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This past Tuesday I attended the Women’s Business Connections networking meeting in Orleans, Ontario. This group has been a wonderful tool and a large part of my business for many years now and I always seem to learn something new with each meeting. This week we invited Michael J. Hughes, Canada’s Networking Guru, to be our guest speaker and I definitely took away more than I had expected.
After being introduced, Mr. Hughes asked for all of the past presidents of the group who were in attendance to Recognition as Incentive please stand and be recognized. Seven past presidents, including myself, stood. As I stood there, I began thinking about how great it feels to be recognized. I thought about how it is often the little pat on the back or other form of appreciation that truly makes my day, whether it be in my personal or business life. Then, today, I came across an article on Forbes.com by Eric Mosley discussing the effects of Incentives Vs. Recognition in the workplace. In this article Mosley discusses the power of recognition and how it often gets more results than bonuses do: “Many CEOs I speak with believe cash is king, but that certainly isn’t always true. Yes, money is the currency of compensation, but it is typically far less effective as the currency of motivation or recognition.”
I did a bit more research on this topic and found through Workplace Magazine, a Canadian HR resource, that, “Most companies spend a large portion of their human resource budget on years of service programs because they want the reward to be valuable and well-received. What companies need to realize is that it’s not the amount of money that is spent but the recognition the employee receives. Recognition is what makes people feel valued, and an employee who feels valued is more likely to be motivated and become engaged.”
This need for recognition isn’t limited to the Canadian business world either. From allaboutbusiness.com: “According to the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics, the number one reason people leave their jobs is that they ‘don’t feel appreciated.’ Numerous other studies have polled employees and found that recognition and ‘feeling valued’ often rank above pay.”
As amazing as it may seem, compensation isn’t always the best way to motivate people. The best motivator seems to be a little bit of appreciation and recognition (especially public). So, make sure that you are taking the time to recognize those around you who have given you a helping hand, referred business to you, said something that inspired you or are simply important to you. You may be surprised by the reciprocation and by the doors that it can open up for you.
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