Once upon a time

Last evening I was sitting in a bar sipping a few handcrafted beers at Bangalore's new microbrewery Toit in Indranagar. Right next to my table was a large group of employees from Intuit enjoying a company outing. I happened to see one of my high school buddies (after 15 or so years) and we exchanged hugs and numbers.

As the beers went down, this friend of mine was narrating a Recognition story - I overheard it (was too close to their table).

While in college, this friend of mine was a computer whiz. About 15 individuals who were giving their Chartered Accountancy (CA) exams were baffled by the introduction of a computer science test as part of their CA exams. They approached a professor at the college for help and the professor connected them with this young friend of mine, who was at home on a summer break from college. He helped them with the exams and all the 15 folks cleared the bar. The day after the results were announced, all the 15 individuals came to their young tutor's house with a gift.

This friend of mine, who is now a accomplished software project lead at Intuit today with over 15 years of global corporate work experience in blue chip companies was narrating this story as one of the greatest Recognitions he has received till date. Why?

It is apparent that the genuine, spontaneous nature of the gift giving exercise and the physical involvement of all the 15 individuals is the reason for this. The guy was narrating about the gift he had got, it was all about the Recognition.

An Award is meaningless without a monetary component. Really? What about the Oscar Awards then?

While all of us are watching the 84th Academy Awards roll-out, did you know that there is no "Monetary" award for the Oscar winners. All they get is the statuette. All the other benefits are indirect - global recognition, potential contracts, endorsements etc. Despite this, the Oscar awards are the pinnacle of Recognition in the movie industry, which everyone in the movie industry aspires for.

There are several lessons for corporates from this:

1) The premier awards in your organization do not need to have a large monetary component, if you are able to execute the Recognition process well. Over a period of time, the awards will be so aspirational, that no one will worry about the lack of a monetary component.

2) You get an opportunity to recognize the top few (nominees) while differentiating the best with just a statuette. This way the Recognition covers a larger employee pool.

3) Chances are, all your top performers are already making reasonable money and their careers are flourishing with promotions, investments in training etc. So in some ways, what they yearn for is "Real Recognition" for their high levels of performance.

4) You can use the event to bring out hidden talents in your employees - in terms of anchors, performers etc. If you search hard enough, you should be able to find enough youngsters who can pull off the event with passion.

The key is for the top management to believe that "Pure Recognition" will work and make the necessary investments to create a legacy program that will take a few years to flourish and create the necessary interest from employees.

Structured Recognition Programs in India - Summary

This was an article featured in the Feb issue of People Matters magazine (www.peoplematters.in) - http://peoplematters.in/articles/focus-areas-13/managing-and-rewarding-performance/rewards-special-structured-recognition-programs

Rewards Special: Structured Recognition Programs

Feb 9th 2012
By Jayanth Narayanan, VP & Managing Director, Asia Pacific Operations at Rideau Recognition Solutions

India is beginning to evolve in the space of employee recognition. Recognition is still clubbed with rewards and is an “Act of Faith”, a “Nice Thing to Do” in most companies. The largest companies in India are now beginning to design and implement a very structured recognition program. A few of them are pioneering the use of employee recognition to drive behaviors and achieve measurable business results. We expect this evolution to take at least another 6-10 years.

Most companies are using points as the preferred award currency i.e. every time an employee gets recognized, he/she gets points credited to his/her account, instead of a reward product. The employee then accumulates these points over a period of time and can redeem the points for merchandise from an independent catalog. Points have become the preferred currency, as it delinks the recognition from the rewards products and allows employees to choose gifts that they want. It also allows companies to manage their recognition budgets better, by assigning an appropriate rupee value to a point depending on the overall budget available in a year. This way, the recognition program stays constant and the spending can vary.

There are three categories of service providers in this space:

The first category is that of the rewards products providers – companies that provide gifts, certificates, etc. Companies in this space include Accor, Giftlinks, eYantra and several merchandise and gift product providers.

The second category is of those who offer a technology platform – a web-based solution using which managers can recognize and reward employees in a self-service model. The budget and the business rules governing the recognition system are built into the system avoiding the need for approvals every time a manager wants to recognize an employee. There are companies that sell this software on a SaaS (Software as a Service) model, where companies pay a very low monthly user fee with no capital expenditure. Companies in this space include QuadMo, BenefitsPLUS, RewardPort, etc. Many of these companies also provide a catalog of products for their clients to use. Some of the larger merchandise and gifting companies now offer a platform as a value addition. The technology platforms also offer a “Facebook” style portal to share and communicate recognition stories across the organizations. There are a few companies, such as TriggerO, which focus on only this component called as “Social Recognition”.

The third category is of the global recognition providers, like Rideau, who focus on helping clients achieve targeted business results using recognition, by identifying the behaviors to be impacted, designing a suitable recognition program, using a technology platform to implement the program and analyzing the data to monitor the progress and impact of the recognition initiative.

These companies price their services according to the impact the recognition program has on the desired business parameters. For example, if a company is looking at targeting better retention, a specific recognition program is designed, which focuses on enhancing the manager-employee relationship. It is a known fact that the manager-employee relationship has the single biggest impact on retention. Specific recognition initiatives include Service Milestone awards, extensive Spot Awards and unit/department level programs, rather than corporate wide programs. In the coming year, a lot more companies will spend money on Recognition & Rewards programs (1-2% of their annual payroll) and in 2-3 years, we can expect almost all companies to have internal rewards and recognition programs, with a technology platform in place.

Investing in Branding in a Recognition Program

It is absolutely critical to get the corporate communications folks involved with the Recognition program right at the beginning - at the conceptualization & design stage. Why do I say this?

The HR folks are more worried about the Program Structure, Administration Issues and Manager Training. But if the Recognition portal that is rolled out, the certificates that are issued from the program, and the cards (e-Cards, Thank You Cards, Birthday cards etc.) that the system sends out, do not appeal to the employees, the level of excitement that the program can create will diminish.

Whether we like it or not, while Recognition is important, it is not considered as being mission critical - i.e. missing a sales report is mission critical, while not thanking someone is now. This means that you cannot "PUSH" people to do Recognition. You can only educate them and create a "PULL" for them to use the Recognition portal and the tools available to do Recognition. Therefore, when they come to the portal, it should appeal to them. If they receive a "Thank You", they should feel good simply looking at the card and should want to send someone else a nicely designed "Thank You" Card. If they receive a certificate, they should feel like taking a colour print-out and showing it to their family and even display it in their work-desk.

All of the above means that you simply cannot compromise on the design quality and appeal of the employee facing components of the Recognition program - Portal design, User Interface, Design quality of cards, certificates. In addition, the designs should be aligned with the corporate brand - this is why it is critical to involve the corporate communications folks right at the beginning. First - they are the best equipped to figure out the alignment between the recognition program design and the various other communications initiatives in the organization. Second - they typically have a design firm on board who understands the company and can create design concepts that is aligned with the corporate brand.