Top 3 Reasons Why Employee Recognition is So Important

You’ve put hours of blood, sweat, and tears into the latest project at work. Not only did it call for you to step up into a leadership role, not only was it under a tight deadline, and NOT ONLY did you bring work home every single night, but it also required you going above and beyond your typical job roles to get the assignment complete. Once everything was seamlessly delivered, there was:

- No follow-up from your managers
- No ‘thank-you’
- No recognition

Work that seemed to warrant a promotion, a raise, or a bonus went unqualified. So you back-pocket this experience and move forward. But will you be inclined to invest this much effort into the next task at hand? Probably not.

When hard work goes invalidated, why would anyone feel inclined to repeat the positive behaviors they exemplified to deliver those results again? For the workforce, experiences like these are extremely detrimental when it comes to employee engagement. But the repercussions are equally damaging for leadership. When management fails to recognize other’s accomplishments, they decrease their reputability – meaning they are not seen as a team player, which affects their ability to retain top performers and to recruit great talent in the future. Not to mention future results remain unsecured due to de-motivated teams.

Recognition is simple, and comes naturally outside of the workplace; it’s a habit that more workplaces need to adopt in order to continue to foster a competitive business. Recognition is a critical component of employee engagement and the underlying value throughout the entity of the manager-employee relationship. A “thank you” is much more powerful than a bonus – employees want to know that their work is contributing to a greater good and helping to shape their career progression trajectory. Today’s employees want to be acknowledged for successes affecting the company and are more inclined to drive results when their work is celebrated.

There are many reasons why employee recognition is so important in today’s competitive workplaces. But here are three significant reasons why you need to consider implementing a recognition routine in your office today if you wish to continue to build a great business:

1.       Reduced Turnover
This shouldn’t sound like rocket science because the equation is simple. Employees who are recognized are engaged, and engaged employees equate to higher retention rates. Turnover is a significant issue when you consider the hundreds of thousands of lost dollars in employee investment and the millions of lost dollars in business opportunity. Recognition is directly aligned to reduced turnover rates, helping your business to stay on the track to success.

2.       Improved Team Culture
If you were in a relationship where you are abused, run down, and ignored – would you stay friends with that person? Same goes for the relationships you have at work. Great relationships are fostered by positive environments. A culture of recognition breeds employee engagement making your workplace an office where employees want to be at work and want to continue to make lasting impacts on their peers.

3.       Increased Performance
By incorporating recognition in your workplace – just a small effort – you can align the stars. Motivated and driven employees produce outstanding results. They are invested in their work and infused with a sense of mission. They know how their work contributes to the company’s values and goals. Take the situation we illustrated above: had you meaningfully thanked that employee for their results, they would be willing to go to that length again because their work was validated.