One of the things companies have a hard time getting right is employee recognition. The business landscape is littered with examples of disingenuous recognition programs. I especially liked this one, which David Spark noted in a post on condescending morale boosting efforts:

In an attempt to get people to work overtime, yet not feel like they’re being taken advantage of, Publicis instituted “Passion Points.” Any employee could give a “Passion Point” to another employee for any reason. If you collected at least ten of these “Passion Points” you could cash them in at the Publicis store for something like a Publicis-branded backpack or tote bag.

In almost every single case, a staffer received a “Passion Point” for working late. They became your overtime “consolation prize.”

Are you doing the math already? What Publicis was saying to its employees was, “Work one to three hours extra and we’ll give you this piece of paper that’s worth 1/10th the cost of a $25 bag.” In other words, Publicis got us to work overtime for about $1-$3 an hour.

Mattel had a similar program when I worked there. Dubbed “Something Special,” any employee could nominate another for having done, well, something special. Not surprisingly, most of these were issued to an employee who helped out another employee, usually outside the sscope of their day-to-day job responsibilities. They came in the form of gift certificates for meals at local restaurants. Nobody craved a Something Special certificate, even though they did crave recognition.

Mattel had another recognition program, the annual President’s Award. Given to indviduals and teams for innovation and creativity, these big-dollar awards (I seem to recall they were $10,000) were handed out privately in one-on-one sessions in the president’s office. The rest of the company learned of their achievements in a crappy brochure. You never heard anybody say, “Next year, I want to win a President’s Award.”

I changed that. I made sure the president recognized the winners at an event other employees would envy. One year, we rented a Hollywood sound stage and decked it out for an awards ceremony. Limousines picked up the winenrs and their guests at the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters; cameras were rolling. When they got to the sound stage, they walked a red carpet with velvet ropes keeping back adoring fans and paparazzi (all hired extras). Once inside, they watched a delayed video of their entrance. They joined the company’s senior executives for the dinner and awards presentations. All employees saw an edited video of the ceremony at the next all-hands meeting. And the brochure that honored the winners? It was a beautiful, class-A brochure that exhibited the characteristics of innovation and creativity required to win the award. A page from the brochure appears below:

We went to all this trouble and expenses because we recognized that getting employees to behave in a manner consistent with the company’s values, you need to align rewards and recognition. I wanted other employees to look at the winners, and the recognition they were being accorded, and say, “So that’s what it takes to get recognized around here. Next year, I’m going to be on stage at that event.”

Yet most companies continue to get it wrong, which is all the more startling given that the top reason employees leave their jobs is lack of appreciation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor; Lynn Learning Labs adds that 88% of employees point to lack of acknowledgment as their top work issue. And during the first half of last year, 54% of companies saw high-performing employees walk out the door.

Those statistics come from a white paper I read recently from PollStream, a Toronto-based company that develops social software for internal uses. (Disclosure: PollStream is a sponsor of my podcast, For Immediate Release.) The White Paper, “Social Recognition Programs—Why They Matter,” explores the kinds of peer-to-peer recognition programs that produce real results, which social media has made possible.

When peer-to-peer recognition employs social media, employees’ achievements are not only brought to light, but the story spreads across the intranet. “Recognition becomes a cultural asset” writes PollStream President Steven Green, “infusing the social intranet with stories of success and achievement.”

The paper lists a vareity of ways non-monetary, peer-to-peer recognition produces results for the organization, including…

• Increased retention and productivity
• Reinforcing the company culture
• Improved talent identification
• Fostering collaboration

The paper also provides a case study based on The Hive, a PollStream product. I interviewed Green and TD Canada Trust’s Wendy Arnott about the program well before PollStream signed on as an FIR sponsor. You can hear the interview below:

The white paper is available for download, and it’s worth reading. It’s even more important to start giving serious thought to your organization’s recognition efforts. Are they just legacy programs without meaning, or do they reinforce the behaviors valued by the organization, produce measurable results and inspire productivity and engagement?

If your organization has an innovative or unique recognition program, share it here!