Think of a time when someone acknowledged you for your good work or a pat on your shoulder you received from your boss for a task that you successfully completed. Didn’t these words of appreciation feel like they made your day? Like you won a race? Didn’t you feel the drive to do better or explore more of what you can be great at? Didn’t that appreciation help in making your extra working hours easy?

Every employee needs his or her work to be appreciated by their employer as well as their peers in order to be motivated to do better and more work. This helps in engagement of the employee into his/her work. In order to keep the employee have a sense of engagement, he/she has to be provided with feedback that would result in yielding better productivity out of them constantly. Employee Recognition is defined by showing your employees that their hard work is being noticed.

So why is Employee Recognition so important?

According to the prominent Maslow’s Need Theory, the basic needs of humans are met with food, water and safety. Then, they shift their focus towards their emotional needs. Among those needs, “belongingness” and “self esteem” are the primary essentials of every individual which is also required at the workplace. Employee Recognition targets both these needs. Recognition is more than conveying “nice to have you” -type statements. It is more like making an emotional difference by having a more impactful approach on the employees.

According to Globoforce and Psychometrics,

How can we introduce Employee Recognition in our workplace?

• Having a check on whether your employees are actually being recognized by asking them about it and maintaining their feedback.
• Incorporating peer recognition by admiring a co-worker for their hard work.
• Being a role model and taking part in joint activities.
• Supervisors can show recognition to the staff by being specific about a certain job or a staff member’s potentials.
• Improving communication within the hierarchy of staff members.
• Showing gratitude towards employees for being a part of their organization’s growth and highlighting them in group meetings.
• Taking employees outdoors for a group brunch or dinner to help them get along well as colleagues when they work as a team.

Things to keep in mind when you think you are not being recognized at your workplace:

• Discuss the concern with your immediate boss.
• Updating your work progress on regular basis and taking feedback.
• Relate concerns with colleagues who have been feeling the same.
• Improve your shortcomings that have been causing dissatisfaction towards your job.
• Wait for your turn. Put your best efforts towards the task you are being given without an expectation of being recognized every time.
• Consider a job switch if you have been experiencing the lack of interest towards your work consistently.

“The spaces between the perceiver and the thing perceived can be closed with a shout of recognition.” ― Timothy Findley, The Wars