Misunderstood – The Importance of Employee Recognition
I have the pleasure of teaching a variety of Human Resources Management courses in the School of Tourism, Hospitality & Culinary Arts. A common misunderstanding that students have is underestimating the power of positive and regular Employee Recognition.
I chose the picture from unshared where I found many wonderful options. This represents how employees feel when their managers do not give them regular and meaningful recognition or when they only hear from their manager when it is for negative reasons.
When I poll and survey classes with options of top motivators for employees, money and promotions are often at the top of their selections. Through sharing relevant research and in group discussions I try to emphasize that it is often much simpler, positive actions of their managers that are more important to overall employee engagement. I use real life examples of empathy and compassion that employees may experience from supportive managers to illustrate this further.
In teams I have students outline behaviours that they have experienced or witnessed from their managers, coaches, teachers etc. that were both positive and negative then discuss how that made them feel. Creating some visuals also assists the employees to identify these behaviors and feelings and draws on their prior experiences. We then use these pictograms to relate to their future management roles and how they can apply the positive practices and minimize the negative behaviours.
Each time I do this exercise with students I am heartened to hear their desire to become positive and caring hospitality leaders of the future. If you have any tips or recommendations I welcome your feedback on this post.
Thank you.
Anne
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Example for "Misunderstood – The Importance of Employee Recognition":
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Lindsay Woodside
Anne, I applaud your deep dive here into peeling back the importance of regular and timely feedback. I think your Teams activity sounds great – and it likely resonates well with your students!