When WFH employees can share their successes beyond their teams and the companies they work for, they get motivated to perform even better. Gal Rimon, Centrical's Founder & CEO, offers his thoughts in this post on why it works and how it can happen at your business.
The recent rapid rise of workplace flexibility has made the need for ongoing efforts to acknowledge outstanding employee performance greater than ever. Especially among those working from home.
The value of employee recognition has been well-documented. For example, Gallup recently observed that “workplace recognition motivates, provides a sense of accomplishment, and makes employees feel valued for their work. Recognition not only boosts individual employee engagement, but it also has been found to increase productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to higher retention.”
But what about recognition of the employee by the employee?
The company I lead, Centrical, is all about making employees the center of business success. We help large companies help their employees perform their best with our employee-centric success platform. It holistically blends the elements of engagement, training, performance, coaching, and wellbeing.
Utilizing advanced gamification, challenges are presented to employees who use the platform. When they complete a challenge successfully, a digital badge is awarded as recognition of their accomplishment. Our platform lets those employees share their achievements with team members, across the company. It’s really something to witness. There’s an energy created, prompting others to seek challenges and gain their own badges. In the process, performance, overall, ramps up.
One thing that’s become clear as employees of our customers continue to work from home, physically separated from team members and others in their organizations. They want to be able to celebrate their wins beyond the digital walls of their companies. To let their entire personal/professional eco-system know of what they’ve done and why they feel great about it.
Not going into the office means employees who took a train to work can’t share with fellow commuters what they did to earn their latest badge.
Yes, it is self-congratulatory. It’s about “me.” But that’s not a bad thing in these stressful and uncertain times. It’s an amazing self-motivator that amplifies the positive effect of recognition directed to that same employee by the company. It’s more than okay to encourage employees to celebrate. To say to any and all: “Look what I did!”
So, Centrical did something about that. We expanded the ability of employees to socialize their badge wins with their team or their company to their social networks – right from their Centrical dashboard, on the desktop or mobile device.
It’s a feature we call Sharing Success. From the user interface an employee can post news of their latest triumph on social platforms like LinkedIn. An image of the badge and a brief message from the employee as well as their company’s logo appears on the social platform at the same time the celebratory post is made internally.
It’s something employees can do on their own. To make themselves feel better about what they’re doing and, in particular, how well. Imagine employees who WFH getting notified that they completed a challenge and gained another badge as a result. Instead of waiting for their manager to spread the news at the next team Zoom call, they can tell everyone in their world, literally, what happened and how great it makes them feel – immediately.
Self-recognition is a powerful motivator. And, as Gallup suggests, motivated employees are more focused and more productive. Helping your company succeed.