Recognizing Red Flags

As the practice of  Employee Recognition takes a more-strategic organizational purpose, initiative expansion and platform consolidation are guiding course adjustment. Pats on the back are only one part of a larger Employee Value Proposition (EVP), so Human Resource Leaders are expanding workforce strategy. Improved accessibility will increase program adoption but relevance to engagement is more important than the multitude of initiatives.

When expanding the Engagement landscape it is important to understand the difference between opportunity and force feeding. If you are using the elements of your EVP to sell your company to candidates or improve survey results, you have it backward. Great culture feeds the Employee Experience and you cannot pretend you have an effective end-to-end workforce strategy.

Survey Says....
Surveys continue to be a quick fix for transactional feedback. If you ask questions that are coming from a place of genuine intent and action is taken; progress is imminent!

Unfortunately, the historical survey has hit a point of failure for the following reasons:

1. Person taking the survey feels intimidated to answer genuinely
2. Survey is intended only to reward the organization as opposed to finding gaps in workforce engagement
3. No action is taken
4. Results are dressed up to mask cultural deficiencies

Organizations who incent or discipline mangers based on survey feedback are holistically missing opportunity for improvement.  


Recognition as part of Performance Management
There is a reason the Total Rewards suite is split between compensation and benefits.

Outstanding performers are often self-centered so their sales results may sky rocket while their recognition score is at the bottom of the engagement scale.

Never in the history of life would a sales rep be fired for not having a recognition score even with their astronomical revenue production. 

Bend the teeter totter the other way and you can start revising your resume.

Here's a better idea.....

There are 6 elements of your Employee Value Proposition and (at least) an equal amount of systems. Develop a technical integration model that provides one-stop access to all employee programs while keeping initiatives separate.

Just as easy to streamline without co-mingling policies.

Forced Diversity
A person I know was hired by an organization and quickly jumped on their internal social recognition feed. There, she discovered her boss had achieved a DIVERSITY badge for hiring her...... Talk about trust destruction. Whats worse is her manager had no idea said initiative was in place.... she hired her because she was the right person for the job.

A5 - Don't try to incentivize Gender Parity as a hiring transaction. Organizations cannot survive without a variety of thought cycles. Trusting leaders to hire who are unwilling to divert from their traditional talent pool will keep your Organization in Silos! #nextchat

— David Kovacovich (@DavidKovacovich) March 6, 2019

While we all strive to make sure Employee Recognition inspires Employee Engagement through Employee Experience based in a well-thought-out Employee Value Proposition; Let's be sure not to overthink it! 

Don't Forget to Remember,

Dave