5 Big Mistakes Managers Make with Employee Recognition

Jennifer was at the end of her rope. It was time for a new job, one that would let her use all of her talents, creativity and experience. The exit interview was uneventful, and then she was finally free! Her manager Roberta was baffled, though. How could Jen leave? She was on the fast track, with great potential, numerous promotion opportunities and a key member of the team. What went wrong? Sound familiar?

A recent study confirms that this vast divergence between employee satisfaction and management appraisal is quite common, as well as confusing and expensive to organizations today. How could an employee be so unhappy while management is thinking everything is hunky dory?

There are five big mistakes that managers often make with employees, but when addressed properly and corrected, the elimination of these factors will reduce unnecessary turnover and immediately improve morale, productivity and profits. With some minor changes in management’s communication style, your employees will want to bring their “A Game” to work every day.

Mistake 1 – Not Being Believable

All executives claim to value their people, but are employees getting the message? Recognition programs, incentives and bonuses are common in most companies, but are often seen as manipulative by employees. Why? There’s a fine line between the perception of true appreciation and feeling that you’re just “throwing them a bone.”

Unfortunately with staffing down, workloads up and everyone busier than ever, it’s easy for a manager’s recognition efforts to be perceived as just going through the motions and not coming from the heart. When managers understand what’s in it for them and their interactions with employees are seen as genuine, their displays of appreciation will not be perceived as leverage that merely benefits the company and not employee interests.

Mistake 2 – Not Being Organized

Once your employees begin to believe you truly care about them, the next mistake relates to the number of disjointed programs companies use to recognize and reward their people. Each often has its own history, function, author and responsible party, so even if they’re working, there’s no easy way to tell. It can be impossible to properly train your management team to use these correctly and in the right order, so effectiveness suffers.

By coordinating all of your employee communications, training, recognition and performance processes into one organized system, you will be able to understand and control costs, manage and rate results and get the most from your investment in people.

Mistake 3 – Not Using a Strategy

An organized approach is great, but the system won’t last if it’s not tied into a strategy based on the company’s core values and goals. Strategic planning is a leadership function that allows all employees to understand where they fit into the total scheme of things and how their performance directly affects the organization.

Once everyone begins to see that they are all on the same team, marching in the same direction for the same reasons, synergy occurs and your combined recognition efforts yield much more than the sum of the individual parts.

Mistake 4 – Not Having Management Buy-in

Even if you solve Mistakes 1-3 completely, your best efforts are likely to fail if you don’t have strong, honest and consistent support from the top. Top executives should continually demonstrate their passion and dedication to presented goals and objectives. Employees are very quick to see through any signs of the company being disingenuous.

Poor upper management involvement is the number one sign that you’re using recognition as a manipulative lever and not an appreciation boost. To keep your top executives intrigued, committees should present program enhancements that show significant and measurable results, not just emotional blue sky and hype.

Mistake 5 – Not Following Through

Any program, no matter how exciting, rich, well organized or effectively supported, will lose its momentum over time if it’s not fully integrated into your company’s performance management culture. This is by far the most overlooked weakness in many recognition strategies. A quality reporting system along with an empowered team prepared to manage the information is critical to keeping your programs relevant, fresh, interesting and profitable. The true test of a well-functioning recognition strategy is when you can quantitatively prove to your CFO that it’s turning expenses into profits over time.

These five mistakes are quite common and extremely costly, but they are relatively easy to avoid with some simple communications training and the ability to look at entitlement programs with an open mind. They are called “entitlements,” because that’s what your awards programs become if they are left alone for very long. It’s nobody’s fault, so don’t point fingers. Just decide to address each mistake in order from 1 to 5, gain support, and then develop a measurable set of initiatives that will make the best use of your company’s dollars.

John Schaefer is a consultant with more than 20 years of experience helping companies realize and react to the employer/employee disconnect. He is the author of “The Vocational Shrink – An Analysis of the Ten Levels of Workplace Disillusionment,” as well as the manager training program “Why Should Supervisors Care?” For more information, visit www.vocationalshrink.com.

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