Acknowledgement. The big “A” word is one of the most significant things we can do when managing people, yet how often do we consider its importance, forget about it or stuff it up completely? How often do we think about acknowledgement as the “big things”, like the awards night rather than all the “little things” that make up the tapestry of being valued? How often do we here people say, “It is just the little things”?
Why should this be important? It contributes to employee engagement. Aon Hewitt has completed a number of global studies and in 2014 results showed that 39{01332a80e2e652688e18927fa9a6162580960d47bc08263a3993439d666dcd52} of employees are disengaged and that percentage is the same in the Asia Pacific region. Some experts are saying we are experiencing an epidemic of employee disengagement. Reasons outlined for employee disengagement are many. However poor communication, lack of feedback and poor HR practices are significant contributing factors. Employees being disengaged are high;
“Gallup estimates that these actively disengaged employees cost the U.S. between $450 billion to $550 billion each year in lost productivity. They are more likely to steal from their companies, negatively influence their coworkers, miss workdays, and drive customers away.”Sep 23, 2013
In my coaching practice, many individuals speak of not feeling valued in the work place, mainly because they do not feel acknowledged for their effort, particularly by their superiors. When I ask them what they do to acknowledge others, there is often silence. They often expect superiors to acknowledge them but not necessarily an expectation of them to acknowledge others. The other common response is they thank everyone at the end of the day, they recommend people for an award; they send a thankyou text or email. These of course are important but the acknowledgment just becomes a commodity, which like any commodity has less value.
As people we cannot underestimate the importance of genuine thoughtful timely acknowledgment through the “little things” we do. Can you remember when someone at work hand wrote you a special thankyou card, made the time to thank you personally, or did some “little thing” that made you feel really acknowledged? If you have had the experience you really understand this, if you haven’t you may wish you had.
I remember when I was 15, a very long time ago now, I was learning to type at a technical college after school. There was one “old” lady in the class, who sat next to me; she must have been at least 35. I can never forget that when the term had finished, she came up to me and gave me a small brightly coloured pincushion and told me how much she appreciated me helping her.
Although I lost the pincushion after many years, every time I see a coloured pincushion, I remember her thoughtful acknowledgement and it brings a smile to my lips. How often is it that the “little things”, rather than the “expected things” like monthly awards, become imprinted on our memory banks? This thoughtful act of acknowledgment still remains imprinted on mine. The story also demonstrates that there was no expectation of reciprocity, it was personal and thoughtful.
I had a friend recently win a smart phone as a monthly award. It duly arrived by internal mail. She already had a smart phone so sold the new one on e-bay. It was her first journey onto e-bay and was delighted by the experience. She never did tell me why she won the award. Although I am sure she appreciated winning it, how could the experience have been more valuable to the employee-company relationship rather than e-bay?
The power of acknowledgment and the importance of the thoughtfulness of the “little things”, I believe, is an important component when building relationships and subsequently a fundamental building block of organisational culture. So much so, when I was working as the GM of HR, it was a philosophy that our HR team adopted. It was instilled in nearly everything we did, from recognition to leadership development. After about three years, we decided to do a video called ”its just the little things” and even found a song called the same name which we used as a part of the video. We organised for employees from all around the country to be spontaneously videoed and everyone was asked the same question. What “little thing” of acknowledgement had they done or had someone done to them in the company. It was such a fun amateur video and it was shown at our annual road show, plus a copy was given to everyone who participated and put on the website. It was a powerful reinforcing message.
In another organisation, we created owl paper on which people, particularly the executives, wrote hand written notes to thank people for what they viewed to be good work. Often after visiting a site they would use the opportunity on the plane home to write notes, ensuring they were timely as well as thoughtful. The owl was a symbol we used in the organisation and is a topic for another day.
I remember receiving a handwritten thankyou note from by boss, the CEO, thanking me for my efforts and I can’t tell you how delighted I was. That note now lives in my special treasure box of memorabilia not to be forgotten. The power of genuine, thoughtful, timely acknowledgement of people efforts should not be underestimated. It can have an amazing ability to inspire, motivate or generate loyalty at whatever level of the organisation you may be at.
Many hand written notes were created and could be written by anyone to thank another individual in the company. We had a view it was better to have an abundant approach than a scarcity one. I was once asked if the letters were of less value if too many people received them? My response was, if the sentiment was genuine, honest, timely and heart felt then no it was not. If it was thanking someone for the sake of thanking them or being mass-produced what you were doing was commoditising acknowledgment, which defeated the purpose.
I once asked one manager who was initially quite cynical of the approach, what had changed his mind about thanking people using a hand written note. He said the feedback he got. People actually thanked him for taking the time to personally thank them and he had not understood how much people valued this. It was a positive reinforcing loop.
Of course we don’t always get “the little things” right the first time. I remember having a conversation with a warehouse manager many years ago about the importance of making his staff feel valued and it was often the “little things” that contributed to a healthy work environment. The manager decided as a first step he would take my advice and put on a barbeque for his staff on Friday afternoon to thank them for their efforts. He had never done this before. Fantastic I thought until I heard the feedback from the barbeque. He had ordered 64 sausages, one for everyone. Yes that is right one sausage no seconds. I still cringe at the story and the impact of such a scarcity mentality.
You may think this extreme but how many organisations stop supply of biscuits or change the amount or brand of biscuits or coffee when things get tough. It is often the scrapping of the “little things” that cause the most damage to the company’s culture because of the impact such decisions make on employee attitudes.
Only recently I met a woman, who used to work in the same company as I did, at the airport. We were swapping stories about old times and reminiscing. However it wasn’t long before she told me how much things had changed when a new operational manager was employed. The first story she told me was of the impact that the removal of the biscuits from the tearoom had had on the staff. You can imagine it only went downhill from there.
On a lighter note, I will never forget an old colleague of mine had joined a world wide consulting company and travelled the world. As a way of trying to ensure the employee felt valued by the company they organised a family photo to be loaded onto his screen saver when he landed. Unfortunately they got the wrong wife. Irrespective they were trying to think creatively to use a personal approach through a high tech medium. There are many opportunities if we think laterally. As I have mentioned in another article, the combination of a high tech and high touch approach can be very influential.
When acknowledgement becomes a commodity it has little value to an individual or a team. When the boss says to everyone at the end of everyday, “good job”, it is not memorable and it has little value. When everyone gets a group email saying that everyone has done a good job it also has little value. If everyone is told they have done a good job two weeks after the event and they are already onto the next project it adds very little value. I agree it is better than nothing, however, the commoditisation of acknowledgement becomes the norm, it isn’t personal, and it isn’t memorable and it does very little to motivate.
I was discussing with a client why acknowledgement wasn’t done, wasn’t done well or commoditised. The discussion was brought about by a discussion about how upset he was with a superior for not recognising the superhuman effort he and his team had made to complete a project on time. He said did not even get a thankyou. His initial response was there was just no time in the day.
We explored it further and he said like a family some things are passed on and other things aren’t. Acknowledgment was not really something that was passed on by superiors to employees and so employees did not pass it on either. I asked him how much more time would it take to thank someone personally than write an email? I asked him how much time would it take when having a coffee meeting to stop and genuinely thank someone as appropriate? I asked him, as a leader would he like to see this changed? He said he would and I said well, why couldn’t it start with him?
The good news was at our next session he said he took his team leader for coffee as a personal thankyou for all his hard work and achieving the project on time. He was humbled by the team leaders response and truly understood the power of genuine acknowledgement.
One client said to me recently, as we discussed the topic as well, this is not rocket science Jenny it is obvious it is a basic human need. It is just until it is pointed out to you, you forget or it passes you by as you get caught up in your day-to-day activities.
And that is what it is, in our fast paced world as we juggle our lives I believe it’s important we take time to get back to basics, be thoughtful about the “little things” and to remember the big A word “acknowledgement”. Perhaps it is these “little things” that may contribute more to employee engagement than we recognise and may help reduce the epidemic of disengaged employees.
