117: The Power of Recognition

1. Maintain a frequency of recognition. There are obviously so many things that we measure in business today, and we have to celebrate when we achieve it. Your employees probably want to see recognition across the organization, and it shouldn’t be limited to a single channel.

2. Make your recognition meaningful and timely. When you’re making recognition meaningful, you focus on making sure the words of appreciation are specific about the contribution. They’re also timely. The closer you are to say something when you see something the better.

3. Most organizations have something in place to recognize tenure. When we think about performance and incentive awards, these are great objective tools for recognition and acknowledging measurable contribution. These are programs you’re probably familiar with, such as milestone awards, sales  incentives, customer feedback and communication and safety award programs. If you’re a KPI driven organization, there are always ways to celebrate reaching and exceeding goals there.

Mike Byam:

The recognition is tied to really demonstrating an organizational value. So if you can have it timely, have it specific about a contribution and how it connects with that organizational value, it’ll be more meaningful. And so I think sometimes we say thank you, but it could be more impactful if you thank for something really specific as as close to the contribution as possible.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip, practical tool, and small step away from growing your business. One Next Step is brought to you by BELAY, the incredible 100% remote organization, revolutionizing productivity. With virtual assistance bookkeepers and social media managers accomplish more, juggle, less modern staffing from BELAY. And now to your hosts. 

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the practical business podcast that helps you run your business so it stops running you. I’m Ryan, and today our CEO here at BELAY, Tricia Sciortino is talking with Mike Byam, the chairman of the board at Terryberry. If you’re a leader who’s struggling to build consistent, high quality recognition into your interactions with your team, then this episode is for you. Terryberry specializes in employee recognition programs that help leaders celebrate achievements and show their team that they care. Mike is going to explain why recognition should play a vital role in any business, and he’ll dig into the specific types of recognition that your team members will value most. There’s so much to cover in this episode, so let’s jump right in.

Tricia Sciortino:

Oh gosh, thank you so much for spending time with us today, Mike. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Mike Byam:

Well, my pleasure. Excited to be here, and it’s just fun to be part of the terrific podcast you guys have developed.

Tricia Sciortino:

Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Typically, when we start these, I like to always ask kind of one fun or icebreaker type question. And since you kind of the guru of all things recognition over at Terrybery, I’d love to ask you, what is the best recognition you’ve ever received?

Mike Byam:

Ooh, that’s a good one. I think it’s a great question. In fact, I always tell people that I really prefer to be on the giving side of the recognition experience, and, and it’s not just because of the old saying, you know, it’s better to give than receive, but maybe it’s just being in the recognition industry for so long, or I’ve conditioned myself to give recognition as a natural response. But I’ve also been fortunate to be recognized for some different contributions over the years. And I guess when you asked that, a couple things kind of stand out to me. one was in my 25th year with Terryberry actually coincided with the company’s hundredth year in business. And so that year we, we actually, we combined our service award milestone presentation with a, a celebration of the organization’s a hundred years in business.

Mike Byam:

And it was, it was a big gala. It was a good party. And since I was presenting the awards then and coming back to, I’d rather give than receive, I’d taken myself out of the list of award recipients and, you know, try to focus on other members of the team. And, and so we got through that and it was a fun evening, and we had some, some 35 year employees and a lot of new members of the team and everybody in between. So after we handled all those presentations and, and hopefully acknowledged people’s contributions, the team actually took over the presentation and, and publicly acknowledged me for the things that I’d contributed over 25 years. So they actually presented me with a, a neat mosaic of a variety of our history and pictures. And it was really good.

Mike Byam:

In fact, I got it hanging up right over there. I could look at it right now. So that’s one of the most memorable. But maybe giving you more information than you want, but I think the other thing to think about is, you know, it’s, it’s easy to point to to major moments like that, you know, whether you’re on a stage and shaking someone hand, and those are really important. But when you ask that question, the other one that that came to mind for me was some recognition that I received through our, our social recognition platform 360 Recognition that it was impactful. And, and that was a couple years ago as well. We’d had a new member join the team, and shortly before we had like a quarterly all hands meeting and kind of going through the update and so forth.

Mike Byam:

And by the time I got back to my desk, I’d received recognition on the social wall. And that was neat to come from somebody who was new to the team. And then I think what — and is one of the powerful things of social recognition is — it gained a lot of social interaction where we had applauds from others and comments from people just about what we were sharing and, and where we were headed as a, as an organization. So I feel like I should turn the question back on you, Tricia, to get your recognition moment but you’re leading the conversation so.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. Well, thank you for sharing. I think as a leader, receiving recognition, to your point, is almost extra special because it’s like the job is to be the one giving recognition. So it’s even extra sweet when you get it back, I feel like. So I have many little moments similar to you where I feel like I’ve received, sometimes it’s just a Slack message about, Yeah. Wow. “In that meeting when you said that thing that really stuck out to me, and thank you.” It’s like the little moments that matter so much, especially when it comes up the chain that I love. So I appreciate you sharing your story and your moments of recognition that stand out for you. And when we look at the landscape of hiring right now, employee retention, right now, we’re kind of in very unique times. I think the last couple years have been unique landscape for, for hiring so many new and interesting challenges organizations are facing. And probably recognition is, might not be one of the things that come that are first to mind to organizations and leaders. So I’d love to start with why. Why is recognition something that needs to be prioritized?

Mike Byam:

Yeah, it’s a great question as we think about where we are today, I think the desire for recognition from employees isn’t, isn’t a new want or need because recognition, you know, is core to most people’s lives over time, right? I mean, if you think back and, and you just think about your kids or your family, and whether it’s successful endeavors in athletics when you’re school age kids maybe competing on a team and winning a trophy. Maybe you’re a marathon runner who’s wearing the medal that represents finishing 26.2 miles, or sometimes you can point to some of the most highly compensated employees in the world, in professional athletes who at certain points in their career really focus on winning that that ring, right? You hear about the Super Bowl ring and how that elevates and alters a career.

Mike Byam:

And certainly those are examples. And there are other great examples of recognition outside of work that aren’t necessarily tied to athletics. You know, whether it’s a diploma, a graduation ceremony, some type of certification. There are always that as society, you know, we figured out that we need to acknowledge contribution, We need to acknowledge achievement. So, you know, that’s kind of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at one level. But, but in the workplace today, recognition is, is really being prioritized. But because the, the need has increased, and, and we know for a long time, study after study would indicate that their recognition is the number one driver of engagement. And that’s been that way for quite some time. However, as, as you point out, Tricia, in the post pandemic great resignation world actually overall employee engagement’s taking a step backwards.

Mike Byam:

And I think there are elements of that are part of the new work arrangements and the, the fewer face-to-face interactions that you’re just naturally having. Because as good as technology like Zoom and teams are everything’s coordinated, Everything’s planned. There’s not much just a lack of a better term, probably water cooler talk. And, and so what we’re seeing is most of the time organizations are, are, are forced to revisit and, and increase their recognition efforts to, to make sure that they’re, they’re connecting with the way that employees are working today. And, and we, we would say in, in many organizations that at Terryberry when we, we get in or working with a client, that it’s probably been an underutilized tool and the good news is it’s there to help you raise your game today.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. So I think you hit on so many good points right there. And maybe you’ve kind of hit the key one is, you know, what is the biggest issue we’re seeing around recognition or the lack thereof of recognition? Is it, the way we work is different? I mean, what are the key or top reasons maybe you see that the, that recognition is an issue in organizations that you work for

Mike Byam:

I would say the biggest issue around recognition in most organizations it’s tied to two things. It’s frequency of recognition and the meaningfulness of recognition that is given. And we can talk a little bit about what that means for employees today that they’re asking for, for more recognition, not just from their supervisor though that we would say that the supervisor really does play a vital role in the process, but, but they’d like to see recognition from across the organization. and it can’t be limited to a single channel, whether it’s recognizing their team or recognition from the top of the organization or from a manager or peer. It has to come. The most effective programs come from a wide range of individuals. And so at Terryberry, when we talk about making recognition meaningful, we’re focusing on making sure the words of appreciation are specific about the contribution. 

Mike Byam:

They’re timely. And when we say timely, we mean close the closer you are to say something when you see something the better, and the recognition is tied to really demonstrating an organizational value. So if you can include have it timely, have it specific about a contribution and how it connects with that organizational value, it’ll be more meaningful. And so I think sometimes as leaders, as managers, we say thank you, but it could be more impactful if you thank for something really specific as, as close to the contribution as as possible. And the other element of that that makes timeliness and meaningfulness a challenge is, is there are a lot of employers that, or a lot of employees I would say that don’t have access to an easy to use platform. And obviously Terryberry’s 360 Recognition is in place to facilitate that type of communication so that great work doesn’t go unnoticed or unrecognized. And, so what we’ve seen is not surprisingly, if you make it easy for people to recognize and you give them the tools, then it increases the frequency and then you have a process in place to make it as meaningful as possible.

Tricia Sciortino:

Making it a habit, creating great habits around gratitude sounds like a great summary of what you’re kind of talking about is you gotta, you kind of have to build it into the thread of the organization. And I love what you said about the meaningful of it all. Cause gosh, I see that as such a huge differentiator becasue I think you can be grateful, like you said, and just be like, Thank you. But saying thank you is one thing, but saying thank you for that thing you did, it meant so much because X, Y, Z, that’s a whole nother level of recognition. So I think that that speaks volumes to the types of recognition, the way you give recognition, the frequency, all excellent tips. I love them all so much. And so when we talk about types of recognition, there’s probably different buckets of recognition or true types of recognition. I’d love you to talk through kind of what those areas are. I think you mentioned a few already kind of milestone or performance talk through maybe what some of the different types of recognition are with us.

Mike Byam:

Yeah, yeah. That’s terrific. I think what we typically do is if we would look at slices of the wheel or sections of a wheel and thinking in the 360 mentality that we do. We typically focus on four main areas, which are, are milestone and service awards, performance and incentive award programs, social recognition, and then the most effective programs also leverage feedback and communication. And I can dig a little bit into those four different areas. I talked about my experience in milestone recognition and, and it’s one of the most longstanding and common types of programs in business today. And that’s, you know, acknowledging employees for tenure, right? And when they join the team after they’ve been on the team for a year, three years, five years for the business, and what you talk about, Tricia, about making things a habit, it’s a good systematic habit and a terrific way for leaders and organizations to systematically celebrate great contributions over time.

Mike Byam:

The organization’s pausing what it’s doing and saying, “Hey, Tricia, gosh, over the last five years, this is how your career has grown.” And you know, what is one of the — there are a lot of powerful elements of a service award program. Part of it is to thank the individual for their contributions. Part of it is to demonstrate a career path that others have taken for those who are, are watching the presentations. And so that’s very true. I mean, you gotta remember when the message is going, it’s not only going to the, to the the one person you get, you have this real opportunity to tell a success story about an employee to the rest of the team. And, and that can be really powerful. And like I said, most organization has something in place to recognize tenure today as it comes to that.

Mike Byam:

Terryberry is often updating these programs to ensure they continue to have an impact. And there are ways that these programs, though they’ve been in place for a while, they can be adjusted and for today’s, the way we work today, I guess would be the best way to say it. So yeah that’s Milestone Awards. When we think about performance and in incentive awards they’re great objective tools for recognition really acknowledging measurable contribution. and these are programs that you’re probably familiar with, whether it’s sales incentives, safety award program. We we’re seeing an increase in wellness as, metric driven achievement, whether it’s participation or improvement or, if you’re like Terryberry, we’re a KPI driven organization and there’s ways to celebrate reaching and exceeding goals in that. And there’s obviously so many things that we measure in business today, and we gotta celebrate when we achieve it.

Mike Byam:

And we find incentive programs are oftentimes a real tool to ignite potential and really fuel drive because people are reaching and exceeding goals. So that’s one of the great elements of performance and incentive awards as we kind of carry around the, the wheel we would look at social recognition. You know, you talked, Tricia, about some of the changes in the way we work today. And so we would say social recognition has never been more critical to business success, just with that wide variety of work situations. And it’s a way to keep people connected to your culture while reinforcing that that mission, vision, values of your organization. And, you know, the neat thing about social recognition, and I think you did a nice job of kind of describing it. Recognition can come from anywhere in the organization, different people can have different permissions, but it’s incredibly gratifying as a leader to receive recognition for your efforts from, you know, maybe somebody who’s newer to the organization or as an individual contributor in something that way.

Mike Byam:

And so it’s very powerful and, and we’re seeing a trend where most folks are adding that to their infrastructure if they don’t have it. So, and then the last area that I would point to is feedback and communication programs. And, and those allow a number of different things. I think one of the neat things if you need elements is if you have a platform in place, you can allow customers of the business to provide feedback, which we we’re obviously all love to hear the voice of the customer and then if it’s a positive to easily share that not only with the employees who made a difference, but with others in the organization so they can, can model that same behavior. And recognition at its core is really just communication, but to make sure that it has the maximum impact, you’ve gotta get that to all the people impacted.

Mike Byam:

And some of those sometimes that’s a big group. So, you know, those are, those are elements of it. I think what we’ve built into 360 Recognition and includes tools like surveys and polls and suggestion programs. So it’s really as much of an engagement tool as a recognition system. And, and then I would just, I would leave with that question. I know I’ve said a mouthful, but the, the one thing that I think, you know, you talk about the different types of programs, there’s a real positive compounding effect of having more than one program working on the same platform because you actually end up with this sort of repository for recognition and all the good things that are part of that interaction. And you end up with, it’s, it’s the, the true situation where the whole is, is greater than the some of the parts.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah. No, I love that. I, I don’t think you could talk too much, Mike, about recognition. So, you know, I love what you guys do. So I would love if you just took a minute and told us a little bit about Terryberry and, you know, what it is you do in the marketplace and how you help businesses solve recognition. Now, you’ve kind of mentioned a little bit about the tools and stuff, but maybe you can tell, tell us a little bit more.

Mike Byam:

Yeah, well thanks for asking. I, I think, you know, we’re a mission driven organization, so at our core, we’re, we’re working to inspire people to achieve remarkable things. And, and that’s a, a, a lofty mission, but in order to accomplish this we recognize the importance of a scalable platform. And I know I, I’ve mentioned it in the past, and, and, and that is becomes a platform that, that really supports an engaged culture. And so, you know, you’ve got, just got that opportunity to reach team members where they’re working and, and not only be a go-to destination, but you’re, you’re pushing the message of recognition out and that’s, you know, through mobile apps and, and alerts that would be part of that, or text message and email and so forth. But, but also having a, a platform in place that integrates with the tools people are using in, in the flow of work and the, and the flow of life.

Mike Byam:

And, and so beyond apps on your phones, you mentioned a Slack message from a teammate. I mean, we, we integrate with Slack, we integrate with teams, we integrate with Ready App and more so that to kind of come back to the, the ease and frequency, if we’re, if we’re expanding that message beyond just oh, I’ve gotta remember to go here then we find people engage with it more closely and more frequently. And so, you know, our intention is to continue to, to push that type of development, to make the process easy but meaningful. There’s a lot of work going on to, to make that happen on a, a daily basis. So we’re excited about where we are in the, the recognition and engagement space, but really continue to, to build out tools to, to impact employees wherever they are and however they engage with their employer.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, I mean, I love that. I think you’re doing great work and even from an ROI perspective, because — dare even taint this conversation by saying ROI — but there truly is, as a leader there truly is, it’s so cyclical. It’s like the more you invest in your team and recognize them and lift them up and encourage them, the more you get back as an organization. A healthy engaged organization produces great results. So I know there’s so many people out there who think it’s fluffy and it’s unnecessary, but I could not disagree more with that mentality. I’m truly an advocate of great engaged organizations and great engaged team members make for awesome business. so it’s a win-win for everybody. So that’s why at BELAY we’re so invested in being true encouragers and corporates of our team because we feel like they make the organization successful by showing up and being 110% invested and cared for by their teams. So I’m all about what you guys are are doing, but there may be some people who are not, and they’re hearing this maybe in thinking, gosh, I need to step it up. If somebody’s out there thinking that they’re ready to take a next step to be more engaging or more recognizing of their team, what would be maybe a first step or an area that somebody could take to improve?

Mike Byam:

Wow, that’s a great way to think about it. And Iappreciate the way you think about your team and, and the importance of recognition. And my guess is you can identify an employee who’s engaged and one who’s less engaged and the impact that they have. And so, as leaders, I always think we need to really look at it on, on two levels. I think there’s an element of it, you’ve gotta look inward at yourself, and then ultimately, you know, the, the how’s it impact the broader group. And so personally, leaders need to to, to take an honest inventory of their role in the recognition process, what it’s been historically, what it, what they’d like it to be and Terryberry, we know that managers have the biggest impact on how engaged a team is.

Mike Byam:

You know, the old saying is people don’t leave companies as much as they leave managers. And some managers, Tricia, they’re just naturally great at recognition. It’s who they are, but others aren’t as lucky. And the real, the good news on that is recognizing great work is a tool, a skill that through practice you can get better at and it’s worth doing. … We’ve tried to develop a lot of resources at terryberry.com that help people with that from the tools that we’re offering our customers, but then also just tools for managers out there. So on a personal level, I think that is, especially if you’re leading an organization or if you’re leading a team, there is that inward component from an organizational standpoint. That’s where we, we come in at Terryberry. We’re helping leaders every day in, in evaluating the programs and systems that they have in place and making sure that they’re helping reach and accomplish those goals. And you bring up the, the ROI of it, and I think that’s a fair assessment. If it’s not having the impact, then, then we shouldn’t be doing it. And so we’re we’re interested in supporting employers in that way and helping them, you know, see real return on the investment in recognition, for sure. 

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and thank you for what you do. I mean, I think you guys, gosh, such a needed and necessary gift to leadership out there. So anybody listening, if you dunno who Terryberry is, go find them. Mike, as we wrap this up, first of all, can you tell us where to find you guys? And then second of all, if you had one kind of final parting words of advice for any listeners, what would they be?

Mike Byam:

Great. Well, yeah, you, it is certainly you can find us on Terryberry.com, which is you know, probably the best way to, to contact us. We’ve got people standing by that can help you begin that process and that journey, or enhance a journey that you’re on. I think one of the things that we try to do is, is meet people where they are and then help them where they wanna go. Words of advice. Keep your feet on the ground, keep reaching for the stars. No, that’s probably not the …

Tricia Sciortino:

I love that. That’s perfect.

Mike Byam:

I mean, I would just say that recognition has always been a powerful leadership tool. And today it looks a little different than it did five years ago. And what we’re seeing is organizations that are able to pivot and able to engage today’s workforce in the environment that we’re dealing with. I think they’re gonna the ones who are gonna separate themself from, from other employees. And so it’s an opportunity a challenge always represents an opportunity, doesn’t it? And and so those that embrace it and are able to manage it or are gonna, are the ones who are gonna succeed in the end. Like BELAY.

Tricia Sciortino:

Yeah, thank you. I love it. That was perfect ending advice, but I would love to ask you if you wouldn’t mind sticking around. This conversation’s been so good. I’d love to ask you one more question about giving recognition to your employees, if that’s okay with you, Mike? 

Mike Byam: Sure!

Tricia Sciortino:

Awesome. Okay, guys you aren’t gonna wanna miss it. To hear that clip, subscribe to our email list and we will send you a link to our bonus content, or you can visit onenextsteppodcast.com where you will find the link in our show notes.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Wow, that was a fantastic conversation between Mike and Tricia, and it was a great reminder that sometimes simple steps can make a major difference in a business’s culture. Thank you so much for tuning in for this week’s One Next Step. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less, go to belaysolutions.com. For more episodes, show notes and helpful resources, visit onenextsteppodcast.com.