Recognition measures whether the employees feel like they are adequately seen, heard, recognized, and rewarded for their effort.
The question behind the driver is: "To what degree do you feel that you being recognized and rewarded for your work?"
How to succeed with Recognition
To ensure that your employees score high on this driver, you can make sure that:
Themselves feel and trust that they are doing good work - otherwise, it can be hard to internalize compliments and feel valued
Get lots of positive feedback to confirm to them that they are putting in the work
Thoughtful (constructive) feedback that helps them improve and grow
Understand and acknowledge the compensation scheme in terms of what they are getting and why
Typical root causes for unsatisfactory scores
Below are the root causes that explain the lower score in the vast majority of cases.
Insufficient amount of recognition
Employees feel that they are rarely recognized for the work they do.
Lacking compensation
Employees feel that they receive unfairly low salaries or general compensation compared to their efforts and contributions.
Miss thoughtful feedback
Employees do not receive enough feedback to know if they are doing well.
Inadequate way of recognizing
Employees do not feel that they receive recognition in the desired way - either it's shallow or maybe too often overly critical.
Focus on errors
Employees feel that there is more focus on mistakes than successes.
Ideas for improving
Note: The root cause is what guides a good action that will improve the status quo from a bad action that's targeting something that might already be working. It's only possible to provide good ideas in the context of a root cause.
If insufficient amount is the root cause
Ask yourself: What do I do at this point to ensure that my employees feel seen, heard, and recognized for their work?
To implement the correct initiative for your employees to feel accurately recognized, getting their input on what would work best for them is essential. When you know the answer(s) to this, the solution is quite simple - do more of that. Beware that this is indeed very individual, so ask them on a well-being 1:1 how to recognize them sufficiently.
If lacking compensation is the root cause
Ask yourself: Is the compensation actually inadequate?
If you are confident that the compensation is inadequate for one or some of your employees, it is essential to talk to them about what this means to them: What kind of compensation are they looking for instead? See our Leadership Playbook for inspiration on how to handle the 1:1 salary review.
Ask yourself: What do I do to align expectations on future compensation?
Make sure to ask the employee at your salary reviews what kind of compensation they expect and how much they expect to increase in the future. Also, to let them know what is possible in the role they have. As a leader, you should be able to answer what it takes to achieve a higher compensation package.
Ask yourself: Do I know what would make my employees feel fairly compensated?
There are other types of compensation than salary. Talk to your employees about what makes them feel appreciated and acknowledged for their effort. And consider compensating them in different ways - e.g., through acknowledgment and employee benefits.
If missing feedback is the root cause
Ask yourself: Do I provide them with sufficient feedback?
Make sure to provide sufficient feedback for the employees on their work so that they know it has value. As the need for feedback is very subjective, we would recommend doing this 1:1 in either the task check-ins or the development and feedback talk. You can find inspiration on how to facilitate these 1:1 conversations and what questions to ask your employees in our 1:1 guide for development and feedback conversations in our Leadership Playbook.
Ask yourself: How do I provide feedback to the employees?
More important than how often you do it is how you do it. Make sure to have a go-to method for providing feedback to each other where you remember to practice constructive criticism and praise. If your employees receive feedback in a negative way or don’t receive praise, they will most definitely not feel recognized.
Ask yourself: Does our culture encourage and value feedback?
Long-term it could also be of great value to make sure that your culture prioritizes feedback and recognition so the employees know - and feel - when they are successful. Aim to create a culture, where it is a natural part of your everyday life to book each other in for feedback sessions. Communicate to the team that feedback is a gift and ask them how they want to work with feedback moving forward so they are encouraged to give it to each other instead of leaving it only to you.
If inadequate way of recognizing is the root cause
Ask yourself: In what ways do I recognize the employees, and what could be other ways of doing this?
To implement the correct initiative for your employees to feel accurately recognized, getting their input on what would work best for them is essential. Thus, we recommend scheduling 1:1s with your employees using the well-being card for Recognition for inspiration on questions to ask them about this (page xx).
Ask yourself: Could we be more aware of differences in this regard in our team?
If you think you give each other a lot of recognition already, maybe you could learn something from talking about it on a team level, as there may be some who would prefer to have it delivered in other ways. We tend to recognize others the same way that we would like to be recognized ourselves, and although the intention is good, it does not always land the way we hope with the receiver. Going around the table and explaining how each employee prefers recognition could help the team understand each other better.
If focus on errors is the root cause
Ask yourself: How do our organizational practices and processes create space for recognition?
Ensure the employees have good conditions for providing each other with feedback and recognition. If there is a lot of focus on individual processes and competition, this is even more important, and you should consider how to enhance the feeling of teamwork and collectivism.
Schedule a psychological safety workshop focusing on recognition or a "recognition workshop" with three agenda bullets:
In which situations are we already good at recognizing each other?
How can we become better at recognizing each other in our everyday work?
Around-the-table recognition: "Tell your colleague one thing you like about working with them."
A prerequisite for this to work is to have a high level of psychological safety. See our Leadership Playbook for inspiration on how to improve the psychological safety of your team.
Ask yourself: How do I cultivate a feedback and recognition culture?
Remember that you, as a leader, set the example and lead the way. Thus, a good start would be to remember to recognize your team frequently and create a language and room for them to recognize each other too.