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Inspire Supervisors to Recognize their Teams

April 27, 2018

Earlier this week, Terryberry gave a webinar entitled “WOW Your Multi-Generational Workforce.”  (If you missed it, you can catch the recording here.)  We love the thought-provoking questions that are asked by attendees during webinars like this one.  In this week’s webinar, Becky asked a great question: “How do you inspire supervisors to understand and implement recognition basics.”  Getting managers and supervisors more involved and bought-in to the process of employee recognition is a topic that comes up frequently when organizations are working toward building a stronger culture of recognition.  We had some really nice dialog on the webinar and wanted to share some of the ideas with our readers.

Download 7 Strategies for Engaging Leaders with Recognition

A good place to start if you’re looking for a plan and some quick tips to engage leaders with recognition is Terryberry’s downloadable PDF 7 Strategies to Engage Leaders.
“Providing infrastructure, education and example is the best way that I’ve seen it successful,” said Mike Byam when addressing the question about how to encourage managers to implement recognition basics.  “And then ultimately, accountability helps to inspire that as well.”
Let’s break down Mike’s recommendations in further detail.

Provide Simple Infrastructure for Employee Recognition

As organizations grow beyond a handful of employees, effective infrastructure becomes essential to sustain a culture of recognition.  Organizations should provide tools that empower managers to give their employees with the recognition needed to thrive.  Giving recognition shouldn’t be complicated.  Consider tools that keep employee recognition top of mind and make it easy for your mangers.    There are many options available today for recognition infrastructure, from manager notifications for employee milestones, to points-based programs for instant recognition, and more options available all the time.
At Terryberry, our business is to help organizations design and implement infrastructure for employee recognition. So if you’re wondering where to start, connect with us; we’re ready to help.  Or check out Award Your Team, Terryberry’s module for manager-driven recognition.

Educate Managers to Effectively Recognize Staff

Some managers are naturally inclined toward showing appreciation and recognizing their staff for effort and contributions. Others might need more encouragement and training on why recognition is important and how to do it right.  Either way, it’s important to provide training on what tools your organization has available for managers to recognize their team members; and how to use them.
Need a little help?  Terryberry’s Recognition University is designed for this purpose, providing on-site training classes on why employee recognition is important and how to do it right.  Terryberry also offers tons of resources like this video on “What to say in an employee recognition speech.”
People learn by example, so a great way to educate managers on how to effectively recognize their staff is to demonstrate it through your own example.  When the top leadership is actively engaged in building a culture of employee recognition, their influence will likely spread throughout the organization.

Keep Managers Accountable for Recognizing their Teams

Accountability is an important part of encouraging managers to participate in giving employee recognition.  Some organizations survey employees to find out how teams feel about the recognition they receive, or lack thereof.   Using the analytics from your recognition platform can also be effective.  For some, it’s important to have benchmarks for how often recognition should be given, and how individual manger’s interactions align with the benchmarks.  Help managers understand how they are doing by providing access to reports on who they are recognizing, how they are recognize and how often.

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