Appreciation & Recognition: Supporting Employee Engagement

Learning Outcomes

After this course, participants will be able to:

• Explain the significance, similarities, and variances of recognition and appreciation.
• Describe how recognition and appreciation affect employee engagement.
• Identify best practices for motivation to leverage recognition strategies.

Welcome and Introduction

My name is Katie Ryan Fotiadis. The first almost two decades of my career were in early childhood education as a teacher, then as a director, and an administrator in various roles. I currently play in the wonderful world of learning and development, which means I do everything from design e-learning and face-to-face training to coach leaders and everything in between. If it touches the world of training and development, that is where I am at. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn by typing in my full name or my business name or through my business website at intentionallearningdevelopment.com. I do post resources and engage in discussions frequently.

Make sure you have paper and something to write with available. I am going to ask you to write things down at different points, as well as when they come to you throughout the course. Why write them? Because it sticks differently in the brain when you write something down. You are going to hear me refer to school as a catch-all that refers to infant rooms, toddler rooms, early childhood centers, preschools, Head Starts, and everything in between, but I will just use the catch-all term, school.

You will also hear me refer to terms that are often used in the corporate world. Too often, early childhood administrators are promoted into their roles without anyone letting them know all the incredible and many hats and roles that they have been asked to take on. I recognize what you are actually doing. I have been there. I did not have a clue what I was getting into and I want you to know that I am elevating and respecting the truth of what you do. If you do not know what those things are, I want you to have the language to communicate those job responsibilities.

Appreciation or Recognition?

Appreciation and recognition, aren't they the same? Or are they? Recognition and appreciation are not the same things. Often in the workplace, appreciation can sound like a simple, "Way to go,” or “Good job." Recognition will often sound a lot like, "Thank you so much for your X years of service." We want to go a little bit deeper today. Those are pretty shallow examples and they really do not land well with people. I do not know if you have received those before but they seem superficial. They do not make much of a difference in how people engage with their work, their organization, or whether or not they stay at the job or with that organization. It just does not make a difference with these shallow attempts. As leaders, we can do better.

Recognition is largely about behavior and doing something to call out positive performance or outcome. Catch someone doing something good and recognize it.

Appreciation focuses on the performance plus the employee’s value as a person. Take that in for a moment. Appreciation focuses on the performance plus the employee’s value as a person. Even though we are talking about adults, I am sure the phrase “Catch someone doing something good and recognize it” sounds like one of the techniques we use with our early childhood classes to promote positive behaviors. It is our human behavior at play here. Fundamentally, it is the same though our approach differs in the methods we use with an adult and a child because if you talk to an adult like a child, it is patronizing and nobody likes that.

Let's look more at that appreciation piece. Appreciation is non-judgmental. It is not about if someone did a good or bad job. It is simply about having gratitude for them, their effort, or their willingness to help. Here is a standard appreciation. "Hey Shandra, thanks for staying late yesterday." Do you think Shandra actually feels like you care that she stayed late? Really, we can do better here. Here is an example of heartfelt appreciation. "Ms. Shandra, I truly appreciate you staying late to put the classroom materials together with Ms. Latisha. Thank you so much for spending the extra time making our two-year-old room safe and nurturing and interesting for our kids. The parents notice and so do I." It is quite different, isn’t it?

Recognition is doing something to call out positive performance or outcome. For example, "Ms. Shandra, thank you so much for going above and beyond to make our two-year-old room safe, nurturing, and interesting for our kids. The parents notice and so do I. As a token of the school's appreciation for your time, I want to present you with this gift card to recognize you for providing exceptional assistance to Ms. Latisha last week. Take the family out to ice cream. We are really grateful they shared you with us that evening." You are acknowledging that she spent her evening at work and was not able to spend it with her family.

Reflect

Take a moment and reflect on these questions.

• How does appreciation and recognition sound and feel different to you?
• What if you were the one who received the appreciation or the recognition?
• What if you were the one saying that to your employees or if you have said something like that to your employees?
• Can you pinpoint why they feel different to you?

Why Does It Matter?

Why does it matter? Why would I bother with one or the other or both? Notice what we did with those two statements. We specifically named the appreciated behavior and told why it was appreciated. We did not leave it vague with "Good job," for some unspecified thing that you cannot replicate because you do not quite know what it is or why I care. We want to see successful behaviors repeated and we get the behavior that we reinforce. The idea is that you want to see successful behaviors repeated and in order for the behaviors to be repeated, employees need to be appreciated. At times they need to be recognized as well. Showing appreciation and recognition is a powerful leadership tool to have in your toolbox. People feel seen and heard when they are recognized for doing their job well.

We spend so much time at work rather than with our families. Building this culture of appreciation and recognition develops a healthy workplace which affects the quality of care that a child gets. We know there is a trickle-down effect on teachers’ feelings. Stressed teachers versus joyful, engaged teachers make a difference in the quality of care that a child receives. Do not underestimate your influence on the behavior of your employees.

What I am getting into is what we call organizational culture. In other words, what is the feel of your workplace? Is it toxic or is it healthy? As a leader, you get to directly influence the practices and policies in place that contribute to your organizational culture. Lead by example.

Recognition and appreciation are opportunities for minimal or no cost motivational tools. If we can figure out how to equip an entire classroom on a shoestring budget, we can get creative with ways to recognize our staff. For example, good hand cream is a well-received gift in the winter but does not cost much.

To summarize, we want to see successful behaviors repeated and we get the behavior that we reinforce. To be repeated, the behaviors need to be appreciated. To be repeated, the people need to be recognized.

Reflect

Take a moment to reflect and write down your thoughts on the following questions.

• In what ways are you, as a leader, recognizing the behaviors you want repeated that will make teachers and other employees in the organization successful? What are you doing to make the organization successful?
• If you are not doing these things yet what are some recent examples where you can start? Think of things that have happened recently with your teachers where it would have been a good time to appreciate or recognize. Think about who you could start with. What is a specific behavior and why did you appreciate it?
• Name the specific behavior, why you appreciated it, and what you might say. It can be verbal or written. Not all of this has to be a face-to-face discussion. What could you say verbal or written to express your appreciation? Is there anything you can do later in terms of recognition?

Employee Engagement

When you hear the word engaged as it relates to your employees what impression do you have of the person? What do you think about when you hear of an engaged employee? What are the behaviors that you think about from an engaged employee? What attitudes ring true for you? How do their words differ if they are an engaged employee?

Employee engagement is the emotional and intellectual connection that influences or motivates an employee to do their best work. According to research, the top 10% of employees are those considered highly engaged. Those with that designation tend to demonstrate better quality, efficiency, and customer outcomes. Who are your customers? Children and their parents. We cannot separate the two even if we want to at times. The children and the parents come together.

An engaged employee is 44% more productive than a satisfied worker, but an employee who feels inspired at work is nearly 125% more productive than a merely satisfied one. You may think, of course, they are inspired. That is why they work with young children. That is how we get into this, we are inspired. Perhaps that is why they got into the work. But if their passion dies at the door of the school or the parking lot each time they arrive you have a problem on your hands. Which teacher or staff member do you want? Which work culture do you want to influence?

Key Engagement Drivers

Aon Hewitt has completed research and identified key engagement drivers in an organization for the development and retention of highly engaged employees. Figure 1 shows these six key engagement drivers and examples of each.

Figure 1. Key engagement drivers.

The six key engagement drivers are quality of life, work, people, opportunities, total compensation, and company practices. Under quality of life, there is the physical work environment and work-life balance. In work, there are work activities, a sense of accomplishment, resources, and processes. The category of people includes senior leadership, managers, colleagues, valuing people, and customers. Opportunities include career opportunities and training and development. Under total compensation, you see pay, benefits, and recognition. Within company practices are policies and practices. That is all of the different things in terms of performance management, which would be evaluations and what you are doing to help people succeed. We discussed organizational culture earlier. How does it feel there? Is it toxic? Is it healthy? What do you have going on? What kind of culture are you developing? The company reputation is how you are seen by the public. Also included in company practices are diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.

Appreciation and recognition affect each and every one of these areas. As a leader, you can have influence in some or maybe all of these key drivers that affect employee engagement.

Top Opportunities to Improve Employee Engagement

There are several top opportunities you have to improve the engagement of employees. One is to provide them with career opportunities so they can advance in the organization as well as in their career. Support their professional development and growth. Hopefully, they grow with you and stick around. But even if they do not, even if they advance and go on somewhere else, support them in that process. They are more likely to stick with you if you do.

Recognition is another top way that you can improve the engagement of employees. In addition, your organizational reputation is very important. Make sure that it is a place that they are proud to tell people that they work because there is an excellent community reputation.

Performance management is important as well. The simplest way to get this across is don’t keep bad apples around because it kills morale. If you have people who are bringing things down and you accept unacceptable behavior, it sends a message to everybody else who is really trying to do well that to be excellent is not valued.

Work-life balance is hard in early childhood and in education. Do not work them to death. Get creative about how to get subs in or how to help and support one another. Give breaks and opportunities for relaxation and fun. Reach out to others who can help design some of those creative fixes. Teachers themselves might have some good ideas.

Pay is a hard one but just do your best. Even if you cannot make hourly pay better, find other ways and get creative about soothing that burn of low pay. It could be takeout food for staff to take home that a family or a community foundation offered to provide. Think about some ideas you may have around that. It may not be that you can make a drop in the bucket of their hourly pay or salary but maybe there is something else that can be done.

Why Does It Matter?

All of this matters because engaged employees stick around, are more content, and are more productive. Do you remember the statistic we started with about engaged employees? An engaged employee is 44% more productive than a satisfied worker, but an employee who feels inspired at work is nearly 125% more productive than a merely satisfied one. Aon Hewitt's research that we looked at earlier shows that an engaged employee will say, stay, and strive. They will say, meaning they will consistently speak positively about the organization to coworkers, potential employees, and potential parents. They will stay because they have an intense desire to be part of the organization. They will strive by exerting extra effort and engaging in behaviors that contribute to the school's success.

When a staff member is engaged, it demonstrates the commitment and drive that they are bringing to not only their connection with the children but also the workplace itself. It means that you can gauge their connection and dedication to the school or organization. Put simply, how long might this person stay? That is known as employee retention in human resources and talent development.

Employees will rarely leave because of money. We do not go into education because we think we are going to get rich. It is usually about leadership. I am going to say that again, high retention and keeping employees at a school or an organization is often an issue of leadership. This is true across fields. If you are a leader and you are reading this it can sting a bit. Think about yourself and when you have left an organization though. Was it because of the leadership?

Here is another research stat. A Gallup poll of more than 1 million employees in the US concluded that the number one reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or an immediate supervisor that they consider a bad supervisor. Seventy-five percent of workers who voluntarily left their jobs did so because of their bosses and not the position itself. That seventy-five percent left not because of the position, pay, or benefits, but because of their bosses. In spite of how good a job may be, people will quit if the employee-supervisor relationship is not a healthy one.

A key measure of your effectiveness as a leader lies both in the results your team achieves and their willingness to follow you and stick with you. It is not just the leadership of those who are your subordinates. The leadership applies to your peers, senior staff, parents, community members, other schools, and everyone else that you come in contact with. What are you providing? Give that some thought.

In addition to the loyalty piece, engaged staff are more content and satisfied. When schools put sound practices in place, they are more likely to discover that employees feel satisfied, physically and psychologically safe, and will work to their full potential. That is a healthy work culture. Because of that, engaged employees are more productive. That trickles down to our kids. When we are talking about being productive in this context, we are talking about giving the children what they need and being an effective teacher.

Reflect

Take a moment and think about the following questions.  Jot down your answers as you reflect.

• When you have left jobs, what was the reason?
• Did you leave your leader?
• Did you leave because the leader was not handling something they should have been?
• Did you leave because you did not feel valued or respected?
• How do you see an engaged employee?
• Do you have highly engaged employees working on your team?
• What role have you played in their development?
• How can you contribute to moving them from engaged to inspiring them?

Motivation

You may be thinking, I understand why having someone who is engaged is important and I understand that showing them appreciation and recognizing them for their engagement encourages them to stay engaged. But what motivates them to get engaged to begin with in addition to having a healthy work culture and some of the other things we have already talked?

One definition of motivation is the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way. Another definition of motivation is the general desire or willingness of someone to do something. An example of that would be keeping staff up-to-date to maintain interest and motivation.

Think about what other words describe motivation to you and write them down.

When wondering how your leadership ties into employee motivation, the ability to motivate your staff is considered a major strength of a leader. Engaged employees are motivated by their commitment to their work, their workplace, their leadership, and their success at work. They are also motivated by the recognition and appreciation they receive from their success at work.

Now that we have discussed motivation, let's talk about some tangible ways to motivate my staff.

Provide challenging opportunities for upskilling. Help your employees grow on the job through learning and development, which is training. Try to promote from within, when possible, to give career opportunities at the organization. That means not always hiring people from the outside for advancement positions, but trying to promote from within. For example, if you have someone who could move from an assistant to a lead teacher position and could do a great job with just a little bit more training and support, then give them the opportunity.

One thing to watch out for is that leaving employees to stagnate leads to complacency. Remember that training has a direct impact to the quality of education for children. As you train your employees, they grow and that directly impacts the quality of care and education that the children receive. Watch out for employees feeling that if they have nowhere to go here, why would they stay. Think about the complacency piece and the promotion piece. If I am not going to advance, why would I stick around here?

Other dos include recognizing accomplishments, as we discussed earlier. If you don't care, why should I? Make sure that employees know where they can excel and where they can improve. Quickly let me know if I can do better or where to keep being great but make sure you are being specific about it. A lot of times people get bogged down and think that it is confrontational to let somebody know where they need improvement, but it depends on how you approach it. People want to know what they can do better. People also want to know what they are doing well. Remember to catch someone doing something good and be specific so they know what to repeat. Help individuals to develop a sense of belonging. If I do not feel like I belong and do not feel like I am an important part of the team, you are not going to retain me. I am going to leave and find somewhere I can have a sense of belonging. That is a huge piece of what is being discussed right now very heavily in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. 

Back me up when I need you and be someone I can trust and depend on. Keep two-way communication flowing to build rapport between us. It is a dialogue that we are having. You can ask me and I can give answers. If you are just telling me then is not a dialogue. Understand my individual style and ask for my ideas about improving the work situation. 

Base promotions on merit and performance. Many times they are based on seniority and how long you have been there. That is a morale killer. If all I have to do is stick around to get a raise then there is no reason for me to engage and do more. That sends a message to those who are striving for excellence and putting in more that their work is not really valued. It does not mean that there cannot be a combination of both the length of time and the performance. It is important to bring those things together. Also, make sure that you are being firm, but always fair, always fair.

Distribute the workload equitably, promote team synergy, and ask what motivates me. We are talking about motivation here. Ask what motivates me. What motivates me might not be the same as somebody else. I may be highly motivated by time, pay, or words. I may just need you to tell me, "Hey I recognize that you did this thing and you stayed late. And I really appreciate that. Here is a gift card." I may not need the gift card at all. I may just need to know that you are aware that I spent this time at the school instead of with my family. But if you ask what motivates me, I can probably tell you. There is a trap between equal and equitable. Think about that last thing I just said, if you are using what motivates you equally among everybody that may not be not what motivates me. Make it individual in that sense. Make it fair but equitable. One person may need to hear it more often. Another person may need to see it more often. Some people really love to have things written down for them. A note goes so far.

Promote team synergy. Synergy is bringing people together so that they work together. Pitting staff against each other will absolutely kill morale and teamwork. You want to bring people together. If you are having a competitive edge against each other and using people as examples for one another that is not good. If you are talking about employees to other employees it is a killer and makes you look bad as a leader. Then they start wondering if you are talking about them. Those insecurities will run rampant and cause problems.

Precisely or specifically define your expectations in observable and measurable ways. Once again, if you are vague, I cannot duplicate it. I do not know what you want from me. I do not know what I have done well or what I have not done well. "Good job," tells me nothing. Remember that empathy goes a long way. Your staff needs to know that you care about them. If they know you care, they will go the distance for you. They will take that extra step. You are always leading by example. "Do what I say and not what I do" did not work as a kid and it is not going to work with adults. You have to lead by example. If you are going around doing the opposite of what you are telling them to do, people will just look at you and think you do not have integrity. They want to see integrity in their leadership. 

Motivation Self-Assessment

So we have had some motivation examples. Let's do a bit of a motivation self-assessment here.

Figure 2. Motivation self-assessment spectrum.

Where are you right now on the motivation spectrum seen in figure 2? Please consider it a spectrum. If you have got this printed out you can draw yourself on the podium or rank yourself if you will. If you were one of your team members or staff members was asking the same question where would they place you? Do those things align or is there a distance between them? Why? Give that some thought.

Now reflect on this question. Are you able to see high levels of employee engagement in your team members? How do they do for each other? Where would you put each member of your team on this spectrum?

Motivation and Recognition

Let's recap a little bit with this and link these pieces together. Figure 3 shows how motivation, action, and recognition link together.

Figure 3. How motivation, action, and recognition fit together.

If motivation is what drives you to take action then it is something that happens before the behavior we want to see from our staff. As leaders, we get to have influence over that. It is pretty exciting. We get to help shape the actions or behaviors that are taken. It is those behaviors known as employee performance that we are evaluating and creating individual development plans about. We have these great behaviors because we have been motivational rockstars and now we need to show appreciation and recognize the behavior. Recognition is how we promote the behavior we want to be repeated. We can do that through acknowledgment of achievement, through individual and team-based ways, or through predetermined means like rewards and awards programs.

Motivation occurs before the behavior. It is what drives you to take action. Action is the behavior taken. It is the employee's performance. Recognition occurs after the action. What you get from acting promotes the behavior you want to be repeated. What would it look like to have a rewards or an awards program?

Rewards

Let's define a couple of things. There are two types of rewards. One is an intrinsic reward, which is the intangible reward of recognition. It is a sense of achievement or a conscious satisfaction. For example, it is the satisfaction all on its own that you did something right or helped someone by making their day better. The other type of reward is extrinsic.  An extrinsic reward is a reward that is tangible or physically given to you for accomplishing something. It is a tangible recognition of one's endeavor. For example, it is a certificate of accomplishment, a trophy, a medal for winning the race, a badge or points for doing something right, or even a monetary reward for doing your job like your paycheck. A reward is a completely different animal than motivation or behavior. It is what you get for doing something rather than the reason for doing it in the first place. Motivation comes before the behavior but the intrinsic or extrinsic reward comes after the behavior.

Recognition Program Tips

Well-designed recognition programs can reinforce the strategies and goals of the organization, as seen in figure 4. 

Figure 4. Tips for recognition in programs.

There are many benefits to having recognition programs. They promote repeatable behaviors, improve morale, promote team building, community reputation, make a statement about what is important to the company, and can be leveraged as part of the benefits of working at the school. It is part of a total compensation package. They can increase employee retention and loyalty and reduce turnover. They help build self-esteem and create an atmosphere of appreciation and trust. They aid in the quality, continuous improvement of staff. The cost to build loyalty and trust through a recognition program is minimal. It is less than one 10th of 1% compared to other benefit costs, which employees do not even see like insurance, sick pay, holiday, social security, and workers' compensation. They have the highest ratio of visibility per dollar. That means employees see these things at work where the other stuff they do not necessarily see because it is all built-in. Figure 4 also shows some examples of team awards and other rewards in addition to the examples from earlier. I encourage you to review these as well as the ones you thought of earlier.

Lastly, there are some pitfalls to be aware of when designing a rewards program. One of these is rewarding the wrong behavior. Other pitfalls include rewarding too little, too late, or too much, or if you are out of sync with other reward structures. You also want to watch out for rewarding inadequate performance, such as somebody who has unacceptable behavior but keeps getting promoted or keeps getting raises. This also includes transferring or promoting a poor performer to another position instead of terminating the position. Last is impersonal reward giving that is that superficial such as, "Good job" and insincerity. People can tell when you are being insincere.

You may have heard of the terms IQ and EQ. IQ stands for intelligence quotient and EQ stands for emotional quotient or emotional intelligence. In this case, perhaps it would be a good idea to think about today's topic as your RQ, your recognition quotient instead of your intelligence quotient or emotional intelligence quotient. We are going to think about it as a recognition quotient on a spectrum. It is not something that is good or bad, right or wrong, or I am this or that. It is a spectrum and we get to ebb and flow at any moment on where we are with the spectrum. It is a skill to work on and get better at.

Reflect

Take a little time to reflect, brainstorm, and do some research. Talk to others, talk to your staff. Remember to ask what motivates them. Get some dialogue going and talk about how your recognition quotient, your RQ, can get better at your school. Talk about what motivates the staff as individuals. Think about ways you can show appreciation. Think about ways you can inspire. And most importantly, lead by example.

Keep asking yourself these three questions.

• What role can you play in having motivated and highly engaged staff members?
• What can you do to show appreciation and recognition?
• How can you contribute to moving the highly engaged to inspired?

Question and Answer

If someone is a director or a co-director and also has a supervisor, what are your recommendations if they are interested in implementing some of these ideas but their supervisor or co-director is not interested?

That is a tricky situation, but ultimately you are responsible for the way you lead. Anything that you are doing from that vantage point is really important so that you are operating with integrity. If another person says, "You know what, I am not up for going and buying the gift cards, or "I am not up for approaching our families to see if they want to volunteer to sponsor an evening meal," or something like that, it is okay. You still get to recognize and appreciate when somebody is doing a job well done. You can tell them that. Those are your words. That is your perspective. That is your lens that you are changing and using to acknowledge people. Acknowledgment is not something that others have to validate you for to get on board with. That is you, you do that. You can make that internal change and then bring it to your staff.

Resources and References

Association for Talent Development, td.org

Gallup. (2015). State of the American manager: Analytics and advice for leaders. Available at https://www.gallup.com/services/182138/state-american-manager.aspx

Mankins, M. C., & Garton, E. (2017). Time, talent, energy: Overcome organizational drag and unleash your team’s productive power. Harvard Business Review Press.

Rawat, P. A., & Dadas, A. B. (no date). A study of employee engagement models to build new business approaches. Available at http://nevillewadia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/HR5.pdf

Society of Human Resource Management, shrm.org