The incredible holistic and tangible benefits of showing appreciation and giving recognition to employees has been well recognised for decades. Employees that know their efforts are seen by managers and also valued by their peers are far more motivated, have greater drive and productivity and tend to be more loyal to an organisation too.
And the same is true, in fact even more apparent, for remote workers such as international sales reps and field-based business development managers.
Research from psychologist and people-management author Paul White found that a third of employees who tended to work away from the workplace preferred to be rewarded for their efforts with ‘written or oral words of affirmation’.
What was most apparent from White’s research however was the importance of how that appreciation was delivered for remote workers. They value much more quality time with colleagues over fleeting kind words alone.
White commented on the results that; “Quality time really popped up, with 10% more of employees who worked remotely saying they prefer quality time over words, which is a big jump.
“Remote employees often feel disconnected, and words alone often don’t send the same intensity of message.”
Who’s job is it to show appreciation?
On most occasions, the employee recognition program and rewards umbrella fall upon HR teams to deliver.
But that’s not the case when it comes to showing appreciation to remote workers. International employees will spend the majority of their organisational contact time speaking directly to their team leader or managers, such as a sales or business development director.
And this is one of the key reasons why HR might struggle to directly influence remote workers in the same way they can with in-house teams - the contact time just isn’t there. Even with great rewards schemes and recognition technology that transcends hierarchy and country borders, it’s going to be tough to engrain remote workers who could be on the other side of the continent into such programmes.
But without it, they’re unlikely to engage with the overall company culture, its values and working methodology.
So it comes down to the direct line manager of international teams to ensure that appreciation is given and recognition showed, on top of the performance-based financial rewards that can likely come from remote fieldwork.
And that appreciation can be shown in three main ways. First, through words of affirmation, which can be as informal as a positive text message or email. Second, the quality time which White references, such as scheduled phone calls. And third, an act of service that revolves around the international worker, such as asking them what time works best for a catch-up call or videoconference based on their time zones and out-of-work commitments.
White notes that appreciation should be included as part of time made for casual catch-ups with remote staff, partly to ensure that all communications they have with the organisation aren’t just about work-related matters, which can leave them ‘feeling like a work unit rather than a person’.
“You have to be far more proactively intentional to be able to effectively communicate appreciation with remote employees.”
For some leaders, giving thanks for great work comes naturally. Throughout my career in both the manufacturing world and also as CEO of Go Exporting, I’ve found that combining ambitious targets with recognition delivers the best results. But for others, it’s something that can be and should be learnt, in particular, what behaviours should be encouraged through recognition and how often recognition should take place.
