Recognition At Work... Your Thoughts...

[nuttylawprofessor]

I don't need recognition from my employer. I would be happy if they just let me do my job. I fully accept that teaching awards are political chits the deans and administration use to get votes and support for their own agenda. Whatever. I don't need sunshine blown up my butt, just don't poop on my head.

 

[Disney Ella]

Those employee of the month programs, certificates, etc. do nothing for me. Like others have said, a thank you from my boss is always good and I wouldn't turn down a bonus if it was actually offered at my office. It's also nice if your boss informs his/her boss of your contributions instead of taking all the credit when a project is successful.

 

[SOnotLayuh]

Recognition is definitely nice. It's something about the teaching profession that is almost non-existant! I'm not the type of person who feels that they need it, otherwise I wouldn't be able to teach.

Right now, since I'm an out of work teacher, I'm working as a statistician. The recognition sometimes throws me off guard, but it is nice. It's just little things like telling me I did a great job, or throwing a smiley face onto an email, but I like that

Bonuses would be nice though!

 

[nowellsl]

We have enough people at my job tooting their own horns we don't need bosses to do it

 

[golfgal]

If you work for a publicly held company a "bonus" shows up on the shareholder report in a negative way. Employee incentives show up in a positive way.

Dh's old company was very good about employee moral. They often brought lunch in for people, had special activities, etc. for employees but the favorite one was where employees could earn points for going above and beyond. If they got recognition from a customer that was worth however many points. A coworker's recognition was worth whatever points, etc. Each quarter they got to go "shopping" with these points (1 point=$1). They were treated to lunch while shopping and the quality of the restaurant depended on where they were according to plan. If they were a certain point above plan that shopping trip included a night in a hotel. Most people would earn $500 or so a quarter but many were earning over $1000. They usually scheduled one of the shopping trips in late November/Early Dec so people could go Christmas shopping with that money. This was for middle management and below.

The recognition slips were put in a box and could be confidential if you wanted. One of the managers tallied the slips.

 

[diznygirl]

I would tell him: bonus pay or an extra day off here and there.


We all occasionally need recognition. If your company is already doing it, then they probably don't need much more, and it may even annoy you. If you've ever worked for a company that gives no recognition, it's not very motivating.

Now that you mention it, this would be nice. I've noticed that no matter how hard you work, the boss still puts you through the grinder for daring to take time off for a doctor's appt, kid's school play, whatever. It would be nice to get that time off without the guilt, and maybe with a "Enjoy yourself. You deserve it!"

How about letting us leave early once in awhile? That was always a nice treat as well.

Oh, and I second the pony.

 

[perdidochas]

Now that you mention it, this would be nice. I've noticed that no matter how hard you work, the boss still puts you through the grinder for daring to take time off for a doctor's appt, kid's school play, whatever. It would be nice to get that time off without the guilt, and maybe with a "Enjoy yourself. You deserve it!"

How about letting us leave early once in awhile? That was always a nice treat as well.

Oh, and I second the pony.

Yep, I had a boss who let us out early every once in a while. It was very refreshing.

 

[SC Minnie]

When our dept was only 4 people we would have 'team meetings' at the local bar at 4:00 some Fridays.

 

[hopemax]

DH has a few problems with recognition at his job. It's a small internet based company. They have a sales team, customer service team, and a technology team. He is on the technology team, which is the smallest team of the three. At the end of the year, there are 4 cash awards which are voted on by all the employees to recognize who they think are most deserving. Voted on by the employees because the CEO thinks peer recognition is more important than management recognition. In the 3 years, DH has been there no one from the technology team has won. Which is really frustrating for the team, because they are the ones that get phone calls on weekends, and on vacation to come in and fix something. They are the ones that have to work overtime when 2 days before release someone from the other teams comes running to them because they messed up the specs and this one thing isn't listed, and it absolutely has to be there. They are tired of covering for everyone's mistakes and the expectation that they can just throw a bunch of stuff into the product last minute. It's a testament to how good of a team they are, that the people think they can just throw this stuff at them last minute and it gets done. And to add insult to injury, the people that do win these year end awards are the ones that are most prone to not having their specs right, and begging for last minute changes. The awards end up being more of a popularity contest, and for some reason 30 & 40 something computer geeks don't catch the attention of 25 year old sales and customer service reps.

Also, within the technology department. There is a development lead and a QA lead. DH is the QA lead. However, he only has one subordinate. As a result, most other people in the company treat him as subordinate to the development lead. And the development lead will sometimes say the team can do things, even when they are QA related issues, and he has no authority to do so. But it's seen as DH only has that one guy, and the other guy's got 7 people, so the other guy must be the leader. Unfortunately, even the CEO tends to think this.

Thankfully, DH's immediate boss is awesome. When she is not around, DH is the one she has handle the things that she would normally do. DH is the one she talks to when it comes to team issues, and is looking for advice. She just gave him extra time off for all the extra work he's had to do to bail out the marketing people. He just would like for someone other than her to say, "I recognize all that you do here, don't know what we'd do without you."

 

[tvguy]

We used to have an employee of the quarter and the prize was a $50 Target gift card, and a Christmas Party. When the economy tanked, those went away......as did 30% of our staff, we had to take furlough days, and then they cut our pay 5%. Apparently our old boss did not fight the cutbacks corporate wanted, other locations bosses did. We have a new boss for one of those other locations who is shocked at how deep the cuts were here.
So at Christmas the new boss brought back the Christmas party, everyone got an expensive gift ($150 value). New boss brought back the employee of the quarter, prize though is $500 now. Frankly, those forms of "recogniction" did more to boos morale than anything they could of done.
So yes, recongition is good, and yes I want it.