Formalizing and Incentivizing a Culture of Recognition

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | September 10, 2024

In 2024, Gallup argued that employee recognition is the easiest–but most overlooked–strategy for attraction, retention, and productivity. Yet only one in three workers surveyed said they had been recognized for good work in the last week.

Though some managers may be naturally inclined to praise their teams, a culture of recognition doesn’t appear on its own. Recognition is a habit that must be formed. At From Day One’s August virtual conference a group of leaders spoke about making recognition a standard part of company culture in an executive panel discussion.

There are certain characteristics of companies with a culture of recognition, says Pam Rosslee, who is an HR director at PepsiCo. First, that recognition is leader-led. “Recognition and the culture of celebration takes on its own momentum. It’s being driven and owned by leaders across the organization to the extent that there’s no hard sell from the HR function.”

Second, she says, a culture that excels in recognition recognizes its mistakes, and learns from them, as much as it celebrates success. And third, employees at those companies understand that good work is rewarded, and they know how to compete for those rewards.

If you don’t already work this way, the good news is that managers and workers can be trained and incentivized to give recognition, panelists said. At workplace social connection platform Campfire, employees attend a session called “The Art of Recognition,” in which participants learn to give tailored feedback. “It’s really important, and really challenging, to know what people’s preferences are, and what matters to them in terms of recognition and engagement,” said Steve Arntz, the company’s co-founder and CEO.

At cloud computing company Akamai, the “People Manager Essentials” training brings managers together to discuss current goings on. Michelle Bartlett, Akamai’s senior director for change management, says managers often bring up the challenges of recognition, especially after the company started working remotely. Because it’s talked about, it’s practiced regularly. “The more you make it part of your standard operating manual, that’s when it really takes on a life of its own,” she said.

The panelists spoke about "Building Upon Workplace Culture Through Recognition and Engagement" (photo by From Day One)

At PepsiCo, the company rewards managers for celebrating success. Rosslee said that reinforcing the behavior keeps recognition muscles strong. “It’s quite a nice, subtle way of building that culture of recognizing individuals and teams,” she said. “We also make sure that there is abundance. There are multiple awards on offer at different levels: at peer level, at departmental level, and at functional level, and there’s a rhythm to it so we know when they’re coming.”

PepsiCo employs tens of thousands of workers around the world, but most companies don’t operate with that scale. How does recognition differ for those employers?

Kristen McGill is the chief people officer at ZayZoon, an earned wage access platform. When she joined the company, she was the eighth employee. By the end of 2024, headcount will be 200. Recognition does look different along the way, she says, and the company has to be open to keeping practices and programs fresh. “As we were scaling up, we saw that the more that you can create consistency, the more will happen on its own,” McGill said. “How do you enlist your entire team so that praise is going upwards, downwards, and horizontally? At the end of the day, the ‘who’ giving feedback really matters. As you get bigger, it starts to be really meaningful when it’s not simply from your direct manager.”

Jacqueline Silvestrov, who leads TD Bank’s formal recognition and workplace experience programs, says the far-reaching effects of a culture that celebrates achievements and contributions, so don’t hesitate to formalize it and measure it. “There’s a strong relationship between recognition, growth, development, and well-being,” she said. “When I first began leading colleague experiences at TD, I saw that there was an opportunity to build defined data points around our spirit and culture by implementing surveys and creating scorecards and reports that can tie each of our program metrics back to the health of our organization.”

With this data, Silvestrov has developed a suite of programs, all of them linked, “from daily virtual recognition to team recognition to surprise and delight moments and formal annual award programs.”

At Akamai, the company’s intranet provides ample opportunities for colleagues to recognize each other for good work, and managers often chime in to send congratulations. “It feels good to be recognized when they’re not standing in front of that leader,” Bartlett said.

Even within formal recognition programs, there is room for creativity, and a need for personalization. Some may want public recognition while others will shrink from the attention. Some need specific praise while others are content with general congratulations. Some may prefer more responsibility and higher visibility to monetary rewards. Campfire’s CEO Arntz came up with a creative way to personalize the praise he gives.

“If you want to use AI and assessments together, pull up ChatGPT or your favorite robot and create a conversation about each of the people on your team,” he said. “Then feed to each of those conversations all of the assessments that you have around that person to help the robot get to know them.” When you want to recognize that person, ask your generative AI tool to help you come up with a unique and personal way to do so.

If formalizing, incentivizing, and scaling recognition seems intimidating, panelists reminded us that HR isn’t where the buck stops on recognition. It’s up to managers and their teams to carry it out. “HR is responsible for enabling the right training, enabling the managers, providing the right tools, and ensuring that they know how to use them,” McGill said. “But at the end of the day, the responsibility is the managers, and that’s where expectation-setting comes in.”

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

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