The new clapping option on Medium is teaching us a lesson on LEADERSHIP
The importance of employee recognition
Medium recently released a new reaction button — 👏 “clapping”. The emoji has been around for a while, but what makes this option innovative is that you can give more than one clap to the same blog post.
But why would you recommend the same piece of content more than once?
Isn’t once good enough?
According to Medium, the logic behind it is to distinguish between the high quality content and the average work. You give more claps to the articles you appreciated more, just the way you would give a longer applaus to a remarkable performance.
While this is a very logical and straightforward explanation, I believe there is a bigger lesson to be grasped.
Applaud the work you love.
In a world of critics, skeptics, disbelievers, and unapologetic “know it all” personas, we MUST repeatedly acknowledge good behavior. We have to cheer for each other. And do it often.
Recognising someone for their hard work, time invested, and results achieved is not about being friendly or kind, it is about bringing the best in people. That’s what LEADERSHIP is all about.
Being able to recognize, thank, and acknowledge people for number of reasons in a multitude of ways, is a core leadership skill.
And it can do wonders for your company.
Employee recognition is a retention strategy
If you have ambitious, hard-working employees, wouldn’t be great if they stayed around for the next decade with the same enthusiasm as day one?
It is simple, find different ways to acknowledge them.
For managers, the first association with employees recognition is bonus and salary raises. While these play major role, it is not the only way to acknowledge hard work.
People really don’t work for money. They go to work for it, but once the salary has been established, their concern is appreciation. — Philip Crosby, international Quality expert
Make sure to provide clear goals and vision, especially employee’s role and ways of contribution towards that goal. Show them there is a specific place and plan for them within the company.
Take time to learn what your employees value, what they are struggling with, where they want to be in 3 to 5 years. Provide learning opportunities, develop knowledge sharing processes within the company.
Most importantly, keep your word. You promised to discuss future plans, do that. You scheduled a meeting, don’t keep your people waiting, they could have been doing something productive for your business instead.
A happy employee is a recognized employee. A recognized employee is a retained employee. — Cutting Edge PR
Employees recognition eliminates the blaming behavior
We are all witnessing the increasing competitive culture at work. Advocates for this type of “leadership” argue that healthy competition and positive criticism push people beyond their comfort zone resulting in higher performance. However, there is a thin line between healthy competition and blaming environment where people point fingers at each other, just to get some sort of acknowledgement.
What’s the catch?
You need to create an environment where people compete for a recognition of their own success and results, NOT for pointing out someone else’s mistakes.
Why this happens?
We are our own worst critics. Working day in-day out with no objective feedback whether we are doing any good initiates self-doubt and second guessing in one’s own ideas. This locks up the flow of creative initiatives and lowers motivation. In the end, desperate to get some sort of acknowledgment we start pointing out the missteps of others, just to show that we pay attention. We DO contribute. We matter.
How to avoid this?
Celebrate small wins.
When someone on the team makes a progress state that loud and clear, be specific about how that accelerates the project at hand, and most importantly affects the business end goal. More importantly, acknowledge the struggle.
Point out the good behavior that you want to see repeated.
The most effective acknowledgment you can give is day-to-day recognition. Credit employees for good performance on spot, for an ongoing project, when you greet them in the hallway.
Don’t wait for that review period or that annual celebratory party.
Remember, formal parties thrown by the management in recognition of pulling through a hard year can do very little if people felt disrespected throughout the year.
Acknowledgement is the foundation of employees’ engagement
When people feel acknowledge, they are more likely to speak out, help out their teammate, propose ways to do things better.
Acknowledged employees are engaged employees. Engaged employees are the company’s ambassadors.
The most effective business promotion is the one done by the employees. Word of mouth, social media sharing, taking pride in being part of an outstanding community.
People will do this if, and only if, they feel appreciated, respected and valued.
Recognize hard work more than once, it matters!
It matters to your friend struggling to follow the new healthy diet. It matters to your parents fighting to give you the best life they can. It matters to your colleagues trying to learn, implement, master a challenging task.
It matters to me writing this.
You don’t need to be a manager or a HR specialist to recognize a job well done. Compliment your teammates hard work, encourage the new intern, applaud the new initiative.
You don’t need a job title to be a leader.
Start today. Start now. Clap your hands.
