Are you recognizing your employees?
I’m an avid fan of video games. A few years ago that would have made me a social outcast. But times they are a changin’ and video games have gone from obscure hobby to mainstream entertainment. Virtually (no pun intended) everyone plays a video game whether it’s World of Warcraft, the Wii, or on Facebook. When I play games I often feel compelled to chase after completely meaningless things. For instance I put in more hours than I’d care to admit into a game called Diablo 2 just to get rare armor so I could brag about it to my friends. Today I find myself playing games on my Xbox 360 hours after I finished the story just to collect “Xbox Achievements”, which are nothing more than meaningless merit badges.
Why do I do all that?
Recognition.
When you find rare armor, beat a difficult boss, or get the top score on solitaire you get recognized. It’s no different than trying to get the best marathon time, beat a personal record for cycling, or maintain that 240 bowling average. We push for these things because we get recognition for those achievements.
Recognition has always been important. But it’s becoming more important in our highly specialized, service oriented, possibly failing – recovering – failing economy. Most of us are create on demand professionals (people who make stuff out of nothing for a living, by a deadline) it can be difficult to have a sense of accomplishment. You don’t always get to pick up a tool or piece of food that you’ve helped create and say, “I did that”.
But recognition can fill that void. When we recognize our employees, we validate their efforts. And we find that they actually want to work harder, because they know someone cares.
We are all like that.
We all want someone to care about what we do.
If you are a boss, or even part of a team, you can help people grow just by recognizing what they do in a meaningful way. And when people feel recognized they will engage in ways you never thought possible. And isn’t that what we really want our employees to do?
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