Recognition: Knowing What Employees Want

Incentives and Performance: Give your workforce credit and recognize their efforts—and watch performance levels soar. So indicates a new poll out by Maritz Incentives and Maritz Research. St. Louis-based Maritz says 55 percent of employees say their company’s recognition efforts have a direct bearing on individual job performance. Yet this appears to be an area in which companies may not be maximizing the potential of employee rewards, with only 43 percent believing they are “consistently recognized for their performance in ways that are meaningful,” according to the online poll of more than 1,000 randomly selected adults who work full time. Maritz also grouped reward preferences according to six different employee types: 1) award seekers, who want both money and trophies; 2) “nesters,” who shun travel-related rewards; 3) “bottom liners,” who care little for verbal or written praise but prefer cash and points programs; 4) “freedom yearners,” who prefer flexibility; 5) “praise cravers,” who will take any kind of recognition they can get; and 6) “upward movers,” described as the “most satisfied and committed” of all employees.