Do you know how to give great recognition at your business?

Published 4:00 pm Saturday, September 1, 2018

As we discussed last week, praise and recognition drive engagement and performance. But how do you give great recognition? How can you create a culture of positive recognition? There are three characteristics of great recognition required to create a positive workplace through praise.

Real – Great recognition must be real. The praise must be a real event. That event does not have to be the outcome that everyone desired. It could simply be the level of effort given towards the cause.

It takes a lot less work to throw out a “great effort” or “I know you did all you could” when things don’t turn out right, but we can do better. Look for a specific activity that impressed you and recognize the person for it. Praise like this is best done immediately, but if you can’t give the recognition quickly make a note of what was praiseworthy.

I make a note even if I don’t think there will be a delay so I do not forget what impressed me. If you haven’t used a tool called Evernote, you must try it. Even if you use it only to give great feedback. Evernote is a web-based service that allows you to take notes whenever inspiration, or something praiseworthy, strikes you. You can make notes from your browser or on your phone. The note can be a photo, text or voice memo.

The best thing about Evernote is the way notes are filed. Evernote uses tags instead of folders. You can create a tag for each person on your team. You can use multiple tags on every note. For instance, you can tag a note with the person’s name, the project name, a tag called “HR” and one called “Reviews”. When it is review time or when you have a few minutes to write a nice handwritten note search under the appropriate tag(s) in Evernote to find all the information you need.

Personalized – We all have a love language. Our love language is how we feel or receive love most readily. Gary Chapman wrote a great book on the five love languages. According to Chapman, the five love languages are: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time and Physical Touch. I highly suggest you take the quick, free quiz at www.5lovelanguages.com. Have your spouse take it and share your results. You will be amazed at what you discover. We are often loving people the way we feel love which may have nothing to do with how the other person receives love. Take the quiz and take it often.

What does this have to do with giving recognition at work? The premise of love languages can be transferred immediately to work – just ignore the physical touch category. Consider this example. You have a team member who does excellent work and whose primary love language is quality time. His name is Joe. You are very busy but want to recognize the great work Joe is doing so you ask your assistant to send Joe a nice gift.

Joe drops you an email thanking you for the great gift and asking if he can get on your calendar to discuss the outcomes of the most recent project. You reply that you are too busy to meet right now but hope you can get together soon. Despite your nice gesture does Joe feel appreciated? No. When we don’t feel appreciated our performance can drop and we might start looking to work for someone who better appreciates us.  

Often – Some really smart people estimate that between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day run through our heads and that over 70 percent of those thoughts are negative.

This negativity bias feels in the space whenever there is a gap in communication. Haven’t heard back from your boss about that report you emailed her yesterday? She hates it. Annual review coming up? We can’t help ourselves. That is why leaders must overcome this negativity bias with positive feedback.

Researchers have found that a 5:1 praise to criticism ratio can be the difference between divorce and a lasting marriage. 5:1 is a great ratio to shoot for in the office as well. People love to be around and work for positive people. The closer we can get to the 5:1 mark, the more positive we will be.