No-Cost Ways to Recognize Employees

By Bob Nelson, Ph.D.

According to the Gallup Organization, 67 percent of employees say that recognition is their top performance motivator. Since the simplest form of recognition is thanking employees for work well done, recognition offers an incredible return on an activity that doesn’t have to require a dime, but simply takes a little time and thoughtfulness to make happen. In fact, all of the top factors from my research on “what employees most want at work” involve no-cost behaviors that any manager can do with his or her employees. Below are those top factors with the individual variables within each category that employees nationwide reported were either “extremely important” or “very important” to them by the percentage of employees reporting each variable from my national study of 52 specific potential behaviors:

#1 Support & Involvement. Ninety-five percent of employees want information they need to do their work and support when they make a mistake, 92 percent want to be asked for their opinions and ideas, and 89 percent want their manager to involve them when making decisions.

#2 Personal Praise. Eighty-eight percent of employees want to be personally thanked for doing good work, 86 percent want to be given verbal praise, and 82 percent want their manager to seek them out to commend them.

#3 Autonomy & Authority. Ninety percent of employees want to be allowed to decide how best to do their work, 87 percent would like increased job autonomy, and 85 percent would like increased authority in their jobs.

#4 Flexible Working Hours. Eighty-five percent of employees want to be allowed to leave work early when necessary, 79 percent would like their manager to allow them to work flexible hours, and 76 percent would like time off from work.

#5 Learning & Development. Ninety percent of employees want their manager support in learning new skills, 81 percent would like their manager to discuss career options with them, and 79 percent would like to be allowed learning activities.??

Action Plan:

• Ask employees (individually, as a group, or both) how they most want to be recognized when they do good work.
• Provide their preferred forms of recognition when they perform as you hoped they would.?
• Create a multiplier effect by building upon and expanding recognition that is done, for example, have upper management add their thanks to recognition that has been done as warranted or provide top performers recognition tools such as gift cards so they can thank those individuals that have been helped them to be successful.

Bob Nelson, Ph.D., is president of Nelson Motivation Inc.; a frequent presenter to management groups, conferences and associations; and a best-selling author of many books on employee recognition, motivation and engagement including: 1,501 Ways to Reward Employees, 1,001 Ways to Engage Employees and Recognizing & Engaging Employees For Dummies. Dr. Bob works closely with WorkProud.com to provide companies with the best resources and advice for better motivating their employees. For more information, resources and insights, visit www.drbobnelson.com or www.workproud.com.

Client Questions & Answers

Tara Mannigel, Director of Training and Continuous Improvement, Security Health Plan: “What are top ways for recognition with no budget and only a personal budget?”??

I believe—and my research supports the fact—that the best forms of recognition actually have little or no cost, starting with a timely, sincere personal thanks for work well done, which can be given in person, through a written note, electronically or publicly. Beyond that, if you are creative, there are a host of other things that can be provided to employees such as: time off, personal favors, nominal gifts, special assignments or personally created awards.

For example:

• Hewlett-Packard uses the “Golden Banana Award,” initially a banana from a manager’s lunch presented to a software engineer who fixed a challenging software bug. It may seem silly, but the person who received the banana was so excited about it that they showed it to everyone and shared what he had achieved. It became a story that others emulated and a top driver of technical excellence in that corporation.?
• A Westinghouse manager personally makes and serves lunch to his team every month the department makes their sales goals.?
• AAA Auto Club of Southern California has a “Dump a Dog” award they give to deserving employees who excelled in some way. The award entitles the recipient to take any project they have on their plate to do and assign it to their manager to do for them. It’s quite popular!?

For additional ideas, check out my book 1,501 Ways to Reward Employees—in which two-thirds of the real-life ideas referenced in the book have little or no cost. See www.nelson-motivation.com/bestsellers.

Patricia Mallory, RN Team Leader, Lakeland Regional Medical Center: “How can I make my team feel appreciated without giving them a raise? Everyone wants money.”

It’s true, most everyone does want more money, as the saying goes, “You can’t be too rich or too thin.” And the money they are paid as a contractual agreement is called compensation, which has budgetary limits. You can’t give employees more money just because they want more, they have to contribute more, that is, they have to add more value to the work they do to justify being paid more.?

You should strive to thank everyone for their efforts, results and successes and also be willing to discuss how each person can add more value in their jobs. For example, I worked with Boardroom, Inc., a company based in Connecticut that instituted a program they called “I-Power” in which every employee was asked to submit two ideas every week for how the company could improve things, better serve its clients, streamline processes, cut costs, make more money, etc.?

Instead of having a formal committee to review the 1,000s of ideas they received in a given year, they had a different employee volunteer to review ideas that were submitted each week and they coached those volunteers to be supporting and encouraging of each idea received. So a response for an employee suggestion might be “That’s a really good idea—you should do it! Let us know how we can best support you in implementing it.”?

The program was wildly successful and helped to increase the company’s revenues five-fold within just three years! In fact, they made so much money from employee suggestions that they started sharing the savings that came from the suggestions with their employees. The only requirement to receive the quarterly payments (typically $2,000 to $3,000 per employee) was to actively keep submitting new ideas each quarter. Along the way, they noted that all turnover stopped in that every employee now had the power to shape their job and their future within the firm in meaningful ways simply by suggesting new ideas the person could implement.

Today’s Quote:?

“The two things people want more than sex and money: recognition and praise.” Mary Kay Ash, Founder, Mary Kay Inc.?