Why Recognition is a Strategic Investment

The Great Detachment is here, and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  

The ‘Great Detachment’, as it’s being coined, is a trend we’re seeing of chronically disengaged and burned-out employees. It’s no surprise that employee engagement keeps hitting ‘another record low’ year after year.  

In an unpredictable job market, people are afraid to leave their current roles. Due to this uncertainty, they stay but become increasingly detached from their work and their company culture.  

With an influx of disengaged employees – productivity, performance and innovation will plumet.  

This presents a major opportunity for organizations – how can we re-engage our teams and create thriving workplaces where employees can become culture champions?

It’s actually quite simple: strategic recognition. And we have the resources to prove it, so let’s dive in.

What is strategic recognition?

What gets recognized gets repeated.

Strategic recognition is a deliberate and structured approach to employee recognition that aligns with an organization’s goals, values, and business strategy.  

Unlike ad-hoc or traditional forms of recognition, strategic recognition focuses on reinforcing specific behaviors, achievements, and milestones that directly contribute to the company’s success.

Key elements of strategic recognition

Strategic recognition means moving past just the act of recognizing or encouraging recognition and integrating recognition as a key element of your business strategy.  

Here’s what strategic recognition looks like:

1. Alignment with company goals: recognition should be tied to organizational objectives, such as improving teamwork, driving innovation, or achieving revenue targets.

2. Reinforcing your core values: employees are recognized for demonstrating behaviors that reflect your company’s core values.

3. Staying consistent and inclusive: strategic recognition ensures recognition happens across all levels of the organization and is inclusive, making sure everyone feels valued, not just top performers or certain departments.

4. Being frequent and meaningful: recognition is given promptly and often, ensuring it remains relevant and impactful.

5. Using data-driven insights: many strategic recognition programs use platforms (like Kudos) to track and analyze recognition trends. This provides data on engagement levels and identifies areas for improvement.

Why should you invest in recognition?

Strategic recognition is a key solution to many challenges organizations are faced with today – it reduces turnover, helps drive organizational performance and improves business outcomes.

Key statistics for strategic recognition:

• In 2024, 42% of senior leaders surveyed strongly agreed in the value and impact of employee recognition. In 2022, from the same survey, that number was only 28%.

• Gallup’s 7 Workplace Challenges for 2025 puts recognition as one of the biggest manager blind spots, and a key growth opportunity is establishing a habit of meaningful recognition.  

• In 2024, 40% of employees said their organization has a recognition program. This is an increase from 34% in 2022.

• A 10,000-person organization with an already engaged workforce can save up to $16.1 million annually due to reduced employee turnover.

While these statistics look great in a presentation or on paper, many HR leaders or decision makers are struggling to shift the perspective from recognition as a ‘nice-to-have' to a critical business strategy.  

How can recognition align and support broader business objectives? Or more importantly, how can recognition help align your people with your business?

The business impact of recognition

Executive teams prioritize initiatives that impact revenue, productivity, and innovation. They want to see strategies that will move the needle. Here’s how to use your organizational data to help shift the perspective:

1. Link recognition to measurable business outcomes

Real-world examples resonate with decision-makers. Utilize case studies, global workplace reports and trends, and your competition that is successfully using recognition (because they most definitely are). Here are some resources to help you:  

• Investing in Recognition: Budgeting and Pitching an Employee Recognition Platform

• Winning Top Workplace Awards: How Recognition Platforms Help You Shine

• Calculating the ROI of Employee Recognition

2. Tie recognition to your company’s goals

Demonstrate where a recognition platform would fit in your organization and how it would support your company’s goals. Use real examples to show how recognition reinforces the behaviors that support your core values. Here are some resources to help you:  

• 6 Ways to Live by Your Organization's Core Values

• How to Lead by Your Core Values

• Corporate Transformations Culture Guide

3. Position recognition as a solution to challenges

Turnover, attracting talent, engagement, productivity and performance are all challenges that recognition can address. Your organization might also already be spending money on outdated or ineffective recognition initiatives that aren’t working. Here are some resources to help you:

• How Recognition Reduces Turnover  

• How to Improve Recognition Processes

• Using Company Swag to Enhance Employee Experience

• How to Improve Performance Through Recognition

Shifting the perspective of recognition as a “nice-to-have" to “driver of results”, is challenging, but can be done.  

Reframe recognition from simply being seen as employee appreciation to a behavioral reinforcement tool that helps shape a high-performance culture.  

Just like compensation, training and benefits.  

It should be a critical piece in your employee value proposition and embedded into your employee experience. Alesia Fesmire, Director of Talent Operations, from Relatient explains this well:

“Be diligent but patient. Recognition is a behavioral change that takes time for some to warm up to. Create campaigns that encourage early engagement and get leadership buy-in from the start.” – Alesia Fesmire, Director of Talent Operations, Relatient

When your people are recognized for the qualities that support your values and your purpose, that’s when they become more aligned with your business, and understand how their work is contributing.

Recognition as a driver for organizational change

Investing in recognition is investing in your people. Integrating recognition into your objectives means recognizing the behaviors that support your values and excels your business forward.  

Strategic recognition is not just about making employees feel good, it’s about driving meaningful business outcomes.  

The benchmark has been set – the leading companies around the globe are not preparing to show the world they care about their people; they’re already doing it. And the results are showing.