5 Reasons Employee Recognition Is Essential
Managers want to build effective and productive teams. This is more than just finding good people and keeping them organized. An important element of management is praising others and recognizing them for their hard work. Unfortunately, many managers only focus on the finance of the business and do not realize how truly important praising their employees is. These are five reasons why employee recognition is essential.
1) It Makes People Happy
Having a happy team can be rewarding in and of itself. After all, no one wants to work in an environment of unhappiness. Employee recognition is perhaps the simplest way to make people happy. Professionals want to be good at their jobs. Being recognized for their efforts is very rewarding. The right type of recognition can help foster a positive culture. When you have a healthy culture built around positivity, it can become self-sustaining. In other words, your happy team members will make each other even happier. That is a lot of good from simply telling people they did good work.
2) Happy People Stay Longer
From a more business-oriented perspective, happy team members stick around longer. While people find new jobs for all sorts of reasons, unhappiness can be a major contributor to high turnover. Furthermore, recognition helps to build loyalty. Consider it this way: being happy at work is a form of value. If you are able to provide your team members with that value, they have more reason to stay. Before long, you may find yourself giving out new milestone service awards. Not only are they a great way to show people how much you appreciate them, but they also help contribute to your employee recognition efforts.
A lot of people don’t love their work. This is often the result of unappreciative managers. If your team members are never rewarded or recognized for their work, how can they know that anyone even noticed them? Employee recognition helps address one of the most common complaints about workplaces.
3) Your Team Will Appreciate You
Managers are people too. They want to be recognized for their hard work. Appreciative managers are appreciated by their team members in turn. This motivation is perhaps a little selfish, but it reflects the idea that employee recognition leads to happier workplaces. Basically, everyone wins when you show your team members how much you appreciate them. Furthermore, this is a good way to show how effective a manager you are. When your people are energetic and excited to be in their workplace, it reflects well on you as a manager.
4) It Provides Vital Feedback
Another important part of being a manager is feedback. Learning how to give effective employee feedback is a very beneficial skill for any manager. Praise and recognition are important elements of this. All too often, managers focus on giving constructive criticism. This has its value. However, it inherently focuses on the negative. It is also helpful to give positive feedback. When you tell someone that they did a good job, he or she knows to keep repeating that work. It is one of the best ways to make sure your people keep producing great results.
5) Satisfied Team Members Are More Productive
People who are happy with their work and their workplace are more productive. They are more motivated to work hard and more interested in taking on new initiatives. In other words, if you want to get more done as a team, start praising people for their good work. It is simple: everyone likes to feel good. Hearing positive feedback from managers is one way that professionals feel good about themselves and their results. In turn, they feel more inclined to work hard and produce better work in the future. Better yet, everyone is winning in this scenario. Your team members are simply being told they did a good job.
Effective Praise
Keep in mind that your praise should be authentic and personal. Don’t recognize people when they haven’t earned it. That will have the opposite effect. However, you can and should praise people when they do good work. This doesn’t have to be a massive win. In many cases, celebrating the small victories in small ways is more effective than celebrating occasional, huge wins in big ways. The key is to be consistent and genuine with your praise.
Take advantage of employee recognition to create a more positive and effective workplace. It is a very simple investment of time and energy as a manager. Despite this, the rewards are immense. It can reduce turnover, improve productivity and provide valuable feedback. Start your recognition efforts today.
