How do we provide recognition in the workplace?

Written by Elettra P.

At Challenge Works, we are good at celebrating team members for their efforts and teamwork through shout outs in our team meetings. But how might we focus #recognition in another way beyond shout outs? What would genuinely make people feel special when they are doing great? Last week, the Culture and Cohesion team led a brainstorming session in the Challenge Works team meeting to generate ideas on how we give recognition and show appreciation to our colleagues.

Several ideas emerged from the session, which we can separate into three levels of feedback:

🐱 🏍Individual 

👯Programme-wide

🎪Challenge Works-wide

At an individual level, the team reflected that detailed, example-based #feedback is a valuable piece of recognition, particularly when we can link it to our Employee Development Goals: this can support career advancement and pay raise processes.  The level of autonomy and trust that managers grant employees can be considered a type of recognition too, as team members feel appreciated in their capacity to take on responsibilities and larger pieces of work independently. It is also important to appreciate efforts that are less easily associated with recognition (e.g. admin work) but still need it, recognising that each team member is tackling ‘fires at different levels’.

Programme teams can take time to celebrate important milestones, for example with a team dinner at the end of the project. We also reflected on the appreciation that comes from programme partners and clients, which varies widely across programmes but can help boost #motivation and engagement.

At an organisational level, we discussed the importance of recognition by the Senior Leadership Team, which could focus on ‘bonus experiences’ for the whole team when reaching targets and attracting new business. The team could also nominate employees of the quarter, and ring a novelty bell for key achievements.

Three key actions we proposed to foster our commitment to recognition at each level are:

✅Including a section about it in our Personal User Guides: How do you like to be recognised?

✅Introducing a pack of recognition example activities as part of programme set up

✅Organising quarterly team outings 

How do you give recognition to your team in your workplace? Share your best practice in the comments below!