"Why?!", we hear you ask.
Because of a lack of time? Because the magic is gone? Or maybe because the (originally Anglo-Saxon) concepts really never worked in the first place on our side of the Atlantic?
All of the above rings true. But, above all, the world we live in keeps on evolving at an extremely high pace.
1) The bar keeps on getting raised and the pressure in the work place continues to grow. And both of these developments demand a lot of flexibility from our employees. Which is why, in order to perform well, an employee needs not only an excellent physical condition but is equally required to be in great mental shape. Positive appreciation on a regular basis is therefore a must for any employee to remain truly motivated!
2) Traditional ways of appreciation such as the election of the "Employee of the Month" involve at the very most only 1% of your total staff. But what about the other 99%? And what do you think happens in the process when that 1% gets nominated? How transparent is this selection? How painstaking is the selection procedure that usually takes place behind closed doors? Often, each team member is invited to come up with a colleague nomination, underpinned with an elaborate 3-page or so explanatory reasoned opinion. Who on earth, in this day and age, still has the time for this kind of exercise? Not to mention the announcement of the ultimate results, with in its wake automatically a pile of frustration from those employees who tried equally hard but did not make the grade.
3) Our Millennial Generation, more than ever before, yearns for positive feedback, preferably in total transparency and in public, which explains the social media success. Much more than in earlier times, people want to share with friends, family or colleagues their little success stories or the things they are proud of. And such sharing is important, because it substantially reinforces people's self-confidence and boosts their energy-levels.
So the time has definitely come for new forms of peer-to-peer appreciation to replace the old dinosaurs.
Social Recognition is the name of the new appreciation game, engaging all employees by means of a very simple and transparent procedure. Each team member is empowered to reward the positive behaviour of a colleague (or even manager!) by a virtual pat on the back - for instance in the form of a star or a particular grade. These pats on the back are posted on a virtual recognition wall and can be linked to the positive implementation of the organizational values or to excellent team behaviour or to great SHE performance or to customer satisfaction or to basically any other objective deemed important for the organization.
So, YES, this form of appreciation smacks of the ever-increasingly popular social media platforms by embracing the new standards of the highest form of appreciation: to display and laud positive behaviour or initiative in front of an entire audience!
And rather than leaving the process of recognition exclusively reserved for the management, this new recognition game allows each employee to express his or her appreciation to anyone in the company. So every employee gets to contribute to the strengthening of the corporate culture (and its objectives), leaving each employee with the feeling of a winner.
And this is exactly where its strength lies!
A relatively recent study of our Ministry of Public Health concluded that 1 in 3 Belgians is presently, or has been in the past, in a state of depression. Is anybody wondering to what extent a little bit of appreciation and its positive effects could contribute to seriously improved mental health? And basically at no cost?
If we are fed sufficient amounts of mental energizers, we will outstandingly perform and that in turn will have a tremendous impact on our overall happiness.
And surely enough, it shouldn't come as a surprise that organizations with a positive appreciation culture have very engaged employees and as such much better results!
We, at Arteel, see it happen everyday, that way in which Social Recognition creates an incredible and dynamic boost, taking less than 2 minutes to catapult anybody in the company onto Cloud #9… not once a month, but once an hour - just the way it should be in this day and age…
Nathalie Arteel
Leading Angel Arteel Group
Recognition Expert
If you would like to find out more about our Social Recognition Programs, please feel welcome to browse our website arteel.eu or simply contact us by phone on +32 16 499 960 or by email on info@arteel.eu . We will be delighted to answer all of your questions!
