Recognize This! – Technology can help us look back at all we have done over the year, celebrating accomplishments and increasing our sense of meaning and belonging through work.
The year’s end offers an excellent opportunity to look back at all of one’s accomplishments. Not merely for the sake of nostalgia, taking time to review one’s own body of work reinforces the depth and meaning of connections that have been made at work.
Getting an accurate picture of one’s accomplishments over the span of 12 months is challenging. It seems we have all gotten busier and the pace of change has sped up as well. So I pose the following question:
Do you remember everything you’ve accomplished over the past year? You might do fairly well with a couple of recent projects or especially big wins, but what about when you think all the way back to January and all the work that has occurred since then?
It turns out that humans have a poor track record of memory over time. We have a strong tendency to focus on recent events at the expense of ones that are older, for example, forgetting much of the work we actually did. Opportunities to look back have also largely been informal and unstructured, which can compound the challenge.
HR technologies, like social recognition, can help change some of that. A record of what one has accomplished can be created in real-time. That record can be easily integrated into continuous conversations between manager and direct report, or even shared more widely among peers to celebrate wins and progress.
Why is it worthwhile to bring more of this into the work day, especially around this time of year? Well, as I wrote in a post on Compensation Cafe:
Employees derive a sense of meaning and belonging through the work they do. At times, it comes through in how work contributes to a greater purpose or mission for the company. At others, it is about how people have come together to get work done, solve challenging problems, or delight a customer.
Recognizing what people have accomplished and which relationships were built is a way for companies to create a positive employee experience, and ultimately make work more human.
Have you set aside any time to take a look at everything you have accomplished over the past year?
You can find more from Derek Irvine on Recognize This!