Note to All: Give Recognition. It Is Necessary

Employers are always on the lookout for new ways to improve employee satisfaction and engagement.?Compensation, financial wellness, benefits, life-work balance, career development all play a role.?

An action that can enhance the employee experience is greater recognition and rewards.??Employees are better off and so is the organization.??People will have greater confidence and trust in their leadership when recognition is given.?

Leadership consultant and author Marshall Goldsmith has examined why recognition is so important.?He concludes that recognition is fundamentally about closure.???And closure is a human need.??It is something we all want, even if that desire is subconscious.??In the workplace, closure can often be in the form of recognizing team members for completing a project or for great work.?When we deprive people of recognition, we deprive them of closure.?

According to Goldsmith, “Of all the interpersonal slights we make in our professional or private lives, not providing recognition may be the one that endures most deeply in the minds of the slighted.”?

Some managers feel recognition takes too much time.??Or they say, "everyone is expected to do great work - and recognition should not matter."??Of course, the problem with this thinking is it's not based on reality.??Recognition is necessary.??Managers have to accept this as a fact.?? What's more, there is available technology to help make sure recognition is given in a consistent and organized way. It has never been easier to give proper recognition.

Goldsmith puts it this way: “In withholding your recognition of another person’s contribution to a team’s success, you are not only sowing injustice and treating people unfairly but you are depriving people of the emotional payoff that comes with success.?They cannot revel in the success or accept congratulations – because you have choked off that option.??Instead, they feel forgotten, ignored, pushed to the side.??And they resent you for it.”

Recognition fills a need we all have.?Recognition boosts satisfaction.??And lack of recognition for contributions destroys satisfaction and ticks off people.??It prevents closure.?