Common Mistake #1: No Executive Buy-In for Clearly Defined Goals

As with any strategic initiative, support from senior management is critical to the success and penetration of a culture of appreciation that is woven into the fabric of any company. In most market-leading companies, these strategic initiatives are managed using a process, metrics, measurements, incentives and accountability – except recognition.

Why do you think this is? Do you think leadership views recognition as “soft” and not measurable with hard metrics? Or do you think that they just don’t see the value in recognition overall and therefore don’t spend the time or effort to set up a strategic process around it?

At Globoforce, we believe this is a critical error. Recognition done right requires a strategic recognition program with full executive buy-in and support. Success requires a management methodology (such as Six Sigma’s DMAIC), clear targets for frequency and budget, meaningful measurement and reporting functionality, and managers that are held accountable for targeted award activity.

Setting clear goals is central to the management methodology and should include metrics such as the percentage of employees awarded, employee satisfaction scores (compared to a baseline established before program roll-out), the match of award distribution to the performance bell curve, and the frequency of awards.

Do you have a recognition program in place today? Do you have success metrics established? Do you have a firm budget and a frequency of rewards target? Do you have a baseline employee satisfaction score to measure against? What’s going on in your workplace today?