The Personal Touch: Enhancing Reward and Recognition Strategies

The Hedonic Drift post hit home for a lot of people because we all know that experience of "but I did a nice thing, and you didn't appreciate it!?!" and how deflating and demoralising that can be.

I get it. Definitely been there! I remember one Tech Week spending about 6 hours in my own time at home making an awesome lunch for the team thinking that effort matters more than buying them another pizza lunch. And then I heard on the grapevine that they thought I'd "been cheap" not even buying them lunch...

Finding R&R that helps them feel valued AND doesn't make you feel insane, is the aim here.

So other than keeping hedonic drift in mind, and applying a bit of Marie Kondo 'does it spark joy', my next recommendation is: is it PERSONAL?

This comes from two angles - firstly, do they actually feel seen as a human being and secondly, do they feel seen for the thing they've done. I'll cover the first aspect in this post.

Anyone here relate to getting The Body Shop gifts for your birthday, from that friend that you try to stay friends with but never really do more than superficial talk with?

Does it make you feel SEEN? Like "wow, they get me!"? Probs not, huh?

This is the aim of making people feel valued. It's ensuring they feel seen as a human being, not a number. So your $100 generic gift voucher that gets given out for the monthly Employee of the Month, or the $50 grocery voucher to say thanks for helping? That's the same as the Body Shop birthday present - it signals "I got you something generic because I know nothing about you"

That means you actually have to know stuff about your staff. It means you have to ask stuff. Kids name, obviously. Pet's origin story. Mother-in-law's visit dates. Big trips coming up. Music taste. Wednesday motor cross hobby. Anything that you can either remember to ask about later, or can reference back to when you need to make them feel valued and recognised.

A team I led a few years back had a $200 gift voucher for their monthly staff of the month (I have thoughts on this too for another post), which I immediately removed. Instead, one month I bought a staff member tickets to a Pink concert, as I knew she'd missed out. I bought another person a spa day to recover from a breakup. We paid for a babysitter so someone could go to a colleagues wedding. We arranged a nanny for someone's trip to Bali.

Dollar value is nice. Groceries are helpful. But feeling SEEN? That is immeasurably valuable.

This is mostly all any of us want in life; to feel seen.

And that's where we start feeling recognised.

Need help making sure your strategy encompasses personal reward and recognition? Reach out to me today to chat!