In the past year, Towers Watson reports employee engagement has fallen almost ten percent – the most significant drop in fifteen years! The economic recovery has created a work environment in which employees are not being recognized as important assets. I read two articles last week that both address this situation and how managers, with the help of recognition programs and employee incentives, can overcome the challenges being presented to employers in 2011.
Focusing on Employee Wellbeing
Derek Irvine, writing on Hr.com, explains that employee wellbeing moves beyond employee engagement and looks at an employee as a whole. Irvine references the book The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, in which the authors recognize the importance of how employees feel and what impact it can have on employee performance. Organizations can focus on employee wellbeing and ensure they are doing their part to influence wellbeing by implementing a formal recognition strategy or employee incentive program.
I feel it is most important to let all employees know how they can formally recognize others in the workplace. Usually a recognition strategy turns into an ongoing employee incentive program so that people are recognized consistently and able to earn points over time that can be redeemed for merchandise rewards. Managers can establish the criteria or goals for the incentive program and post them online and throughout the workplace. Depending on the workplace, managers and employees will have different ways of recognizing subordinates and peers as part of the program.
When employers implement an incentive program that is successful at recognizing employees and making them feel like the important assets they are, Irvine reports that insurance costs can be reduced, productivity can be increased as well as employee engagement. In the past I have blogged about the impact of having engaged employees and what it can mean to an organization’s bottom line. By looking at employees more holistically, companies are able to impact wellbeing and thus impact more than just retention rates as Irvine mentions. If managers can tap into what makes people feel like an important asset, it will influence performance and retention.
Mitigating the Effects of Stacking Work Syndrome
The Human Capital Institute (HCI) posted an article recently that discussed how leaders and workers, because of the recession, are being asked to do more work with less time and no change in recognition or incentive strategy. “Stacking work syndrome,” according to HCI.org, “is is burning out leaders, making them feel unproductive, errors are made, losing confidence and opportunities are missed.” Top performers and leaders are reported to have lowered engagement levels by twenty-five percent. This could seriously impact employers who will face the consequences of asking more for less as the article suggests “neglected warriors” will be at high risk of being courted by competitors and leaving their employers.
Employees take recognition very seriously. If an employee does not feel recognized and valued, he or she will leave and go to a competitor who does appreciate and reward employees for their talents and contributions. The authors of the HCI article include steps to reduce the effects of stacking work syndrome that I would like to share with readers:
- Making the business case for creating an employee incentive program
- Comparing the cost of employee turnover to the cost of not taking action
- Targeting an incentive or recognition program to managers and leaders most impacted by the syndrome
- Tracking the results of the incentive program and using it as evidence to continue the program
“Companies must turn recognition,” the authors report, “into a way to indicate to the individual that he or she has done a great job and share with the company as a whole what a great job means. When you are creating an environment where you are really celebrating what people do, and you do not have neglected warriors, recognition is not a onetime event - it is something you have to do frequently, all year long.”
These two articles are important in showing that recognition over time, as part of an ongoing incentive program can be your strategy to increase wellbeing and employee retention. I challenge readers to think about how addressing wellbeing and retention with an incentive program could help you overcome the challenges presented by the economy in 2011.