I’m deeply conscious of the difficulties and changes that many of our people are experiencing – whether it’s the effects of long Covid symptoms, grief, family tensions, financial anxiety thanks to the cost-of-living crisis, or fears about the Ukraine war. It is deeply overwhleming.

As employers, of course it’s not in our power to make these go away, but we can do our utmost to cultivate a positive work culture. We can make sure that we’re not adding to people’s mental health burdens, and when the circumstances are right, feel honoured enough to be able to make our employees’ lives better.

One of the most effective and accessible ways we know of to do that is through employee recognition. When employees truly feel seen, heard, valued, and upheld, it positively affects nearly every human need. And when everything in our employees’ worlds feels heavier and less stable than usual, I can’t really emphasise enough how important recognition is in promoting positive mental health.

But recognition is one of those concepts that’s wide open to interpretation. Some managers might formally recognize the achievements of their employees just once a year in a review. I’ve seen others shower their people in so much generic praise and ‘high-fives’ that recognition’s currency gets devalued. Both are well-intentioned, but marginally effective in today’s workplace.

So rather than get too academic about it, let me share what we – as a company whose business it is to promote recognition in the workplace – put into practice. 

1 – Building a recognition culture
The holy grail of recognition is to embed it culturally, so it flows in every direction from top-down, peer-to-peer, upwards, and even diagonally! A big flaw with simple top-down recognition where managers recognise their subordinates on a fixed schedule, is that it loses the impact of timeliness. Recognising people immediately after an event is both reinforcing and motivating. 

And while people certainly value praise ‘from above’ it can be equally or even more motivating to be recognised by peers or subordinates. I am personally very moved and motivated by recognition coming from my colleagues and my team. I sometimes think of it as a daily dose of a mini-360 that is highly relevant and makes me feel great.

You’ll know that you’ve really succeeded in embedding a recognition culture when praise flows beyond the established team ‘silos’. For example, when Alex in IT recognises Chris from the comms team for taking the extra effort to help them nail their industry event presentation.

2 – Making it personal
Some people may find this inconceivable, but I don’t like or want to celebrate my birthday. At the same time, I know how hurt and saddened some people are when their birthdays aren’t recognised. There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to recognition. It’s so important that employees find out how their colleagues prefer to be recognised and tailor approaches accordingly. This naturally builds empathy, tolerance and compassion – all of which contribute to positive mental health.

3 – Creating meaning
There’s a wonderful scene in the 2009 documentary ‘Apollo Wives’ where, after having been interviewed so many times about how they felt about their husbands’ moon missions, the three wives resort to holding up signs with the words “Proud!”, “Thrilled!”, ”Happy!”. My point here is that when we’re busy, it’s easy to fall into the habit of recognising colleagues using very generic language. 

However, recent research from The Achievers Workforce Institute drove home the importance of giving meaningful, specific feedback. Sixty-four percent of those surveyed wanted to receive more meaningful recognition about something specific they did; about them as individuals or something they valued; or about the way they made a difference to people who recognised them.

Recognising people meaningfully, is valuable in so many ways. Imagine a VP of Sales praising a customer service manager in a staff meeting for salvaging a valuable customer relationship. That manager is not only going to feel proud and grow in confidence, but they will also be much more likely to repeat that type of contribution in the future. 

4 – Accelerating impact through Technology
Everything I’ve covered so far is about how people can better recognise and connect with colleagues in the workplace to promote mental health. However, given today’s virtual, hybrid and distributed work environments, technology plays a vital role in helping to match up and connect people, provide communications channels, and manage feedback and preferences. 

There are many approaches and tools you can use to support your goals – from simple spreadsheets and communications software up to integrated peer-to-peer recognition and rewards platforms. What’s best for you will depend on your company size, employee preferences, and security requirements. 

Remember when I talked about my disdain for my own birthday celebrations? Imagine (and it’s not hard to) if there were technologies that enabled you to know who did and didn’t want to be celebrated.  

We use our own platform in several ways, including to personalise recognition by helping us to manage individual preferences. So, for example, if a manager knows that one of their team members is working remotely, lives on their own, and likes to celebrate birthdays, they can arrange for a card to be signed by their colleagues and sent to them at home with a small gift. One thing that really helps our remote workforce in particular is our ‘Employee Connections’ tool. This lets people opt in to be matched up with other colleagues anywhere, at any level within the company, to discuss common interests outside work from football to cookery.

5 – Empowering managers
Finally, managers play an immensely valuable role in building recognition cultures that promote mental health. But for them to feel empowered to do their part, we in HR must continually support them. To do this, at Achievers we work with our managers to measure their impact in four key areas: the first is contact, ensuring that managers meet regularly with their people; next is coaching, to help managers give constructive, motivating feedback; the third is professional development, to give employees a sense of purpose and direction and make them feel more connected and secure; and last, but not least is recognition. It’s not enough to give managers targets for recognition, but we need to coach and mentor them on how to give that meaningful, timely recognition to people described earlier.

Building positive work environments that promote mental health will always be a work in progress. Invariably – as is with any human endeavour – mistakes will happen. But despite these headwinds, there are much more powerful forces that cut through these to drive recognition culture forward. The first is that it’s really contagious. When you empower one person to recognise another, the recipient is often motivated to pay it forward. It’s also at least as gratifying to give recognition as it is to receive it. That means giving recognition has a real ‘multiplier effect’ on employee morale and well-being. 

Hopefully all this has given you some good food for thought as you consider how to support your employees’ mental and physical wellbeing, and beyond.