SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR |  RSS | | REPRINT
|
Survey: Workplace Recognition Widespread
June 09, 2008
By Alex Palmer
Employee recognition continues to be a top concern for employers, and an expanding one, according to a WorldatWork report released at the end of April. The survey, Trends in Employee Recognition 2008, reports that over 90 percent of responding organizations are continuing all of their existing recognition programs or have increased them in the last 12 months, and more than half of respondents say they are planning new programs in the coming year. Only 7 percent of respondents say they are doing less recognition today than they were a year ago.
The surveys were sent electronically to a random sample of WorldatWork members, who typically have five years of experience in human resources or compensation and are employed at the manager or assistant director level and above at their organization. Part of this increase in recognition efforts may be due to the expanding number of ways that workers are being shown appreciation. While the two most popular recognition programs continue to be "length of service" (86 percent) and "above and beyond performance" (79 percent), "peer-to-peer" programs came in third, with 42 percent. Very good for an option that had not even made the list respondents were asked to choose from in previous years.
"Programs like peer-to-peer recognition have gained popularity over the past few years [prompting us to expand the survey] and this popularity is expected to continue," says WorldatWork's Content Deployment Manager Alison Avalos, noting the expanding role of recognition. "The concept of recognition has evolved into a new culture in the workplace…[employers are] now including a wider array of recognition types."
For the first time, the report also measured "programs to motivate specific behaviors" (which 25 percent of the organizations practice) and "major family events" (with 19 percent practicing).
The survey indicated that both traditional and these more recent types of recognition are felt to be making an impact on employee retention. Sales performance recognition programs were said to play by far the most important role in employee retention by companies using them, with 51 percent of respondents rating them as having a high impact and 39 percent reporting they have a moderate impact. Programs that rewarded "specific behaviors" and "above and beyond performance" have a high impact on retention, according to 27 percent of respondents, while an additional 56 percent rated them as having a moderate impact. Fifty-one percent say "above and beyond performance" recognition programs had a moderate impact.
But while recognition seems to be on the rise and is thought to be making a difference by the WorldatWork members who answered the survey, there has been a downturn in senior leadership and organizational support for a formal recognition program. Asked whether there is a budget for their recognition program, 36 percent say "no," the highest since 2002. And asked whether there is a written strategy behind their organization's recognition programs, 52 percent responded in the negative, a 12 percent increase from 2005. Additionally, the number of respondents describing their senior management as "unsure" about their organization's recognition programs (as opposed to seeing it "as an investment") has increased 9 percent since 2005—though the number who see it "as an expense" has remained steady at 13 percent.
"Employers should take note of the correlation between recognition program effectiveness and written strategy and budget prevalence," says Avalos, acknowledging that as recognition programs expand, in many cases they can take on a less formal character. "However, no matter how informal the program…it is essential to have senior management support and a documented strategy that clearly aligns recognition efforts with the business strategy, across the organization."
|
SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS |
|
|
| Back to Marketing Index |
|
|
