Recognition Events

I had an interesting conversation with an ex-HR leader of a very large global company. He was telling me about how his company spent 40% of their India recognition budget in hiring a popular musician to do a concert at their annual awards event. He told me that in the past the participants were so bored with the presenter talking about the achievement of the employees being awarded, that the event was considered a painful experience by all the employees. In the last year, the event was a huge success because of the musician and the concert.
I found it very strange that he felt proud about using a “Distractor”- the musician, to turn the focus of the audience away from the employees who were being rewarded. In essence, the company did not know how to make the recognition event engaging for the audience and the recipients, and hence chose to convert the event into a music concert and then called it a grand success.
I don’t have a problem with companies making the awards night a grand event with popular stage performers/musicians, but the focus obviously needs to be around the award recipients and why they are being rewarded. Rather than make a mockery of the recognition event, the company should probably set up a young energetic group of volunteers to create and run the event. I am sure most large companies have enough young creative high energy employees who would love to coordinate an event, especially when it comes with a nice budget. Then the event would serve a dual purpose - focus on the recipients and provide employees an opportunity to exhibit their creative and stage skills.