How to Increase Recognition in Your Workplace

People who receive recognition in their workplace are 45% less likely to leave their job.  

Employee recognition is a powerful driver of engagement, productivity, and retention. Yet, many organizations struggle with making recognition an everyday practice rather than an occasional event.  

The key to success? Seamlessly embedding recognition into your workplace culture through manager training and enablement, finding the right tools, and making recognition easy and accessible.  

Here’s how organizations can make recognition a daily habit, and why it matters.

Why daily recognition matters

Recognition isn’t just about celebrating major milestones; it’s about fostering a culture where employees feel valued every day. When recognition becomes routine, it helps to:

• Boost morale: Employees who feel appreciated are more motivated and engaged.

• Enhance productivity: Recognition reinforces positive behaviors, encouraging employees to perform at their best.

• Reduce turnover: A culture of appreciation leads to higher job satisfaction and lower attrition rates.

• Strengthen company culture: Daily recognition fosters collaboration, trust, and a sense of belonging.

5 tips to incorporate recognition into your everyday workflows

Colleen Barrett from Southwest Airlines was known for her famous ‘thank-you’ notes to her colleagues. CEO, Gary Kelly, noticed this gesture was making an impact in his teams – but was there a way so everyone could get a ‘thank-you’ note?  

Southwest had always championed an exceptional customer experience and realized this same dedication needed to be implemented into its employee experience. Colleen’s act of recognition is what led to SWAG (Southwest Airlines Gratitude) program in 2013.

A simple ‘thank-you’ can make a difference – the challenge is making even the smallest recognition a daily habit. A good start is to incorporate recognition into your everyday workflows:

1. Schedule time to recognize

Not all recognition needs to be grand or formal. Small, consistent gestures go a long way in making employees feel valued. Schedule weekly reminders in your calendar to make time to recognize your team for their contributions.

2. Set goals and objectives

Set recognition goals for yourself to help you build a consistent habit of recognition. A good benchmark is two recognition messages per employee, per month.

3. Enable your managers

Managers set the tone for workplace culture. When leaders prioritize recognition, employees follow suit. Encourage your managers and leaders to regularly recognize their team and highlight behavior that supports core values. Provide training to ensure managers:

• Understand the impact of recognition on engagement and retention.

• Learn how to give specific, timely, and meaningful praise.

• Incorporate recognition into one-on-ones and team meetings.

Download our Leader’s Guide to Recognition to get actionable steps on how your leaders can lead by example and boost their team’s productivity and performance through the power of recognition.

4. Make it timely and meaningful

Never hesitate to send recognition – no one appreciates being recognized for work they did a month ago. When recognition is timely and meaningful, it has the most impact on your team.  

5. Use a recognition platform

A structured recognition program, like Kudos, ensures that recognition is continuous but also systemized and scalable. Kudos allows employees to recognize peers in real-time and can be integrated easily into the systems your team is already using.

Recognition must be easy and accessible  

Making recognition a daily habit requires intention, consistency, and the right tools. Recognition must be encouraged and seen throughout all levels of your organization, but most importantly – it should be easy and accessible for everyone.  

How to make recognition more seamless:

• Integrate with existing workflows: Embedding recognition into platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or communication systems makes it easy to acknowledge colleagues without disrupting daily tasks.

• Eliminate bureaucratic barriers: Avoid long approval processes for recognition. Recognizing someone for their work shouldn’t need any approvals.  

• Utilize digital tools: Employees should be able to give recognition anytime, anywhere, whether they’re working from home or in-office.  

• Encourage on-the-spot recognition: Train managers and employees to recognize achievements as they happen, rather than waiting for formal reviews.

Leave behind the manual recognition process  

When recognition is left to manual efforts, it can be time-consuming, prone to delays, an administrative burden and doesn’t contribute to organizational goals.

While the effort has good intentions, these outdated processes diminish the impact, are inconsistent and often fail to impact all employees across the organization.  

Finding a solution to upgrade your manual processes is not just beneficial but essential for making recognition easier and more accessible.  

Recognize what matters

Reflective recognition is an approach to recognition where leaders empower their team members to share what they are proud of and why. When employees reflect on their own achievements and how they’ve overcome challenges, they’re more motivated to continue that progress towards goals. Getting recognition for the work they’re most proud always goes a long way.

Try this reflective recognition exercise:  

1. During your regular one-to-ones, ask what they’ve been working on that they’re most proud of.  

2. Encourage positivity and draw the attention to their own effort and progress; ask them how they made their achievement happen.  

3. Then reflect back to them what you heard and reiterate to them how great they’ve been doing, and their hard work has not gone unnoticed.

Reinforcing the behaviors that make an impact

Building a culture of recognition requires recognition to be embedded in every journey of your employee experience. From onboarding to a final farewell, your people should understand the impact they make and the value they bring to your organization.  

Whether it’s celebrating a milestone, acknowledging safe work practices, or spotlighting exceptional teamwork, employee recognition ensures that efforts are aligned with your organization’s goals. And as a result, you’re not just recognizing great work, you’re reinforcing the very actions that drive success.