A Leader’s Guide to Employee Recognition

Why recognition from leaders is so important

Employee recognition is a powerful way to engage your teams, improve their wellbeing, and help them be more productive. Modern leaders know the secret to thriving teams is showing appreciation. Here are a few ways recognition boosts teams:

• Engagement: Organizations with integrated recognition are 4x more likely to have highly engaged employees
• Perceptions of leadership: Employee recognition programs can improve employees’ perception of leaders by 23 points
• Retention: While 79% of people who quit cite “lack of appreciation” as their reason for leaving, when employees receive consistent recognition, they are more likely to stay an additional 3.5 years
• Productivity: The probability of great work increases 18x when organizations have integrated recognition, and when employees are recognized they are more likely to work at 80% capacity or higher
• Innovation: Employees who receive recognition are 33% more likely to be innovative and generate 2x as many new ideas per month
• Connection: When recognition happens regularly in teams, odds of employees feeling a strong sense of workplace community increase 508%

“Our leaders really got behind [our recognition platform] Big Thanks and pushed it throughout our organization, and were the key to driving how we were going to embed a culture of appreciation throughout our workforce.”
‍—Kirrily Lansdown, Head of Global Reward, BHP

What accomplishments to recognize

Many leaders are unsure of exactly what to recognize. Do I recognize extra effort, or only when employees go above and beyond? Should I recognize an employee’s 2 years with the company or wait until 5? Do I recognize an employee from another team if they’ve helped out my team?

No effort is too small to be acknowledged. From an employee’s first day of work until their last, there are endless opportunities to say thanks and show employees you see and appreciate them and their work. Here is a list of reasons to start with, but remember to look for great work happening every single day.

As a leader, be sure to recognize:

• New hires: Welcome new employees and make them feel valued on day 1
• Everyday effort: Say thanks when a team member lends a hand outside of their job scope, gives insight that inspires others, drops everything to tackle an emergency project, or demonstrates resilience
• Small victories: Recognize employees when they make progress on a special project, overcome an obstacle, or collaborate successfully
• Big wins: Celebrate when employees complete a major project, exceed goals, or innovates
• High achievements: Recognize transformational or breakthrough work, significant innovations, or top performance
• Career anniversaries and milestones: Honor an employee’s life at work (including retirement)
• Team success: Cheer on your team when they complete a project, innovate, or achieve something together (and remember to celebrate wins and progress along the way). Tools like Initiatives in Culture Cloud® make it easy to customize and recognize specific team goals.
• Company celebrations: Celebrate company achievements and milestones (like industry or calendar holidays, company anniversaries, reaching a financial goal, new product launches, or winning a big client)
• Life events and occasions: Commemorate an employee’s personal life event (birthday, new home, new baby, promotion, new skills, or a personal achievement like running their first marathon)
• Learning and development: Recognize both after training or certification but also during the skill-building process‍
• Job transitions: Acknowledge when employees start a new role or join a new team in the company, or when they have been promoted, with special recognition

Read how 3M leverages Culture Cloud Initiatives to help leaders recognize specific goals

How to recognize employees

There are many ways leaders can recognize their employees. From verbal recognition or handwritten thank you notes, to more formal recognition with points or symbolic awards, the most important thing to remember is that the award should match the accomplishment.

While a note or points might be enough for someone who has stayed late to help a team member, a symbolic award or more substantial gift is more appropriate for someone who is celebrating 10 years with the company or retains a big client. Awards like Careerscapes™ are collectible ways to honor an employee’s career and team accomplishments over time, and company swag or swag boxes can add a fun element to team celebrations.

See how Treasury Wine Estates uses branded Numerals and Yearbooks to celebrate their employees’ career anniversaries in a meaningful way.

Need guidance on what types of awards are best? Check out our guide to giving meaningful appreciation and learn when to use an eCard, points, or a more formal award.

Another important part of recognition is the experience itself. How can you recognize employees in a meaningful way? Here are 7 steps to create a personal, genuine, impactful recognition moment.

3. Invite others to speak

If appropriate, invite other team members, leaders, senior leaders, and even clients to speak. Let them know ahead of time so they can also prepare their remarks.

Tools like O.C. Tanner’s Yearbook™ seamlessly allow teammates, peers, former leaders, family, and friends to add their memories, photos, or notes of congratulations for career anniversaries and major accomplishments.

7. Invite the recipient to speak

In some instances, the recipient may want to say a few words about the recognition or even recognize others who have helped them earn it.

Having a recognition platform is the easiest way to recognize various types of achievements. Learn how Onity uses Culture Cloud, which enables leaders to choose from eCards, points, or more formal awards, and deliver personalized recognition moments consistently and at scale.

How often to recognize employees

Another common question for teams is how often to recognize. Daily may feel a bit much, but once a year is not enough. Luckily, we have the answer.

Our research from the O.C. Tanner Institute finds recognition must be weekly or every other week in order to be effective and truly integrated into your company culture. As the chart below shows, more frequent recognition contributes to a higher level of recognition integration for both monetary and non-monetary recognition.

The research also shows that frequent, tailored recognition experiences spread throughout the year have a larger, more lasting impact on recognition being integrated into workplace culture than singular company-wide, all-employee events.

How can leaders remember to recognize employees? Here are a few tips:

4. Post anniversaries and employee accomplishments

Posting employee anniversaries on your shared intranet site enables other employees to see upcoming anniversaries. Social walls let everyone see the great work an employee has done and enable others to like and comment on the recognition, spreading the impact even further.

CIBC improved tracking and notifications for recognition to help leaders know when their people have done great work.

Don’t have an employee recognition tool to help track and recognize great work, and remind you to recognize it? Drop some hints to your HR team.

Model and encourage recognition

As a leader, it’s important you not only give recognition, but model and encourage it. This means:

• Giving recognition regularly and publicly. Let employees see you use your company’s recognition tools and give recognition to employees.
• Talking about recognition often and calling out your team members’ recognition in team meetings. If it’s a priority for you, it will be for them.
• Liking and commenting on team members’ recognition on social walls
• Recognizing up (recognizing your own leaders). Remember that leaders need recognition too. Doing so might also inspire your employees to appreciate one another, and you.

“Deloitte South Asia’s CEO and Chief People and Experience Officer regularly mention in townhalls how important appreciation is, not only for what people do, but for all the value that they bring to the table, and the integrity they display. Everything is articulated repeatedly from the top.”
‍—​​Dr. Badari Narayana, Executive Director, Talent, Deloitte India

Want more tips on how to recognize your people? Check out our library of articles for leaders.