Derek Irvine blog

Let’s be clear. The terms employee engagement and employee satisfaction are NOT interchangeable. This article is one of the worst examples I’ve seen of the terms being used interchangeably, to great confusion.

Why does this matter? Employees can be quite satisfied with their job, your company and their place in it without ever engaging in the work. Think about it. Have you ever had an employee or colleague who was perfectly satisfied to come to work every day where they could happily surf the web, Facebook with their friends or play computer games? Perhaps that’s a bit extreme, but we all know employees who are satisfied with being left alone in their mediocrity.

Do you know who the real power players are in your organisation? I don’t mean your star salesperson, either. I mean those people who are the “go-to” people when you need to get something done.

Who’s the mid-level associate who always brings the project in on time and under budget, even though he’s not the one ultimately responsible for the project? Who’s the administrative assistant that everyone goes to with this request: “I know it’s not your job to do this, but I really need help. Can you do XYZ for me?” And the answer is always, “Sure. Happy to help.”

Those are your hidden power players. Unfortunately, they are also the ones most frequently forgotten in traditional elitist recognition programmes that focus on the top 10% in an organisation. Often, their direct managers are unaware of how much help they lend to others outside of their official job descriptions. What happens when they’re not appreciated for their efforts?

Last week we looked at various attributes of recognition done well. This week will be a few examples of what recognition is not.

First up, Paul Hebert over at Incentive Intelligence and the i2i blog recently posted a couple of interesting ideas on this topic. First, in a post on the differences between incentives and recognition, Paul made this point:

“Incentive programmes do NOT provide motivation. Incentive programmes provide direction. Incentive programmes provide employees with clues to what you as the sponsor think they should be working on/toward.”

Judith M. Bardwick, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, recently posted to the Huffington Post the transcript of her interview with literary critic Robert Morris on employee recognition. Judith hits on four best practices of strategic recognition: be timely, be specific, be meaningful and be personal.

This week I’m focusing on methods and best practices for doing recognition right.

Have you ever playfully done the unexpected at work in an effort to appreciate, encourage or inspire team members? How about to just make them laugh or look at the commonplace in an entirely new way? See how Coca-Cola did just that with their “Happiness Machine.” (Be sure to click through and watch the video.)

I originally saw this video on Tanveer Naseer’s blog and, while I thought the video was fun and interesting, I was much more impressed with Tanveer’s insights: