Having Recognition program box checked certainly is good for management and it shows that management recognizes the importance of this area for driving employee engagements.  However now that the box is checked we recommend it is time to really access the current state of the program.

It starts with the management team. Most managers going through the routine to Nominate and recognize an employee is not so fun especially if the program is manually based.   Another to do item on their already busy slate.

We talk to a lot of managers who work hard at assembling nomination criteria and also organizing notes for the monthly employee recognition meeting – basically getting ready to pitch their nominee to the great management team.  This a – z process can take time.

And then there is the result from management’s recommendations.  In some cases ‘well meaning” employee engagement programs can actually have a reverse effect since the decision tree is based on a data that may not present for the entire “picture” of the employee environment.

So there are two considerations around that check box program that relate to time and outcome.  Outcome being the most important metric – not be suggest time is not important.

Time – what are the opportunity costs for the company having management involved in the manual research of data to support a selection of employees?  There are only so many hours in the week and even two hours per month allocated to employee Recognition activities can translate to hundreds of  productivity hours.

And the outcome.  We have surveyed hundreds of employees and the most common question we get is “how can I ever win Recognition?”    Employees that have been nominated and never win are the ones that are most at risk for the “negative effect” of employee Recognition programs.

So when the box is checked we need to understand the general impact of our checked box and if we are implementing the programs that make the management and servicing of employee recognition programs a win for everyone (including the stock holders!).