By Colin Hodgson, sales director for incentives and motivation at Edenred UK. Which came first: chicken or egg? For many children this age old riddle will be their introduction to reasoning as they grapple with getting to the right answer. The fact that you can’t seem to have one without the other is guaranteed to make small brains ache. Fortunately, in the grown-up world of incentives and motivation, life is less complicated. When it comes to reward and recognition, there is one very simple rule for organisations to remember –recognition always comes first when showing appreciation of someone’s performance. When has ‘reward’ ever existed without a reason for it to be given? Recognition should be a very easy thing for managers, but so often they get it wrong and it doesn’t have to be like that. With a young family, I’m very familiar with star charts and stickers which are given by teachers to reward children’s performance and behaviour. There are some extremely good lessons which management could learn from the classroom when it comes to getting recognition right: It’s social – the bashful look of pride on a child’s face when they get public recognition is a priceless reminder that being made to look and feel special in front of peers is a powerful way of recognising good behaviour which stays with us when we are adults. It’s consistent – children hate it when there is perceived unfairness to the way their efforts are recognised. These strong value systems stay through us in our lives and consistency in recognition is something that organisations cannot afford to ignore. It’s personal – a mention by name, an appreciation of the detail of what you have achieved, all of these help people understand that they have done something of merit and why. It’s appropriate – unrecognised effort can turn into tantrums and bad behaviour in children. In adults, strivers can turn into skivers if their hard work isn’t recognised. It’s timely – children have short memories so recognising the positive act quickly reinforces the good behaviour. As adults, whilst memories are in some cases better, timely recognition of the performance or behaviour is equally important. Clearly, recognition should be an everyday activity for organisations, embraced by management and colleagues alike; thank you, well done, congratulations, great job – they all reinforce the positives, recognising and expressing gratitude. Recognition ‘every day’ requires no budget or reward, hence recognition remains the primary factor. But, when the achievement is of significance, the opportunity to reinforce the positive act with reward becomes extremely powerful and truly memorable for the recipient. The mistake to avoid is thinking that the reward alone will do the job of recognition for you because it won’t. The power of reward remains within the act of recognition which is why perhaps we should all start talking about ‘Recognition and Reward’ so we make sure our organisations and people see it that way too. Post navigation Flexible working will be the most wanted employee benefit by 2025
By Colin Hodgson, sales director for incentives and motivation at Edenred UK. Which came first: chicken or egg? For many children this age old riddle will be their introduction to reasoning as they grapple with getting to the right answer. The fact that you can’t seem to have one without the other is guaranteed to make small brains ache. Fortunately, in the grown-up world of incentives and motivation, life is less complicated. When it comes to reward and recognition, there is one very simple rule for organisations to remember –recognition always comes first when showing appreciation of someone’s performance. When has ‘reward’ ever existed without a reason for it to be given? Recognition should be a very easy thing for managers, but so often they get it wrong and it doesn’t have to be like that. With a young family, I’m very familiar with star charts and stickers which are given by teachers to reward children’s performance and behaviour. There are some extremely good lessons which management could learn from the classroom when it comes to getting recognition right: It’s social – the bashful look of pride on a child’s face when they get public recognition is a priceless reminder that being made to look and feel special in front of peers is a powerful way of recognising good behaviour which stays with us when we are adults. It’s consistent – children hate it when there is perceived unfairness to the way their efforts are recognised. These strong value systems stay through us in our lives and consistency in recognition is something that organisations cannot afford to ignore. It’s personal – a mention by name, an appreciation of the detail of what you have achieved, all of these help people understand that they have done something of merit and why. It’s appropriate – unrecognised effort can turn into tantrums and bad behaviour in children. In adults, strivers can turn into skivers if their hard work isn’t recognised. It’s timely – children have short memories so recognising the positive act quickly reinforces the good behaviour. As adults, whilst memories are in some cases better, timely recognition of the performance or behaviour is equally important. Clearly, recognition should be an everyday activity for organisations, embraced by management and colleagues alike; thank you, well done, congratulations, great job – they all reinforce the positives, recognising and expressing gratitude. Recognition ‘every day’ requires no budget or reward, hence recognition remains the primary factor. But, when the achievement is of significance, the opportunity to reinforce the positive act with reward becomes extremely powerful and truly memorable for the recipient. The mistake to avoid is thinking that the reward alone will do the job of recognition for you because it won’t. The power of reward remains within the act of recognition which is why perhaps we should all start talking about ‘Recognition and Reward’ so we make sure our organisations and people see it that way too.
