Unless you have had your head in the sand for the last couple of years, you have most likely heard the buzz growing for this concept of “employee recognition.” But what does it actually mean? Well according to Google Dictionary:

rec•og•ni•tion (noun)
1.       The action or process of recognizing or being recognized, in particular.
2.       Identification of a thing or person from previous encounters or knowledge.

While this is extremely vague and may leave you more confused than you were initially, the general concept is present; it is the process of identifying a person and recognizing them based on some sort of value or knowledge. So how, you may ask, is this notion applied in the workplace? This in itself has experienced many iterations and evolutions. Traditional employee recognition started in the form of years of service anniversaries and awards, where employees would be recognized for the years they have spent serving the organization, and receives a gift (which unfortunately for the recipient, was some sort of company branded pin or clock). These anniversaries have progressed to give employees slightly more choice in their reward, but the fundamental concept is still rewarding employees based on tenure as opposed to performance. Somewhere along the line, managers and those studying the concept of talent management realized that while it’s great to recognize those years of service to an organization, rewarding it doesn’t exactly yield much in terms of performance and business results. There came the shift in mindset where performance-based recognition was born. Why not start to evaluate, recognize and reward employees on the value that they are adding to the organization as opposed to how long they have sat in their seat? This way of thinking has really created the change and upswing in employee recognition programs, because organizations realize that they can see real increases in business results and bottom line from having an engaged workforce. The key is to provide your employees with the right tools and incentives to be recognized when they are adding value and driving the behaviours you want to see in the work place.

Some employee recognition “Best Practices” include:

1.       Define a set of values or behaviours that you want to see more of within your organization, and make it widely known and understood exactly what you are looking for from your employees, so they know what the expectation is.
2.       Create a transparent and easy to use platform to recognize your employees to eliminate any traces of favouritism, but as well to celebrate the recognitions throughout the company, and also instill a healthy level of competition among employees.
3.       Recognize the behaviour in a timely fashion, preferably immediately after it was displayed: what gets recognized gets repeated!
4.       Following the previous point, reward the outcome! Recognition can serve as positive reinforcement to drive the behaviours you want to see, but be sure the reward the result, whether it be a goal or project, for the most impact on employee engagement.