Why Is Employee Recognition So Scarce?

Time is an often-stated reason why employee recognition is scarce and admittedly, employee recognition does take time. But is that really an excuse?

Even with the best of intentions for a successful program, employee recognition can fail for a variety of reasons and a combination of several factors.  Among them are:

• Managers don't know how to provide employee recognition effectively, so when they have bad experiences they are reluctant to do it again. 
• Managers assume that one size recognition fits all but it doesn’t, and it can often backfire if not understood and implemented properly.
• Managers think too narrowly about what people will find rewarding.
• Not all managers are comfortable in saying Thank You to their employees.
• Some programs are designed with too much complexity and managers don’t want to be bothered with all the rules and regulations.  A random “good job” or “well done” is usually better than no recognition at all.
• Some managers still don’t see recognition and engagement as a strategic tool but rather as a process and they fail to put the long term importance on it that it deserves. 

When the span of control in an organization is too great, there may not be enough time to recognize performance as often as desired.  In those cases be sure to put some of that recognition into the hands of peers.  They often know who are the most deserving anyway.

Employee recognition training is rarely offered to managers.  The ones who don’t understand it rarely use it and then only for the very few in the top of their work unit.  Many of the most deserving never get the recognition they should. 

Here’s an interesting quote from Dr. Paul Marciano, a leading authority on employee engagement and retention:

“I know of no other strategy in all of management that yields a higher return on investment. In my estimate, the ROI is 1:100. In other words, for every minute spent on reinforcing behavior you can expect a hundred minutes of initiative in return,”

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