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ContentsWelcome to a guide to recognition for hybrid teams Page 2
Hybrid working: The stats Page 3
Recognition: The stats Page 3
Hybrid recognition and social capital Page 4
How to foster social connectivity in a hybrid model Page 5
Hybrid recognition and psychological functioning Page 6
Hybrid recognition and community wellbeing Page 6
Remote recognition: The ups and downs Page 7
Your hybrid employee recognition platform: Scoping the requirements Page 8
A model for hybrid recognition Page 10
The future of recognition Page 11
How we can help Page 12
A guide to recognition for hybrid teamsHow to keep employees engaged and motivated, wherever they are
A Zellis Company
While the worst of the pandemic may be behind us, it’s clear that remote working – in some form or another – is here to stay. Organisations who have found themselves (willingly or otherwise) having to introduce a homeworking model have found that it works. As a result, according to the Office for National Statistics, there’s now a positive relationship between current remote working practices and future homeworking intentions.
Hybrid working has been shown to have tangible benefits for both employer and employee, but it also creates some new challenges. Employees are reporting a ‘recognition deficit’ caused by a combination of the need to receive more recognition
when working remotely and the perception among employees that they’re receiving less recognition than usual. The removal of everyday casual expressions of gratitude we experience when in the physical presence of our colleagues has created the need for new ways to thank, and be thanked, at work.
Keeping employees motivated and engaged in line with our new ways of working requires a different set of techniques. As organisations and society collectively reimagine work in a post-pandemic future, there is an opportunity for recognition and reward professionals to likewise reform their offering, and ensure their recognition strategies fit the model of today’s hybrid working world.
Welcome to your guide to recognition for hybrid teamsHow to keep employees engaged and motivated, wherever they are.
Gethin NadinDirector, Employee Wellbeing
2
The stats
Sources: The Office for National Statistics | LinkedIn’s Inside the Mind of Today’s Candidate | WorkHuman Research Institute
Hybrid working Recognition
60% of employees say being recognised gives them a sense of belonging
21% increase in sense of belonging when employees can recognise each other’s achievements
78% more likely to trust managers in organisations that foster recognition
The stats pack
3xincrease in online job adverts including terms related to ’homeworking’ in May 2021 compared to February 2020
85% of employees who are currently homeworking would like to retain some remote working
24% of businesses intend to increase homeworking
49% of the information and communication industry will keep some homeworking
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The stats
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Employers interested in building stronger, resilient, collaborative cultures while working remotely need to ensure employees aren’t disconnected.
Matt NathanielszProduct Manager, OneHub | Recognition
Hybrid recognition and social capitalLong before the pandemic, research confirmed that remote and flexible working is good for workplace culture.
When employees feel they work in a culture that fosters recognition, and where organisational values align with an individual’s own sense of purpose, they are twice as likely to feel that they can grow in that organisation. What’s more, they are more likely to report higher job satisfaction.
Giving and receiving recognition is recognised as an important part of positive psychology – the relatively new scientific field that looks at how our subjective experiences, individual traits, and life events combine to affect our happiness, contentment, and wellness. Apart from the proven effects of receiving recognition, feeling gratitude and actions
of reciprocity, there is good evidence that workplace recognition schemes also help us foster stronger social ties with those we work with: another contributing factor to wellbeing.
Employers interested in building stronger, resilient, collaborative cultures while working remotely need to ensure employees aren’t disconnected. Just as loneliness takes its toll on employee health, a lack of social capital appears to have a similar effect. Commercially speaking, strong social capital at work is a precursor to many common success metrics like productivity, innovation, and customer net promoter scores.
= As productive or more productive than pre-COVID-19 = Less productive than pre-COVID-19
Not satisfied with social connectivity
Satisfied with social connectivity
20%
63%
37%
80%
3.2X
Source: BCG study of12,000 employees, US results
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Social capital
How to foster social connectivity in a hybrid model While working from home, employees who report satisfaction with their social connectivity with colleagues are much more likely to have maintained or improved their productivity. This develops how we consider employee recognition – remote employee recognition suddenly has a much greater impact beyond the importance of saying ‘thank you’.
We already know that recognition at work doesn’t just make people feel happy; it causes a statistically and economically significant increase in performance. This means it’s important for employers to think about how they can ramp up their use of technology to recreate the connectivity of the spontaneous social gatherings and casual conversations that the physical workplace offers. In a hybrid workforce, this is how we will continue to foster the effects of successful recognition.
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Social capital
Hybrid recognition and psychological functioning
Psychological Functioning (definition): The ability to achieve an individual’s goals within themselves and the external environment. It includes an individual's behaviour, emotion, social skills, and overall mental health.
Hybrid recognition and community wellbeing
Our community wellbeing (also known as social wellbeing) relies heavily on the quality of social support we get from our colleagues and the extent to which we feel like we belong. Our emotional attachment to work is driven by how far we can participate, and if we feel that we have a voice and opinions which are listened to. A strong sense of community at work can be cultivated with a wider commitment to offering the tools that enable employees to experience positive, regular interactions with each other.
Studies that examined the effects of remote and flexible working before and during the pandemic found that one of the largest negative impacts was the increased isolation many employees felt. These findings also imply that isolation effects can be mitigated by increasing the emotional connection employees feel towards their colleagues. One of the most widely recognised effects employee recognition has had during the pandemic has been keeping remote colleagues connected; demonstrating just how powerful recognition can be when used within a hybrid workforce.
Recognition is a core part of offering an exceptional employee experience. The evidence is clear; when recognition schemes are offered to all types of workers, the impact on the positive
psychological functioning of employees and their team is huge. The effect, however is two times greater when the recognition is delivered by a peer instead of a manager.
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Social capital
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Remote recognition: The ups and downs
One-in-five British employees say they receive less recognition when working from home.
Three quarters of employees who work remotely say their experience at work would improve if they
received more appreciation and recognition.
Going up
Remote working has a positive influence on overall wellbeing.
Employees who are socially connected with their colleagues are much more likely to have maintained or improved their productivity during homeworking.
Going down
Employees say they need more recognition at work than they used to.
Only one-in-three global employees felt they were well recognised in 2020.
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Recognition ups and downs
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Your hybrid employee recognition platform: Scoping the requirementsHybrid working places new expectations on both employer and employee, meaning the relationship will inevitably change. Recognition strategies designed for a traditional office environment won’t cut it in the hybrid world; it’s time for organisations to review and redesign – but where do you start?
The most effective recognition strategies are ones that put the care and wellbeing of employees at their centre.
Gethin NadinDirector, Employee Wellbeing
1. Define your desired outcomesBe clear why you care about remote employee recognition and what you hope to achieve by investing in it. Ideally every individual recognition programme will align to a wider business strategy. For many employers, recognition schemes have become a way of tackling some of the organisational structure issues that contribute to poor employee wellbeing. Certainly, research shows, that the most effective recognition strategies are the ones that put the care and wellbeing of employees at their centre.
Employees crave belonging at work. They want to feel a part of the team and the organisation; they want to have purpose, and that becomes much more of a challenge for employers when their people are working in multiple locations. For remote recognition, the strategy needs to bridge the physical and cultural gap between employees and the workplace by enhancing purpose and belonging online.
2. Make it easyThe more difficult something is to do, the less likely we are to do it. Don’t make it hard work for employees to be acknowledged for their hard work. For example, one organisation we encountered required employees to collect a form from HR before completing and posting it back. The HR team then collated and shared a selection of the best at the end of the year – even an email version of this would be an arduous process, leaving employees waiting a year after their action before receiving any acknowledgement.
3. Make it quickWe can no longer rely on casual encounters in the office to relay our thanks to colleagues. If people are working at home, getting recognised soon after the event is crucial; in fact, 94% percent of managers agree that the timeliness of feedback is ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ important.
Instant feedback is an important part of how we learn. It improves our confidence and boosts our motivation. Reinforcing the right behaviour empowers employees to be more autonomous and self-directed. As more employees are working physically on their own, getting this kind of feedback instantly is incredibly important. A delay in recognising employees causes a loss in its intrinsic value, which gets worse over time.
What are your desired outcomes?
Communication and collaboration
Wellbeing Productivity Engagement
Social connectivity
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Your hybrid platform
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6. Audit your offline recognition processesIt’s time to focus on the day-to-day extraordinary efforts of the majority, rather than the every-so-often acknowledgement of the special few.
In other words, is it time to ditch the annual awards? There might be a good business case for it, but be clear what that is, and be certain it will bring people together, wherever they are.
7. Know how you’ll prove the impactSaying ‘thank you’ is an inherently good thing to do. We know that. But if you’re going to make the business case to the board, you need more than potential emoji and click numbers. You need to be able to prove not only the engagement, but the emotional impact.
You also need the ability to track the benefits of communication and collaboration networks across your organisation. So, head back to your original objectives and check you have an achievable success measure in place for each one.
5. Have a place for monetary rewardsThe results from more than 72 studies of employee recognition show that there are three prominent ways recognition can improve employee performance: money, feedback, and colleague appreciation. Individually each of these elements is likely to improve employee performance. Collectively they are even more effective.
That means your technology and your strategy need to account for monetary rewards – and these need to have the same properties as your wider recognition platform. They should be simple, instantaneous, meaningful, and accessible anywhere. If an employee gets a £100 reward that they can’t instantly use in a way that suits them, you immediately lose the positive effect.
Points-based cashback systems and paper vouchers are out, digital transactions that can be used anywhere, on any device, are in.
4. Keep it simpleRemote recognition should be instant, powerful, and easy to use. Elaborate recognition programmes, instigated from the top down, create barriers to acknowledging good work as it happens. A remote recognition platform should offer the same level of experience and social connectivity at work as a social media platform does in our personal lives.
Did you know?
Employees who are satisfied with the digital workplace tools designed to keep them connected at work are twice as likely to have maintained or improved their productivity on collaborative tasks.
Colleague appreciation
Receiving peer appreciation motivates employees and creates a reciprocal effect.
The three prominent ways recognition improves employee performance:
Money
Monetary rewards enhance employee’s discretionary effort.
Feedback
Feedback improves employee learning and clarifies goals.
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Your hybrid platform
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A model for hybrid recognition
Channel yMobile-first
yApp-based
yDesktop option
y Integrated into HCM/EXP technology
Type y Informal: Social, colleague-to-colleague, within and across teams.
y Formal: Nomination and selection-based, from specific criteria that match organisational goals.
Based on yMilestones: Used for marking stand-out dates, whether that’s the end of probation, the first 100 days, or a 20-year anniversary.
yBehaviours: Used to tie specific employee actions or results back to the values of the organisation.
Defining attributes y Linked to goals and values
y Timely
y Social
y Includes colleague appreciation
yMonetary and non-monetary rewards
y Specific feedback
Measurement y Emotional resonance
yCollaborative heatmaps
y Pulse surveys
Psychological drivers yReciprocity
yGratitude
Direct outcomes
yWellbeing
y Social connectivity
yCommunication and collaboration
Causal outcomes y Productivity
y Engagement
yCustomer success
1010
A model for hybrid recognition
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Organisations should be looking to establish systems of meaningful recognition: using tools to reach a disparate workforce and making recognition a norm in their workplace culture. Companies that want to continue to use recognition as part of their strategy to attract and retain top talent will have to innovate and ensure that their recognition strategies prioritise employee wellbeing and promote a sense of belonging.
Throughout the pandemic, multiple studies found that employee recognition was among the top effective workplace strategies that best supported employees. As many employers enter this period of organisational and economic recovery, getting employees onboard with your mission, and engaged with their work, will be crucial. Evidence shows us that employee recognition is the most important driver of great work and the strongest driver of employee engagement.
The challenges of a hybrid workforce mean we must find new and better ways to deliver these concepts of recognition digitally. A well-designed digital recognition programme ensures all of the benefits are delivered and measured consistently and effectively, no matter where an employee works. This new thinking pushes employee recognition platforms much higher up the CPO’s priority list.
A recognition platform is no longer a piece of technology to add to your stack, it should be considered a non-negotiable core part of your people strategy.
The future of recognitionOnce considered a ‘nice to have’ by organisations wanting to celebrate employee milestones or offer on-the-spot rewards, employee recognition technology has taken its place as one of the most vital elements of the modern employee experience. It’s equally clear that remote and hybrid working are here to stay, and with this comes an imperative for employers to ensure all employees feel connected to their company and to each other, regardless of where they are working.
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A model for hybrid recognition
Bring your values to life
Link recognitions with your company’s values and the behaviours that create a strong workplace culture.
See OneHub | Recognition in action
Support your employer brand
OneHub | Recognition can be customised to display your brand colours and company logo, so your people will have a joined-up experience with your other workplace technology.
Celebrate major milestones
Whether that’s the end of probation, the first 100 days, or a 20-year anniversary, milestones are fully-customisable, so your people get an extra-special personalised message and a fantastic feeling that they’re appreciated.
Improve communication and collaboration
Reach remote and global employees to say ‘thank you’ when it matters. Encourage collaboration between teams and locations.
Prove the impact
Go beyond clicks and likes to measure the emotional impact of reward and recognition on your people and use heatmaps to track successful collaboration networks across your organisation.
How we can help Recognition touches so many elements of the employee experience.It’s a huge part of your wellbeing strategy; it steers your communications, it’s the third arm of your rewards and benefits, and it can be the foundation on which you anchor your entire company culture.
Companies that use Benefex’s OneHub | Recognition platform have reported leaps in their employee engagement of up to 13%. That’s because our award-winning technology lets them harness the power of ‘thank you’…
Overcome the challenges of hybrid working, engage your people around the world, and measure the emotional impact with OneHub | Recognition
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How we can help
What hybrid workers say about OneHub | Recognition
In a day and age where social media is so widely used, I the way recognition works in a similar way. You get a great feeling when someone recognises you or likes one of your recognitions.
I’m in the habit of checking it every day, just to see if I’ve had any likes or comments, and to see who else has been recognised. It’s got everything that’s enjoyable about using normal social media.
I love the idea; I think it’s a hugely innovative way of recognising your colleagues for doing an amazing job! By harnessing social media, they’ve encouraged participation and sustained recognition at work.
When I see that notification pop-up on my phone that I have been recognised, my first thought is; WHAT MEME WILL IT BE?!
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How we can help
E: [email protected] | @hellobenefex | Benefex
