See It. Say It. Appreciate It! – How Employee Recognition & Appreciation Drive Business Results

Playbooks For Employee Recognition and Engagement

• Ms. Corey has written five books to date about employee recognition and engagement. In her first book, Build it: The Rebel Playbook for Employee Engagement, she wrote about a model of employee engagement called the engagement bridge.
  • She plans to develop and write books on each part of the engagement bridge model. She has already written one of these, Appreciate it! The Playbook for Employee Recognition. 
• After the publication of Appreciate It, the author constantly had questions from managers needing support in expressing appreciation for their employees. As Appreciate It was originally developed for HR professionals, not managers, she decided it was time to write a book for the manager who needed support in appreciating their employees.
• Ms. Corey’s most recent book, See it. Say it. Appreciate it! Manager's Guide to Employee Recognition, she encourages managers to name explicitly the work performance that merits appreciation while taking responsibility to deliver that appreciation.

The Five Key Themes of See It, Say It, Appreciate It

• The first theme of See It, Say It, Appreciate It focuses on the feeling of appreciation. It isn’t just about the “prize” or the recognition ceremony, although those are important. Focusing on the feeling examines what managers want employees to feel after being recognized. 
  • This is one of the biggest pitfalls of recognition programs. Managers often say thatwhen they have given recognition, that moment might not have turned out how they thought it would. That’s because the manager didn’t focus on how they wanted their employee to feel first. 
  • This Maya Angelou quote should stay top-of-mind: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
• The second theme focuses on inclusivity. All too often that managers consistently recognize the same people or the same types of people instead of branching out.
  • This can lead to driving a wedge between employees. 
  • In contrast, a more inclusive approach invites everyone to the recognition event and helps everyone feel they’ve contributed when they should be recognized. 
• The third theme is about recognizing small inputs and contributions to the workplace. Waiting until a big project is complete not only slows down the process of employee recognition but delays the release of the brain’s happiness chemicals which help with motivation and achievement.
  • Leaders are encouraged to  “celebrate non-scale victories,” which is a common concept in personal training which views fitness progress as beyond simply moving the needle on the scale. These victories can be milestones and goals that can celebrated on the way to a long-term health goal.
  • The core concept of a non-scale victory is to celebrate any marked improvement along the way to a long-term goal, celebrating the “small and not just big” wins.
• The fourth theme is about removing the winner versus loser-mentality of recognition. Remove the artificial scarcity of limits on recognition, such as recognizing only one employee of the month. 
  • For example, Chelsea Football Club has a quarterly employee recognition award allowing anyone who demonstrates the award’s criteria to win. That means there are an unlimited number of people who can win the award. 
• The fifth theme is to remove constraints and guardrails on recognition. Try not to put limits on recognition that a manager can give employees, even if that means a manager recognizes someone on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. 
• It’s important to develop a recognition toolkit for managers outside of just the formal recognition programs enacted by HR. This toolkit can include growth and development opportunities, gifts, fun activities, shout outs.
  • But a key caveat on these tools is using the right one at the right time for the right employee. 

Four Golden Rules of Recognition

• The four Golden Rules of Recognition can be remembered with the acronym M-U-S-T. This framework helps managers remember how to meaningfully recognize an employee’s performance. 
• The acronym is as follows: 
  • M: meaningful, which is that recognition must resonate with the person receiving it.
    • Managers should balance doing something that works for them and that feels authentic to their management style while balancing what’s right for employees. Don’t pull up someone on stage at a big awards event if that would make them uncomfortable. 
  • U: uniform and inclusive, meaning it must be consistent across the times it is awarded and not feel exclusive. 
  • S: spotlight, which means that the achievement must be highlighted in public communication. 
  • T: timely, which means the achievement must be recognized as close to the exceptional performance as possible.

Starting An Informal Employee Appreciation Program

• An employee appreciation program can be really simple. Employee appreciation can be as straightforward as putting up a post-it note “Wall of Fame” in a designated location to highlight employee accomplishments or a Teams or Slack channel in which people recognize others’ achievements. 
• It’s important to communicate informal recognition tools and let everyone know what those are. 
• If you find a form of recognition does not resonate with an individual or group, that means it is best to pivot to efforts that work more effectively. 

The Importance of Management Training

• The demonstrated connection between employee recognition and business results requires that we look at improving managerial skill in recognition and appreciation.
• Debra’s company, DebCo HR offers workshops that incorporate elements from See it. Say it. Appreciate it! Manager's Guide to Employee Recognition, to better boost your leadership team’s skills!

Debra Corey Background

• BA in Communications/Psychology from University of Pittsburgh
• She began her career working in Compensation & Benefits, serving as Director of C&B for the likes of Gap Inc., A.S. Watson, Honeywell, Quintiles and Merlin Entertainments Group
• Ms. Corey then served as Global Reward Director for PageGroup, and as Group Reward Director for Reward Gateway
• She currently serves as the Chief Pay it Forward Officer for DebCo HR LTD
• She is the author of five books, to date: 
  • Build it: The Rebel Playbook for Employee Engagement
  • Appreciate it! The Playbook for Employee Recognition
  • Bringing Your Values Out to Play
  • Effective HR Communication 
  • See it. Say it. Appreciate it! Manager's Guide to Employee Recognition

Links

• DebCoHR.com

Contact

• Debra Corey on LinkedIn
• Debra Corey email: debcohrltd@gmail.com