Social recognition is a key factor for motivation in the digital age workplace. How can your employee rewards programme take advantage of the phenomenon?
If the transition to the digital age has taught us anything, it's that humans are intensely social animals. We search out validation from peers and share that recognition of our skills and achievements across an array of social channels.
Whether on networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn or within our workplace, celebrating the success of others and, in turn, having our own successes celebrated is a huge part of the modern office environment. With over 2.3 billion people active on social media according to Smart Insights, our personal milestones can have undeniable reach.
What if you could incorporate that positive energy into your employee rewards and recognition programme? Imagine a system that allowed you to broadcast employee achievement to those people who will appreciate it the most.
Why social recognition matters
Studies conducted into the benefits of publicly acknowledging the achievements of your workforce show that it doesn't just offer warm feelings; it can legitimately improve their performance. A survey conducted by Gallup found that employees who receive regular recognition not only displayed increased productivity, but also boosted their engagement with colleagues, had better safety records on the job and were more likely to stay with their organisation.
The nature of the modern workplace means it's not unusual for people to be based in multiple locations rather than in a centralised office. Having a social recognition programme in place where all members of the organisation can instantly see, endorse and comment upon the achievements of their peers can rapidly improve engagement and job satisfaction. In a world where 'likes' on social media are at a premium, translating a similar system to employee recognition is a natural fit.
Each positive post can scatter its goodwill across the network as a whole.
Learning from social media
A study from the University of California looked closer into how a person's positive and negative posts on social media affect others in their network and yielded some surprising results. The research suggests that "emotions themselves might ripple through social networks to generate large-scale synchrony that gives rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals," meaning that each positive post can scatter its goodwill across the network as a whole.
From an employee rewards programme point of view, consider how public acknowledgement of one individual's success might impact the organisation, encouraging others to emulate that success and reap the same positive reinforcement.
Power2Motivate's performance-based employee rewards platform features a rewards news stream, as well as a virtual badge and trophy case for displaying past achievements. Allowing your workforce to receive recognition and celebrate with colleagues can have far-reaching impacts across your organisation, so talk to us today.