This Friday marks National Employee Appreciation Day, a time for celebrating the efforts of those individuals who serve as the foundation for some of America’s greatest success stories. However, this seemingly positive day of celebration begs the question: Is a one-day tip of the hat really enough?
According to newly-released data from global employee recognition firm Globoforce, a whopping 40 percent of workers say they were not recognized in the past year. Eric Mosley, Founder and CEO of Globoforce and author of The Power of Thanks, is looking to change this.
“I do look at Employee Appreciation Day with a bit of disdain because it’s like having common decency day,” notes Mosley. It should be something we practice as part of our daily lives, not a once a year event. That said, it is a good excuse to remind ourselves of the power of appreciation and why it is often an underappreciated element of business success.
We all inherently understand the value of appreciation, explains Mosley. The challenge is how do you help your managers and employees deliberately and consistently use appreciation to release the discretionary energy of your people and allow for higher engagement and creativity. There is no doubt tremendous power in appreciating employees through recognition.
The command and control model of old corporate America has long been demonstrated to be a failing proposition, yet too many companies still rely on it. Mosley explains that we have to move from the narrow-minded thinking of solely rewarding the top 10 percent to also recognizing the middle 80 percent of people who make it work day-in and day-out. These are the people at the heart of your organization doing great things every day, yet largely go unnoticed.
The fact is 60 years of research in psychology has demonstrated that “when human beings are energized they do their best work.” The data around recognition and business performance has proliferated over the last 10 years to the point it can no longer be ignored. It’s undeniable when you look at companies like Apple, Google and Facebook that a culture of listening and recognition has become a major differentiator in driving break out results. Mosley points out these aren’t unproven Silicon Valley start-ups with cute stories and quirky offices. These are the biggest most valuable companies in the world, and they are leading the way in how we need to value and recognize employees at all levels.
When it comes to developing a culture of recognition, Mosley shared some tips for getting started:
Ingrain Real-time Recognition into the Culture
Corporate recognition programs have existed for decades, but far too often they have been disconnected from the day-to-day business. The idea is to move from a manager giving his favorite employee an award every year to a peer-to-peer model where recognition is crowdsourced and done in real time using digital technology. Mosley believes “the work itself should be what inspires recognition, which means there needs to be the opportunity for that recognition to come from peers on an ad-hoc basis.”