Steve's Safety Minute
#3
To Touch the Heart... Use the Heart
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It's important, when designing an incentive and recognition program to remember that it's not the size or nature of the reward that's most important. The big secret to effective recognition is to recognize in the most effective manner.
Recognition need not be formal and fancy, and if you really understand the underlying psychological principles, you'll not depend on policy-driven strategies. To be most effective, recognition should come from the heart. A management policy won't affect the heart like sincere heart-driven leadership. When you genuinely appreciate good work, let your employees know.
For instance, many organizations manage an "Employee of the Month," program. It's policy driven. On a given month, emails are sent reminding everyone to submit nominations. Why? Well, because that's what the policy says to do. Most of the time, you've got to pull teeth to get nominations (unless you've built a reward in submitting nominations). Once the nominations have been received, a "committee" reviews them and somehow (it's usually not clear) picks the winner. What do you end up with? One winner, many losers! Does this program do what you want it to? Not really. It doesn't raise morale, productivity, quality, or efficiency when you tell everyone they're, one way or another, losers.
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The point: In the example above the heart is not involved at any point in the process. All activities and outcomes are the result of a policy. If the policy didn't exist, the activities and recognition would not occur. When the heart is at the center of recognition, it happens naturally, and when people are aware, regularly. Listen to Steve's short sermon on emphasizing this point.
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