Powering Up Recognition to Maximize the Potential of Your People & Business
In recent years, we have seen a confluence of macroeconomic trends and seismic shifts in workplace dynamics that have profoundly impacted company culture and, more specifically, the employee experience. The stress of COVID-19, The Great Resignation, quiet quitting, and the return-to-office debate have combined to alter what employees expected out of their workplace.
Because those stories are out of the headlines, they may seem to be in the rearview mirror. However, a deeper look at employee sentiment reveals a different picture.
GallupOpens in a new tab finds that U.S. employees' daily positive emotional experiences have only increased somewhat from the lowest points of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the percentage of employees who experience a range of negative daily emotions remains elevated relative to historical benchmarks.
High stress levels and burnout have fueled a massive change in employee expectations driven by Millennial and Gen Z employees, who comprise the growing majority of the workforce. In fact, this year marks a major demographic shift across the U.S. – more Americans will reach the traditional retirement age of 65 in the same year than at any time in history.
The working world is at a fulcrum, and the moment demands a different type of workplace—one centered on the employee experience.
When employees feel good about what they do and who they work with, they’re better collaborators, problem solvers, and communicators. They’re more resilient and more agile in a world that is constantly changing around them. When an entire organization of employees feels that way, the chemistry of the workplace evolves.
Any organizational change requires a system designed to facilitate it. Enter employee recognition, a companywide program where employees can reward and celebrate their colleagues by acknowledging their impact and recognizing the successful behaviors, values, and unique skills they bring to their teams and the organization.
Bottom line: This stuff isn’t warm and fuzzy. It’s the future of your bottom line.
Recognize to Revolutionize People and Business Strategies
At the most foundational level, recognition elevates and amplifies the employee experience. It can encourage role-modeling the organization’s values and success behaviors. It can also be deployed to incentivize and reward specific business objectives, such as active participation within an ERG program, engagement in a CSR/ESG initiative, or addressing a lower-performing business unit.
However, Gallup and Workhuman research shows only two in 10 senior leaders say recognition is a major strategic priority at their organization, meaning very few leaders are taking recognition seriously enough to see the benefits. The result is…no measurable result at all.
To see real, measurable results, companies need to create cultures of recognition where praise and acknowledgement touch every level of the organization. As a gratitude-rich culture pervades an organization, companies begin to see an immediate and profoundly positive impact on employee engagement and productivity, as well as a marked reduction in other areas, such as absenteeism, safety incidents, and voluntary attrition.
At Cisco, recognition abounds, leading to unequivocally positive results. Recognition has driven higher engagement overall, and more specifically, it’s helped employees lean into their strengths and paths of development and has explicitly tied the employee impact to the business outcomes.
Ashley Goodall, senior vice president of leadership and team intelligence at Cisco, explains how recognition’s collective impact can transform an organization. “Recognition acknowledges [people’s] strengths, which is the number one secret of high-performing teams.”
For any business, a strategy or initiative that requires active employee engagement is enhanced by a science-backed recognition platform like Social Recognition®. And all those millions of gratitude messages highlight where and how work is really happening across the organization.
Unlock Human Potential with Recognition Data + AI
Recognition programs provide authentic and valuable insights into how employees work and where they thrive. These insights help inform and evolve people and business strategies in real time.
With the mainstream arrival of generative AI and underlying machine learning models, many more insights are becoming democratized and availableOpens in a new tab to business leaders seeking in-the-moment answers and insights into any people, culture, or business-related queries, such as:
To that end, Workhuman has developed large language models that parse those gratitude moments and return game-changing insights about a company’s people, culture, and business.
We’ve additionally trained those models with years of data-informed best practices, case studies, and deep research around employee recognition, helping our customers interrogate their recognition programs to determine what’s going well and what improvements will make an even greater impact on their people and business. Without high-value, authentic data, AI is a waste of time and money.
As debuted during Workhuman Live 2024Opens in a new tab, Human Intelligence™ delivers actionable business insights fueled by 1) unique, authentic, and robust recognition data, 2) the latest advancements in AI, and 3) the incredible experience and expertise of the Workhuman iQ team.
With the launch of Human Intelligence, Workhuman is providing unparalleled insight into people dynamics, culture, skills, and more, ultimately helping companies connect the dots between the employee experience and business success.
Empower Teams with Actionable Insights – Instantly
“We have a lot of data – but we don’t know what it means.”
"Data paralysis" is a common refrain, and it can threaten the efficacy of any recognition program. Data alone offers little insight into people dynamics, cultural health, and employee performance and skills.
Traditionally, companies have run reports, analyzed the data, and spent considerable time and energy generating actionable insights manually. Workhuman iQ and the AI Assistant offer a more effective path through generative AI being “trained” to directly pull answers from the data.
Grounded in Workhuman’s unique data set, the AI Assistant serves as your sidekick, proactively identifying the skills and development of employees throughout the organization. You can find effective problem solvers, communicators, and future innovators and leaders.
Let’s say a new hire needs a mentor with strong presentation skills. The AI Assistant, trained to analyze and interpret data from recognition messages, could produce a list of names of those across the organization who have been recognized for this very skill.
Or maybe there’s a need to identify strong performers within a given department. The AI Assistant could analyze recognition messages specific to each individual across the department and look at the quantity of those messages and the associated skills score per employee. The result would be a full picture of not only top performers but also those with strong potential.
AI is not new, especially to us. For years, Inclusion Advisor, built on natural language processing, has helped prevent moments of unintentional bias in recognition messages. Our in-house innovation lab and Workhuman iQ form the industry’s most comprehensive AI solution in HR.
The introduction of the AI Assistant takes the impact a step further, arming teams with AI-powered talent and people insights in seconds.
Final Thoughts
At the root of work is the employee experience. Quality work does not get done, deadlines are not met, progress is not seen, and a company has no resilience if the employee experience suffers. Right now, the data is clear: It’s suffering.
Fostering resilient cultures and driving sustainable business growth is as urgent as ever. Recognition encourages employees to live company values and strengthen their skills and working relationships. At scale, it inspires, engages, and propels employees and organizations toward their full potential.
About the author
Tom Libretto
Tom Libretto is the President at Workhuman, where he is focused on developing and scaling go-to-market strategies, brand, and customer marketing. His multi-disciplinary background includes both B2B and B2C marketing and sales experience as well as product management, corporate strategy, and business development.
Prior to Workhuman, he was the Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of PEGA Systems and before that, served as the Managing Director and Global Head of Digital Experience at JPMorgan Chase (JPMC). Mr. Libretto has over 20 years of marketing leadership experience in global technology organizations including Lotus, IBM, Nokia.
Mr. Libretto received an undergraduate degree from College of the Holy Cross (Massachusetts). He is a frequent presenter at industry conferences and events such as the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Web Marketing Association (WMA) Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and SXSW.