Employees must be recognized at least monthly to increase their Engagement and Retention
The gratitude gap - Achievers 2023

Employees must be recognized at least monthly to increase their Engagement and Retention

?? Recognition is a protective factor against many of the business challenges being navigated in the face of the recession, including layoffs, salary freezes, and heavier workloads. Employees recognized at least monthly are more engaged, more committed, more productive, and less likely to job hunt and a Weekly Social recognition is just as impactful as weekly monetary recognition on outcomes such as engagement, belonging, productivity, and job commitment, according to a new interesting research published by Achievers Workforce Institute research called "The gratitude gap" - using data from 4,900 respondents - 1400 HR leaders included - conducted in February 2023 from 5 countries.

? Recognition frequency correlates positively with a number of business outcomes

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Recognition frequency and business outcomes


Researchers found that employees recognized weekly are three times more likely to say they are engaged, productive, and committed to their job, compared to those never recognized.?

Employees recognized monthly are 36% more likely than those recognized quarterly to say they are engaged and productive and are 22% more likely to have high job commitment

?? The more frequently someone is recognized, the more likely they are to recognize others. In fact, there is a strong correlation between these two results – those recognized monthly are most likely to recognize others monthly, and so on.

?Those recognized by their manager are more likely to frequently recognize others

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Impact of Manager Recognition

Researchers found that being recognized frequently increases how often employees recognize others. They observed that people who say their manager regularly recognizes them are more likely to also report frequently recognizing others.

?Social and monetary recognition have nearly same results

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Monetary vs Social Recognition

It's obvious that monetary recognition is a critical lever for ensuring employees feel meaningfully recognized and can contribute to feelings of fair overall compensation

Researchers believed that social, or non-monetary, recognition is the foundation of any recognition program. They found that weekly social recognition is just as impactful as weekly monetary recognition on outcomes such as engagement (50% vs 48%), belonging (37% vs 34%), productivity (35% vs 30%), and job commitment (40% vs 41%).

Researchers conclude that whether an organization is freezing hiring and salaries, going through layoffs, or simply holding budgets steady from previous years, recognition is a crucial tool to help offset any negative impact on employees.

They give some recommendations to companies to increase business outcomes:

?? Educate on giving recognition:

HR leaders also must train and reinforce the importance of recognition for managers so they will help start and spread a culture of recognition in the company.

?? Boost and highlight top recognitions

HR leaders need to reinforce the culture of recognition by putting the spotlight on specific instances - every one-to-one meeting and town hall, make space for real-time recognition in team meetings.

?? Identify Recognition ambassadors

HR leaders should identify program ambassadors to recognize others. This will spread to others on their team and will contribute to an overall culture of recognition.?

?? Emphasize the impact of social recognition

Ensure that everyone in the company understands that there is value in showing appreciation, even if there isn’t an associated monetary reward.

?? Finally, you don't need to invest in any costly recognition program, a simple and heartfelt “Thanks” can make a big difference in how an employee feels about not only a specific task or project but also their contributions to the company.?

Thank you ??? Achievers ??researchers team for these insightful findings:?

Natalie Baumgartner, PhD Culture Thought Leader Jeff Cates Hannah Yardley

Dave Ulrich ?George Kemish LLM MCMI MIC ??

#futureofwork ?#peopleanalytics ?#recognition #engagement

Noah M.

Proven track record in driving profitability ?? and growth ??.

1 年

By putting a templated/frequency structure in place for recognition would this not become something that simply becomes expected from the employee, and therefore lose its value over time? Is “frequency” a sustainable approach to recognition? It almost seems disingenuous.

Drew Fortin

Founder & CEO @ Lever Talent | Host of The Lever Show | Helping leaders develop talent strategies that leverage a tech-empowered future.

1 年

Great topic, Nicolas. Consistent, genuine, social recognition beats monetary recognition in the long run. That said, there is a hierarchy of needs that must be met first from a compensation standpoint to make that true. If someone doesn't feel like they are paying paid fairly, then no amount of social recognition is likely to fix it. Also, there are behavioral profiles that are more transactional than others and may actually be more driven by momentary recognition. The best recognition strategies tailor the recognition and rewards to the team members' specific needs. ??

Dave Ulrich

Speaker, Author, Professor, Thought Partner on Human Capability (talent, leadership, organization, HR)

1 年

Nicolas BEHBAHANI Very interesting. Most would acknowledge that "recognition" is a source of positive employee outcomes (motivation, satisfaction, engagement, commitment, experience). The questions of how often to recognize and how to recognize employees are interesting. how often; more frequently is better which also makes sense ... weekly is best, and I would propose that daily is probably even better or immediate on doing good work how to recognize: money and appreciation are equal in this study, which is interesting My cnotinued tak is the this is likely personalized by employee. Helpful research to reinforce how often and how to recognize employees.

Kirolos George, MBA, ISTQB?

Results-Driven Quality Assurance Engineer at Siemens EDA | Certified Software Testing Engineer (ISTQB? & ASTQB?) | PSPO I | PSM I | LSSGB | MBA | Digital Platforms & UX Researcher | SDGs Ambassador

1 年

I am grateful having someone like you Nicolas BEHBAHANI providing daily useful insights and content. Thank you so much ??????

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