Ensuring your managers are recognizing people regularly is crucial if you want your program to have a lasting impact on your culture, but it isn’t always easy. We often hear from customers that they can have trouble getting managers to use their program.
Slow adoption by managers can happen for a number of reasons, but the good news is that there’s plenty you can do to help nudge them in the right direction.
In this section, we’ll go through some of the most common reasons managers don’t use recognition programs, and what you can do about it.
Help managers understand the value of recognition
A lot of managers simply don’t really understand why recognition is important. They might feel like they show enough appreciation to their employees through their feedback and interactions in their day-to-day work, and don’t understand why the program is necessary.
If your managers don’t buy into the program, they’ll come to see it as a chore, or another ‘thing that HR is making us do’.
It’s your job to change that mindset. You need to make your managers see recognition as a tool that helps them, not you.
1. Explain how recognition empowers your managers
More than anything, you need to help managers see that recognition is actually one of the most valuable tools at their disposal when it comes to engaging and motivating their people.
Managers have limited means to make their top talent feel valued. They don’t have much control over pay and other benefits, perks, or even advancement opportunities. Recognition is a way for them to provide a tangible reward for employees when they excel, and a tool to incentivize good work, learning and development, and teamwork.
Best of all, it’s a tool they can control. Emphasize to them that their budget is theirs to use at their discretion to reward contributions they feel are valuable, without needing to jump through hoops or seek approvals from anyone else. It empowers them to drive success.
2. Show them the Practical Benefits of Recognition
Most managers are results-oriented. No matter what their industry, they’re likely to be focused on driving positive outcomes and improving key KPIs for their department.
When it comes to recognition, they’re likely to have a similar focus. How will it help them to achieve the goals they want to accomplish in their day-to-day work? This might mean anything from motivating their employees to produce better work, to coaching their team more effectively, to keeping their top talent happy.
Fortunately, there are lots of practical ways recognition can help drive the bottom-line outcomes your managers care about, such as:
Retention: Statistics from Deloitte show that companies with ‘recognition-rich cultures’ have an average of 31% lower turnover rates than normal!
Recruitment: According to a SHRM study, 56% of HR leaders have found that employee recognition can help them recruit better talent. In today’s competitive hiring market, that will be music to your managers’ ears.
Productivity: Recognition can help improve employee engagement, which can boost productivity by up to 21%. That’s a lot of extra time and bandwidth for everyone.
Relationships: Most managers know how important the relationships their team members build are to success. 87% of HR leaders believe that recognition improves workplace relationships.
Trust & feedback: Regular recognizing your team members for the good work they do will make them feel more secure in their roles and build trust. This will make it easier to give feedback in general, as they will be more open and receptive to your input.
Learning and development: Recognition can be invaluable for incentivizing learning and development. Managers can set goals for their employees to take on new responsibilities and learn new skills, and recognize them when they do. It’s a great way to keep their team’s professional growth on track.
These are just some of the areas where recognition can help your managers. Talk to them individually and try to understand their biggest challenges. You’ll probably find that recognition can be a valuable tool for them in a lot of situations.
3. Share additional resources
Another way to help your managers understand the value of recognition is to encourage them to learn more about it.
Here’s a few handy resources you can share with managers to let them delve deeper into employee recognition and its benefits:
Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact - This Gallup article details some original research which shows just how important recognition is to employees.
Why it is all about personal recognition- An inspiring Tedx Talk from Arnold Blits, who talks about how personal recognition is one the strongest motivators for achievement.
Guusto’s ROI calculator- Let your managers see for themselves just what kind of an impact recognition can make on your company’s bottom line.
Why the ROI for Employee Recognition Programs is Mind-Blowing!- This blog dives into some of the numbers behind the ROI of recognition, explaining with examples how improvements to turnover, productivity, and other areas amount to huge cost-savings.
What’s in it for you? - We put together this recognition guide for managers. It summarizes an overview of the value of recognition from a leadership perspective.
If you do some of your own research, you’ll probably find plenty of other useful resources yourself. Let us know if you find something we can add to our list!