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The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

Recognizing employees should be a best practice for every manager, especially during hard times. Why? First of all, it's free! Also, employees crave it, and positive feedback has been shown to boost a company's bottom line.

Speaker: Leila Bulling-Towne, Executive Coach, The Bulling-Towne Group

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Tags: Employee, Leila's House of Corrections, recognition, top performers, feedback, positive, profits, productivity

 
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    1

    jaimemenor

    09/18/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    Know how to recognize your staff, not all employees want to be singled out at a gathering of hundreds of peers. You might humiliate unintentionally a baby boomer by having them stand up in front of their colleagues while discussing their recent achievements conversely a Young Gen will appreciate the opportunity. A simple "thank you" or "nice job" or a pat in a back given in regular basis or frequency can significantly boost employee morale. Often times a team member will greatly appreciate the time you spent to find him at his desk and deliver the message personally.

  •  
    2

    konVisual

    09/18/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    This is so true in our organization. Granted we have went through some tough times and a 40% reduction in staff. On the other side of the coin, having worked for mostly small companies, the things I see which seems to be a greater issue:

    1) Not understanding or knowing the skill set of an individual employee

    2) Difficulty in distributing the work load

  •  
    3

    almcfarland

    09/18/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    Most managers in most organizations don't give any feedback. When they do it is often so vague to be of no value whatsoever. Good feedback works when recent, specific, and appropriate. Interestingly, most people can "handle the truth". They crave the good, the bad, and the ugly. When feedback is given in the spirit of building someone up, even hearing "what not to do" is beneficial to the bottom line. And still free!

    http://pivotpointsolutions.wordpress.com

  •  
    4

    DerekIrvine

    09/19/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    Excellent video and couldn't agree more. I would expand on the the importance of using recognition to reinforce what's working and what you want repeated. If you take this one step further and tie every recognition to a company value or strategic objective, you also make your values come to life in the everyday actions of all employees while also telling them how their efforts are helping the company to achieve your strategic objectives. Employees desperately want meaning -- to know that what they do really matters. Give them that meaning wrapped in positive recognition and reinforcement of their actions.

    More on using your company values to drive business success through recognition available here: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/06/use-your-company-values-to-drive.html

  •  
    5

    Jonox11

    09/24/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    I agree - but what if they don't perform? I review a file with working papers - some are done well, others not. I try to praise what's done well but also don't hold back on the bad work. At the end of my review I try to be positive but can't help feeling that the end result in the employee's mind is affected more by the negatives than the positives. If I ignore or downplay the negatives, standards might drop and there is a danger that the poor work will be repeated. Perhaps this is human nature - research tells us that people hate to lose more than they love to win.

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    6

    LeilaBT

    09/25/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    Thanks jaimemenor, konVisual, almcfarland, and DerekIrvine for your thoughts.

    Jonox11, I agree that many of us tend to notice or hear the negative vs. the positive.

    Managers cannot stop sharing how work needs to improved. It's how the criticism is delivered that boggles so many managers and causes employees to scramble around in fear, stop listening, or simply not get it.

    When one gives constructive criticism, the "why" is crucial. Why are you giving it? Why are you choosing that point vs. the others? Are you pointing out what's wrong without giving ideas on how to improve? How will the change you are requesting impact the business?

    Thanks, everyone, for watching and posting thoughts.

    Leila

    Leila Bulling Towne
    Executive Coach & Organizational Development Consultant
    The Bulling Towne Group, LLC
    +1.800.789.8449
    http://www.thebullingtownegroup.com

  •  
    7

    Scott.M

    09/28/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    I lot of managers understand the power of recognition. Unfortunately their idea recognition is often not useful.

    Rcognition needs to be specific. Tell your employees about a SPECIFIC thing you think they are doing well. Too often managers simply say "thanks for all that you do". This only reinforces the stereotype of the "clueless manager" who doesn't know what their employees do.

    I'm often told, during my yearly performance review, that I do a good job. I never hear about any specific example of my "good job". I used to ask for examples, but gave up after the third year of getting blank stares.

  •  
    8

    LeilaBT

    09/28/09 | Report as spam

    RE: The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

    Scott.M,

    Yes, absolutely true.

    "Good" means very little unless you learn that "good" means . . . the client was happy and will renew the contract because it felt taken care of and respected, the tactics you used were appropriate, the email you wrote was concise and clear without being overly persistent, your opinion expressed at the weekly staff meeting was thoughtful, well researched, and germane to the conversation without being repetitive, etc.

    Think of ways you can solicit specific feedback. I suggest being as direct as this: "Manager, it will help me to understand what I am doing well, the specific tasks I am performing well. How do I conduct myself with clients? What am I saying that hits the target? What did I do in that meeting that leads you to believe I'm doing a good job? Was it this or that or A or B? . . . I ask because I want to know exactly what to keep doing, what to stop doing, and what to change."

    Thanks for the post.

    Leila
    Leila Bulling Towne
    Executive Coach & Organizational Development Consultant
    The Bulling Towne Group, LLC
    +1.800.789.8449
    http://www.thebullingtownegroup.com

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The Power of Recognition | Leila's House of Corrections

Recognizing employees should be a best practice for every manager, especially during hard times. Why? First of all, it's free! Also, employees crave it, and positive feedback has been shown to boost a company's bottom line.

Why is recognition important? Does it really impact the bottom line? You might be surprised, so come on managers, let's talk about the power of recognition.

Thinking about doing things differently these days is becoming the norm. And with that, commonsense best practices come back into vogue: like spending more time talking with employees about what they are doing well. Here are some reasons why providing recognition in the workplace is a must, especially during tough times.

#1: It's free.

Do I even need to say more? In flush and lean times, giving praise verbally, spending time talking about what the person did well and how it helped, should be one of top behaviors as a manager.

#2: It's good for the bottom line.

Data from Gallup tells us that companies in which managers give direct reports balanced, regular feedback are 10-20% more productive than companies who don't. And 10-20% additional profits come along with that. WOW. That's a big deposit into the company checking account.

#3. Employees want it.

OK, formal data tells us that recognition is good for business. Research tells us that positive words do something to our brains; they trigger a chemical reaction that makes us feel good. It's the "high" we get when we receive detailed, thoughtful feedback on our work.

#4: It reinforces what's working--what you want more of.

Giving positive feedback to an employee tells him what he's doing well. You reinforce the continuation of effective behaviors and tasks. Don't leave that up to chance especially with star employees. Managers sometimes reason with themselves that the best team members are better off left alone - they already know they're doing a great job, right? Wrong. Taking recognition of your A players off the plate means putting time interviewing their replacements on your plate.

Let's review the payoff.

Organizations whose employees are engaged are 50% more likely to achieve a high level of customer retention and they are 44% more likely to achieve above average profitability. It's time to harness the power of recognition.