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Key Takeaways
- Recognizing employees enhances their performance and job satisfaction, and fosters a healthy and positive work environment.
- Taking an individual approach to giving praise is essential, by actively listening and recognizing individual needs to prioritize team wellbeing.
- Developing situational awareness for appropriate praise boosts team morale and enhances trusting interpersonal relationships.
Test Your Recognition Skills
Studies indicate that when managers recognize employees it significantly boosts their performance and job satisfaction. Celebrating and rewarding team efforts and skills contributes to a positive company culture.
We’ve used research from the Mindtools Impact and Insights Team to create an 11-question assessment tool, to help you assess how well you recognize your team.
Your Self-Assessment
Coming up are 11 questions that ask you about how well you give recognition. To answer them, consider your experiences over the past three months.
Be as honest with yourself as you can. There are no right or wrong responses, and you’ll have a chance to review and change your answers before you submit them.
Look at the statements below and choose how much you agree with each by selecting the most appropriate answer.
When you have completed the diagnostic, press “Calculate my total.”
Your Result
Take a few moments to reflect on your result. Does it surprise you or confirm what you already know? Now give yourself a few minutes to think about what you’d like to get out of this experience.
If your result indicates that you could give more recognition, you can first start by learning to notice and acknowledge the efforts of your team.
If you scored well, this resource will help you to make further improvements.
Let's Act
Having reflected on your score, pick one of the following areas to take action on in the next week or two:
- Take time to really notice the individual needs of the people in your team, and prioritize their wellbeing. (See questions 1 and 3.)
- Consider how often you acknowledge positive behaviors from team members, and identify more opportunities to do this. (See questions 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.)
- Identify and acknowledge instances when your team demonstrate quality and dedication. (See questions 9, 10 and 11.)
Take Your Learning Further
Recognize individual needs
Listening actively to your team is essential to be able to recognize and prioritize individual wellbeing. Giving this focused attention will help you to understand what your team need.
Notice quality, dedication and professionalism
Paying attention to how your team demonstrate these qualities will enable you to recognize what they are doing well, and where you can support them to develop further.
Know how and when to give praise
Praise can be given in a number of ways, and developing situational awareness of what type of praise is appropriate for the individual is key. With this in mind, you can offer positive feedback that is specific, timely and memorable.
