Bnet’s Leila Bulling-Towne regularly offers instructive videos on a range of human resources, sales and marketing topics. A recent “House of Corrections” video on The Power of Recognition offered excellent insights into why recognition is important. Leila’s five main points were:

1) Recognize not only what the employee did that was deserving of recognition, but how it helped the company.
2) Recognition is good for the bottom line. Leila cited a Gallup statistic that companies with managers who give employees balanced, regular feedback are 10-20% more productive than companies that don’t.
3) Employees want recognition – positive words trigger a chemical reaction in brain, generating a “high”
4) Recognition reinforces what’s working and what you want more of, thereby reinforcing a continuation of effective behaviors and tasks
5) Payoff: engaged employees are 50% more likely to retain customers and 44% more likely to achieve above average profitability.

My only addition to this advice is to be sure to tie every recognition to a company value demonstrated or strategic objective contributed to. This makes your values and objectives come to life in the everyday actions of all employees while also telling them how their efforts are helping the company to achieve your objectives. Employees desperately want meaning – to know that what they do really matters. Give them that meaning wrapped in positive recognition and reinforcement of their actions.