The art and science of employee recognition.

According to the U.S. Bureau of labor Statistics, the number one reason people leave their jobs is that they "don't fed appreciated." Numerous other studies have polled employees and found that recognition and "feeling valued" often rank above pay. That says a lot about human nature at work--and it becomes quite relevant when you consider the prediction that a significant percentage of good talent will be looking for more satisfying jobs once the economy rebounds.

There have always been organizations that have made recognition a part of their culture, understanding how positive reinforcement can raise morale and how that in itself can set into motion a myriad of other desirable business outcomes. For others, giving kudos to employees can fall by the wayside as the rapid pace of any given work environment may leave little time available to maintain recognition programming

Other factors that hinder systematic positive reinforcement include managers and supervisors simply not knowing how to effectively show recognition, and therefore shying away from doing it, We've also seen organizations where an attitude of, "Why should we reward employees just for doing their job?" may exist, demonstrating a lack of understanding about how to truly motivate better job performance

One of the most massive and in-depth studies undertaken to measure workplace productivity was performed by the Jackson Organization and Healthstream Research. This 10-year global study looked at the results of over 200,000 interviews with management and employees as well as at the links between employee recognition and direct fiscal outcomes.

Boiled down, the results strongly indicated that companies that implement positive reinforcement for desirable work behaviors also make more money. This research also supported what is already known: That these companies also hit higher marks for being intrinsically better places to work More specific findings included:

* Those companies where employees scored the highest in rating their managers as doing "a good job at recognizing employee contributions" also came in at the top in regard to customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and employee retention.

* Companies rated as most "effective in recognizing excellence," saw their return on equity as well as return on assets tripled in comparison to those organizations that were rated lowest in recognition.