{"id":658,"date":"2016-07-07T03:19:38","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T02:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.workstars.com\/recognition-and-engagement-blog\/?p=658"},"modified":"2019-07-26T13:14:26","modified_gmt":"2019-07-26T12:14:26","slug":"last-thing-employee-recognition-needs-process-prescription","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.workstars.com\/recognition-and-engagement-blog\/2016\/07\/07\/last-thing-employee-recognition-needs-process-prescription\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the last thing employee recognition needs is process and prescription"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quite a few headlines<\/a> from the past 12 months suggest the UK continues to have challenges with employee engagement. There are plenty of businesses out there with great stories to tell about how they motivate and energise their people. But quite a few companies are still struggling to find the best ways to engage their employees. Why?<\/p>\n

There are no simple answers but one factor might be the way management and leadership historically became closely linked with control. It\u2019s very understandable why it happened. Legislation and an increasingly litigious society contributed towards an environment where managers and leaders felt under pressure to be ready and able to demonstrate control and provide evidence. It became defensive rather than focusing on creating good business outcomes.<\/p>\n

That left a legacy that\u2019s not easy to move away from. Many businesses rely on implementing frameworks and processes to improve performance. They\u2019re trying to eliminate risk and variability and to make sure things get done efficiently but that can mean individual approaches get \u2018squeezed out\u2019 and the way people\u00a0interact with each another is shaped by a need to fulfil criteria and tick boxes. Could that contribute to people feeling they aren\u2019t properly recognised and becoming disengaged as a result?<\/p>\n

CIPD Chief Executive Peter Cheese raises these kinds of questions in terms of HR processes in this 2015 article<\/a>. He refers to \u2018ritualised and bureaucratic processes\u2019 that distract managers from the regular connection, engagement and feedback conversations they should be having. He asks whether the \u2018one size fits all\u2019 approach and prescriptive processes means the ability to be sensitive to the differing needs of all stakeholders has diminished.<\/p>\n

Employee recognition<\/a> is a prime example of how historically processes and prescription turned initiatives that were meant to be about motivation into anything but; in some instances they even managed to achieve the opposite.\u00a0Companies implemented complex top down processes that required significant amounts of management time. As a result the involvement was patchy. Some managers happily viewed it as an important part of their role while others struggled to fit it in as it became \u2018another task\u2019 to complete. Recognition and reward became closely linked and that meant there needed to be sign-offs of decisions made by managers about their employees. Recognition could take days, weeks or even months before it actually was conveyed to the recipient \u2013 by which time the moment had well and truly passed.<\/p>\n

But the modern era of recognition shifts away from this. Today\u2019s employee recognition is high adoption, high frequency and in the moment. It creates a sense of progress and purpose that helps make work rewarding. Peer to peer and social recognition allows an employee\u2019s contributions to be acknowledged by anyone who\u2019s in the position of knowing the efforts the employee has made. Recognition no longer exclusively relies on managers. That doesn\u2019t mean, however, that the manager\u2019s role in recognition has diminished. Far from it.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s approaches to recognition in fact provide opportunities to strengthen that relationship by encouraging managers to understand and acknowledge the individual talents, achievements and needs of the employees working for them. Effective managers identify what motivates each employee by getting the fact that different things matter to different people at different points in their lives. They take the time to nurture and support them and above all, they show appreciation – the one completely free perk<\/a> that absolutely every employee craves.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need bureaucratic processes, procedures or policies in place to make this happen. Instead, you need a culture where human to human relationships are valued, respected and given the right support to flourish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quite a few headlines from the past 12 months suggest the UK continues to have challenges with employee engagement. There are plenty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recognition"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe last thing employee recognition needs is process & prescription<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Headlines from the past 12 months suggest the UK continues to have challenges with employee engagement. 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