PRAISE with STORY: A Practical Guide to Effective Recognition
A practical model for crafting impactful recognition message
In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing work environment, recognizing and appreciating employees has become more important. Employee recognition not only fosters a positive work culture but also helps to increase productivity and engagement.
We value our employees and believe in recognizing their contributions and accomplishments. And how we craft the recognition message is crucial to ensure maximum impact from the recognition. Ensuring that recognition is delivered in a meaningful and impactful way is important to inspire continued excellence and motivate employees to do their best work.
This article will provide guidelines for creating effective recognition messages using our PRAISE with STORY model. By following these guidelines, we can ensure that our recognition messages are well-crafted and positively impact employee morale and engagement.
PRAISE represents the key attributes your recognition message should include, with each letter standing for an important aspect of effective recognition. The more of these attributes you incorporate into your message, the stronger and more impactful it will be. Specifically, your message should be Prompt, Relevant, Aspirational, Inclusive, Specific, and Empowering.
STORY provides a framework for structuring your recognition message in an engaging and impactful way. To tell a compelling story, your message should follow the five components of the STORY model in the order of Situation, Trouble, Overcome, Results, and Yield.
PRAISE
Prompt, Relevant, Aspirational, Inclusive, Specific, Empowering
The truly effective recognition message must be prompt and timely to have an immediate impact. It must be relevant to the specific situation and context at hand. Additionally, it should be aspirational, inspiring the employee to continue to go above and beyond, and inclusive, acknowledging their unique strengths and contributions. It must also be specific, highlighting exactly what they did to deserve recognition, and empowering, instilling a sense of pride and ownership in their work.
Prompt
Recognize the achieved outcome and do it immediately after the behavior or action occurs. Delayed recognition may not have the same impact. The individual may not remember the specific action or behavior being recognized and may even feel that the recognition is insincere or irrelevant.
Relevant
Recognize the employee’s unique contributions, strengths, and goals. Recognize for going above and beyond, not for things expected for their grade level. Ensure that your recognition demonstrates the contributions’ impact on the organization, team, or project. It shows that the employee’s work is valued and appreciated.
Aspirational
Recognize the employee’s strengths and how they have used them to achieve success. This helps to reinforce positive behavior and encourages the employee to continue to use their strengths to make valuable contributions.
Inclusive
Ensure your recognition is inclusive and recognizes employees from all backgrounds and levels within the organization. This helps to create a culture of appreciation and recognition for all employees. When recognizing an employee publicly, consider how other employees will look at this.
Specific
Be clear about the behavior, action, or outcome that the employee demonstrated. It helps employees understand what they did well and why they got recognition. Ensure your recognition is genuine and comes from your heart and mind. Employees can often tell when recognition is not genuine, so be authentic.
Empowering
Recognize the employee’s potential for growth and development. This helps to motivate the employee to continue to improve and strive for excellence.
STORY
Situation, Trouble, Overcome, Results, Yield
A well-structured recognition message resembles a story (a situation, trouble, overcome, result, yield), where you set the scene by describing a situation your employee faced trouble and detail how they overcame the difficulty to deliver results that yielded impactful outcomes.
Situation
Start by providing context about the situation, such as the project or task the employee was working on. Use hooks and attention-grabbing openings to set the stage for the employee’s achievement or behavior.
Trouble
Describe the problem or challenge the employee faced in the situation. Describe the problem so that everybody understands it was a truly challenging situation.
Overcome
Highlight the employee’s actions and behaviors that allowed them to overcome the challenge and achieve success. Be specific about what the employee did and how it helped the team or organization.
Results
Share the positive outcome of the employee’s actions, such as increased productivity or improved customer satisfaction; try providing numbers or some measurable results.
Yield
Finally, explain how the employee’s actions made a meaningful impact on the team, organization, or customers. This is where you can emphasize the employee’s strengths and how they contributed to the success of the project or task.
Examples of common mistakes
Example 1
I would like to recognize Sarah for her exceptional customer service skills. She consistently goes above and beyond to ensure our customers are satisfied and has received numerous positive reviews. Her commitment to customer satisfaction is remarkable and greatly appreciated by our team and customers.
There is no clear outcome for which Sarah was recognized. Probably there are a couple of more coworkers who could be recognized for the same.
Example 2
I am extremely impressed with the leadership skills that Peter has demonstrated. He has taken on multiple projects and has shown exceptional communication and collaboration skills while managing his team. His dedication to his work and team is truly inspiring, and he has set a positive example for others.
Isn’t this what every manager should do?
Example 3
I recognize Mike (senior engineer) for demonstrating a strong commitment and the company value while working on the Project. He was involved and was a key member during the Project. Mike developed a unique approach that solves a problem for our client. He also owns the quality and makes changes to align with current business needs.
The only specific portion of this recognition is the “Mike developed a unique approach that solves a problem for our client,” but it is sugarcoated with a lot of generic recognition that it is very difficult to understand what is the reason for recognizing Mike.
Effective recognition examples
Good example 1
Exceptional project management is like this! Recently Jane was leading a complex project X, and we had huge challenges with the supply chain. Jane was tracking all deliverables and identified that we would be having problems. Her excellent communication and leadership skills allowed her to communicate issues timely and find solutions. Her attention to detail and ability to keep the team on track resulted in a high-quality product that exceeded our client’s expectations. As a result, our client was happy and accepted our great work.
Good example 2
I want to thank Jack for demonstrating our company values. Everybody knows how important efficiency is for us, especially in this market situation where you are out if you are not an efficient start-up. Jack identified a bottleneck in our workflow that was technically very difficult to overcome. But he worked with the team to implement a new process that has significantly reduced turnaround times by X%. His willingness to take the initiative and find solutions has impacted our team’s productivity.
Good example 3
Our company faced a tough year due to the pandemic, and our sales team struggled to meet its targets. Sarah had a hard time adjusting to the new virtual sales environment. She felt that connecting with clients via phone or video conferencing was more challenging, and her confidence had taken a hit. Despite these challenges, Sarah didn’t give up. She asked for feedback from her colleagues, attended training sessions to improve her virtual selling skills, and experimented with new approaches to build stronger relationships with her clients. All her hard work paid off, and she managed to secure several key accounts that helped the sales team exceed their targets for the quarter. Her dedication and persistence were instrumental in the team’s success.
Summary
Use PRAISE with STORY model to craft effective and impactful employee recognition messages.
PRAISE represents the key attributes your recognition message should include, with each letter standing for an important aspect of effective recognition. The more of these attributes you incorporate into your message, the stronger and more impactful it will be. Specifically, your message should be Prompt, Relevant, Aspirational, Inclusive, Specific, and Empowering.
STORY provides a framework for structuring your recognition message in an engaging and impactful way. To tell a compelling story, your message should follow the five components of the STORY model in the order of Situation, Trouble, Overcome, Results, and Yield.
