New Research - and Good News - on the State of Recognition

Recognition continues to be a popular and effective tool in the overall reward portfolio, according to newly released research from WorldatWork. 

The WorldatWork glossary defines recognition programs (clearly and helpfully, I think) in this way:

A policy of acknowledging employee contributions after the fact, possibly without predetermined goals or performance levels that the employee is expected to achieve. Examples include giving employees clocks or other gifts on milestone anniversaries, granting an extra personal day for perfect attendance or paying a one-time cash bonus for making a cost-saving suggestion.

Note that recognition programs, when defined this way, differ from incentive plans in that they tend to be reactive, rather than proactive, in nature.  Rather than laying out pre-determined performance measures and goals, and then communicating specific awards that will be paid if those goals are reached, recognition plans are more about catching someone in the act of doing something great.  As such, they can make a unique and powerful contribution to your overall reward toolkit, addressing organizational objectives that are hard to reach and/or reinforce through other types of pay programs.

Some key findings from the WorldatWork research, which features the responses of 554 participating members:

• The popularity of recognition programs continues, with 89% of respondents reporting recognition programs in place and 53% considering implementing new or additional recognition programs in the next 12 months.
• The top goals described for recognition programs are -
  • Creating a positive work environment (77%)
  • Motivating high performance (71%)
  • Creating a culture of recognition (69%)
  • Recognizing years of service (69%)
• And it seems as though most participants feel that their recognition programs are getting the job done, with 71% indicating that the program is accomplishing its objectives.

For more information on the research, contact WorldatWork (note that copies of the research report are available to members).

Comments

[Almostgotit]

Nominating myself to be the one to ask the dumb question --

I've now seen several HR people announce that they are "against" incentive plans generally, but I've never been sure I understood what they meant, or why. Is a recognition program (reactive reinforcement v. proactive incentive) proposed by these folks as a better (e.g. more effective) alternative, then?

[Ann Bares]

Almost:

Way to step up! Not a dumb question at all.

In my opinion, recognition is not necessarily better than incentives, nor are incentives necessarily better than recognition. They are just two alternative tools in the overall reward toolkit; each of which has its own particular strengths (better at some things, not so much at others).

Incentives can be stupidly designed or implemented (sometimes stupidly designed and implemented) in ways that cause more harm than good. Most of the time, when I encounter people who are squarely against incentives, it is because they are too-well acquainted with plans gone seriously awry. Which they undeniably can do. I have seen the power of incentives to bring people together to accomplish big things, and then share the rewards of that accomplishment, so I also believe that they have the power to do good.

Perhaps there is a post on this whole question of when recognition versus incentives. Hmmmm. Thanks for the idea!

[Sidney]

Ann,

How prevalent are these plans which are "catching someone in the act of doing something great?" After you've recognized someone for doing something great, is it an incentive then the next time they or others do it?

Sidney

[Ann Bares]

Sidney:

Thanks for stopping by and sharing the comment. The WorldatWork survey indicates that 89% of its respondents have recognition programs of some type (which I describe as plans to "catch someone in the act of doing something great") in place. Recognition has traditionally been and continues to be a highly popular reward approach.

As to the question how many of these recognition programs actually do an effective job of "catching people doing great things" - it is hard to gauge. Like any other reward program, I would assume there are some that are working extraordinarily well and some that are functioning poorly (see my next post on "making it real" for an example of the latter).

Hope that helps!

[Cindy Ventrice]

The WorldAtWork research is valuable for learning what HR is doing: percent of organizations who have programs, what kind of programs they are running, how programs are communicated, and types of awards and presentations.

What I don't think we can assume from this study is that because 71% believe they are meeting objectives that they are, in fact, meeting objectives. I think HR is being overly optimistic of the programs they run.

The report shows that metrics are spotty. For example, thirty six percent of respondents have no measures of success and therefore are only guessing. Others use limited metrics that check for usage rather than effectiveness.

I am concerned that programs aren't meeting objectives and, based on this study, it seems that executives tend to agree. WorldAtWorks' study shows support from executives is decreasing and less executives see recognition as an investment than they did a year ago.

Hopefully, HR recognition teams that aren't currently measuring effectively will institute methods for proving program ROI.

Cindy Ventrice
Author of Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works
www.maketheirday.com