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Engagement and Retention: Essentials of Rewards and Recognition

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Abstract

Well-designed recognition programs respond and deliver on the key motivational drivers of human beings; they support a lively feedback culture and employee engagement. While the financial value of recognition programs is rather limited, the key value driver of recognition programs is delivered on the motivational and cultural side.

Particular for global or multinational operating companies, a company-wide recognition program can provide all employees with a kind of “cultural glue” and allows anyone to reach out and express recognition to any other employee or team around the globe. These programs will support a culture of feedback and collaboration beyond regional and/or organizational boundaries.

This chapter covers the various perspectives on recognition to be considered from an organizational and corporate HR point of view and provides recent statistics and market insides.

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Further Reading

  • Lawrence PR (2010) Driven to lead – good, bad, and misguided leadership. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

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  • Lawrence PR, Nohria N (2002) Driven – how human nature shapes our choices. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco

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Recommendations for Further Readings

  • 41 % of companies that use peer-to-peer recognition have seen marked positive increases in customer satisfaction. (SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 2012)

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  • 46 % of senior managers view recognition programs as an investment rather than an expense. (WorldatWork, Trends in Employee Recognition, 2013)

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  • “60 % of Best-in-Class organizations stated that employee recognition is extremely valuable in driving individual performance.” (Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013)

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  • A full 14 % [of companies] indicated that their organization features [recognition] programs regularly when recruiting.” (WorldatWork, Trends in Employee Recognition,2011)

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  • “Being able to track the effectiveness of engagement and recognition efforts can help organizations better align engagement with business objectives and improve performance.” “43 % of Best-in-Class organizations have access to metrics on recognition efforts, compared to 18 % of All Others.” (Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013)

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  • Career opportunities, recognition, and organization reputation are consistently top engagement drivers. (Aon Hewitt, 2012 Trends in Global Employee Engagement)

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  • Companies with strategic recognition reported a mean employee turnover rate that is 23.4 % lower than retention at companies without any recognition program. (SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 2012)

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  • In 2013, “67 % of Best-in-Class organizations have a formal recognition program in place, compared to 58 % of Best-in-Class organizations in 2012.” (Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013)

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  • In these environments, [where opportunity and well-being are part of the culture) strong manager performance in recognizing employee performance increases engagement by almost 60 %. (Towers Watson, Turbocharging Employee Engagement: The Power of Recognition From Managers, 2009)

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  • “In those organizations in which individual employees or teams are recognized, the entity’s average core for employee results was approximately 14 % higher than in organizations in which recognition does not occur.” (Bersin by Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012)

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  • “Nearly 75 % of organizations have a recognition program (despite the fact that only 58 % of employees think that their organizations have recognition programs).” (Bersin by Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012)

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  • “Only 14 % of organizations provide managers with the necessary tools for rewards and recognition.” (Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013)

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  • “Organizations invest in recognition in a big way – spending roughly 1 % of payroll on recognition activities.” (WorldatWork, Trends in Employee Recognition, 2011)

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  • “Organizations that rated themselves “proficient” in workforce data analysis were far more likely to rate their business leaders as “satisfied” with workforce data, to draw connections between retention and recruiting, to calculate HR’s impact on business strategy, and even, among publicly traded companies, more likely to financially outperform those who rated themselves as “deficient” at workforce data analysis.” (HCI/Taleo, The Business Impact of Talent Intelligence, 2012)

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  • “Organizations with recognition programs which are highly effective at enabling employee engagement had 31 % lower voluntary turnover than organizations with ineffective recognition programs.” (Bersin by Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012)

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  • Organizations with strategic recognition programs in place exhibit 28.6 % lower frustration levels than companies without recognition programs. (SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 2012)

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  • Organizations with the most sophisticated recognition practices are 12 times more likely to have strong business outcomes. (Bersin by Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012)

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  • Our research finds that those organizations with the most mature employee recognition approach are 12 times more likely to have strong business results (Bersin by Deloitte, The Employee Recognition Maturity Model, 2012)

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  • Peer-to-peer is 35.7 % more likely to have a positive impact on financial results than manager-only recognition. (SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 2012)

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  • Praise and commendation from managers was rated the top motivator for performance, beating out other noncash and financial incentives, by a majority of workers (67 %) (McKinsey Motivating People, Getting Beyond Money, 2009)

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  • Recognition for work was one of the top five drivers of (candidate) attraction in the UK, and was tied as the top attraction in the EU. (Towers Perrin, 2004 European Talent Survey)

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  • Recognition is an important psychological need. Employees who know that they will receive recognition for acting on the brand promise will have a strong incentive to do so. (Gallup, 2013 State of the American Workplace

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  • “The number-one reason most Americans leave their jobs is that they don’t feel appreciated. In fact, 65 % of people surveyed said they got no recognition for good work last year” (Gallup, Tom Rath and Donald Clifton, How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life, 2001)

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  • When asked what leaders could do more of to improve engagement, 58 % of respondents replied “Give recognition.” (Psychometrics, A Study of Employee Engagement in the Canadian Workplace 2010)

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  • When companies spend 1 % or more of payroll on recognition, 85 % see a positive impact on engagement. (SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 2012)

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Correspondence to Rainer J. Schaetzle .

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© 2016 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Schaetzle, R.J. (2016). Engagement and Retention: Essentials of Rewards and Recognition. In: Zeuch, M. (eds) Handbook of Human Resources Management. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44152-7_56

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