Research on employee satisfaction
from just a few years ago showed that:
“Half of employees who
don't feel valued by their employer intend to look for a new job in the next
year. Among those who feel valued, just 1 in 5 (21%) will send their resumes
elsewhere.”
With labor market in
complete flux as it is today, that % may double or even triple. While you are doing everything to find and
hire new workers, you also need to do what’s necessary to retain your current
ones.
Lots of studies show
that employee recognition is one of the factors that will keep your employees
from job hunting. The first factor of
course is pay and benefits, but when you reached the plateau on those and
there’s not much more give in those budgets, you need to look at other ways to
get things done. Monetary compensation
is not the only reason employees stay with a company.
Behavioral
psychologists know that you appeal to a workers' sense of value when you
reinforce their performance with positive consequences. Employees that feel valued at work, tend to stay
at work with that company. If it’s that easy, why do we constantly work with
clients who are having problems with their current recognition efforts? Could it be a simple matter of management
training?
According to David
Ballard, PsyD, an assistant director of organizational excellence at the APA:
"Most managers
and supervisors are never really trained to give effective recognition, and
don't track the effectiveness of programs that they have in place.” Managers need to be trained "in the
basics of recognition and reward theory to make sure that recognition is
closely tied to the behavior that they're trying to recognize and
encourage."
No single reward
strategy will appeal to all your employees.
Everyone has a unique way that they like to be recognized. And the front line manager is the best suited
to bring that recognition to the employee, to know what they want. Once they know what their employee’s value,
if they make it a priority to implement a reward system that addresses that value,
you will get more of that type of performance.
And, while you’re at
it, you may want to institute a recognition system to reward those managers who
are going the great job of recognizing and retaining their people.
