As I’ve written here before, all of us are trained from childhood to be recognition-addicts (and we still are because we’re really those same little kids just in grown up bodies now).
That’s why recognition is such a powerful employee retention technique.
Using all of these types of recognition, both formally (in meetings) and informally (passing in the hall) will keep your best people motivated and on-board:
- Peer-to-peer;
- Team-based;
- Event-based (employment anniversaries, birthdays, etc.);
- Results-based (for outstanding performance);
- Social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).
One caveat: Recognize people the way they want to be recognized. For instance, some would be embarrassed to be the center of attention in a group setting and would prefer to be recognized privately.
This was originally published on Mel Kleiman’s Humetrics blog.