Our select group of work psychologists collectively have over 140 years of experience in consulting, training and coaching across a range of public and private sector organizations.
Engagement and Recognition
Lack of recognition, poor communication, and unmet expectations are the main reasons people hate work and hate their bosses.
If we can improve recognition, we will improve engagement and our people will stay longer, be more helpful to others in their teams, will be safer and more productive people.
Recognition and communication are connected, and Cindy Ventrice, a recognition specialist and author of “Make their Day” gives some great hints about how to improve peoples’ engagement.
However she also warns that it is a challenge needing real commitment to make a change to recognising our reports. We all resist change, and she claims that even faced with dramatic health consequences, only 10% of coronary bypass patients change their lifestyle behaviours.
She believes recognition is most effective delivered one-on-one. ie manager to individual, rather than manager to team.
The 4 actions a manager needs to take to improve are:
Show Respect
Give Praise (when it is due)
Thank people
Give people Opportunity to demonstrate their skills
Respect is seemingly self apparent, one tip to show respect is to stop saying “It” eg “It” is late, “It” is not good enough, etc, and replace the “it” with a more considered description, that relates to the person.
Praise and Thanks are most effective if delivered in a hand written note (yes luddite behaviour perhaps, but we warm to the personal touch)
Opportunity covers giving our staff the chance to extend themselves, be seen as a specialist or learn more. Giving our people these opportunities is a tangible action that we believe in their skills and abilities, and encourage them to show others their capabilities.
The good news is that these recognition actions can be done at a very low cost in time and dollars. (She has surveyed people about the best recognition event in their work, and 57% said it probably cost less than $5, and was often at no cost to management)
So if you are a manager, and would like to lift your peoples engagement, and hence productivity and well being (and make your life easier) try these simple actions.