of this blog know the research behind this. Strategic recognition – frequent, timely, specific recognition of employee behaviors and achievements in line with the company core values and strategic objectives – is proven to increase employee engagement, productivity, performance and retention.

Giving employees detailed messages of praise and appreciation is the key to achieving these results.

Weaving these into everyday work

Yet we must not forget three other critical forms of employee recognition that should be woven into the daily fabric of work.

Trust – Do you trust your employees? Do you fully delegate responsibilities to them without micromanaging the outcome?
Support – Do you give employees the information they need to get the job done? Do you make yourself available to talk through project approaches and desired outcomes? Do you, when necessary, act as an escalation point to help your employees overcome internal roadblocks?
Facilitation – Do you make sure your employees have the tools or information they need to do their jobs and do them well? Do you remove red tape and help employees weave through bureaucracy to focus on the work?

How do these three aspects of management and leadership function as employee recognition? All of these, when done right, communicate to employees that you recognize their abilities and want to help them achieve success.

Getting down to the essence

That’s the essence of employee recognition:

I see what you do.
You do it well.
I encourage you to do it again and again.

Indeed, trust, support and facilitation as core elements of “Exponential Engagement” – a next level employee engagement marker identified by Towers Watson to deliver twice the operating margin increase compared to companies with standard employee engagement and three times the operating margin of companies with disengaged employees.

Do you trust, support and facilitate the success of your employees?

You can find more from Derek Irvine on his Recognize This! blog.