Brilliantly Presented Employee Recognition Research

Ok, I’m a nut on research and analysis. It’s what floats my boat and as often as not becomes the backbone of most of the recommendations I make to clients about reward and recognition programs. As my first thirty years in this business were mainly in the true performance improvement world where we used research, analysis, measurement, feedback communications and rewards to change performance I saw first-hand how these pieces to the incentive puzzle, implemented in unison, could drive spectacular results. However in the last ten years or so I have been more in the employee recognition side of the business where there has always been a dearth of any real analysis that you could show a client to prove the effectiveness of employee recognition. Analytical research to show that recognition award programs produce results is kind of a non sequitor.

Analysis in the recognition field has always been kind of soft dollar proof. Something like this: when employees are recognized they are more satisfied and more satisfied employees produce more satisfied customers who tend to be longer term and repeating customers who then buy more and contribute more to the bottom line, etc. The most compelling collection of evidence on the value of employee recognition is compiled in the book The Carrot Principle by Gostic and Elton. Loved the book, it’s definitely worth the read. Unfortunately the authors are employed by my largest competitor, one that I am in complete disagreement regarding award recommendations…they typically recommend a collection of traditional service merchandise awards that are highly overpriced with limited choice. The kind of awards that were used to reward and recognize our parents and grandparents…a tad out of touch with today’s business world. As shown in this blog in many places, these types of awards can be as much as 50% to 150% higher than retail and that certainly doesn’t help the cause of recognizing or motivating an employee. In my opinion, there are so many more award options that provide better choice and value to the employee. Except for the awards piece, they do a terrific job or training, communicating and implementing an employee recognition system…non better.

The book does a terrific job of convincing us that recognition when taken collectively with many other business strategies can drive substantial bottom line results. But it’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. What came first, the great company or the employee recognition? My guess is that one had a lot to do with the other. In any event, this book does provide some compelling evidence.

So take a look into employee recognition as a strategy to improve your company’s performance. If you’re not running a program for your employees you’re losing a valuable tool to produce results. The best time to do it is now, when the economy is in this terrible state and where employees are concerned for their future. Take the time to thank and recognize them for their performance, you might be surprised to see how much your business can improve.

And while you’re at it, take a look at our new product the Award of Choice…a high value low cost award system that provides tremendous choice and value to your employee. Compare it to other systems, we think you'll like what you see.

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