Is recognition top of mind for your leaders and managers? What if you could remind your leaders and managers to recognize more often, using everyday technology to help?
There is a way to nudge your leaders and managers into giving more frequent and better day-to-day recognition to employees. You can create reminders for your leaders and managers to provide more meaningful and consistent recognition to people. The effect of consistent recognition will improve overall employee experience and performance.
So, how do you do this?
Text Short Recognition Reminders
Use text messaging to send recognition reminders to all leaders and managers who have teams. Send motivational and example-based learning messages at whatever frequency you feel is non-invasive to people throughout their week.
Often used to boost engagement with customers, companies can purchase various texting software such as Call Multiplier, EZTexting, Zingle, Text Magic and many others to provide real-time and personalized conversations.
Experiment with sending targeted short and sweet text messages out over a two- or three- month period. Provide inspirational, educational and action-oriented content. These messages will have the purpose of telling leaders and managers to be more mindful of their people and to express appropriate messages of appreciation and recognition.
Always Measure Recognition and Performance
Conduct A/B testing to compare one group of leaders and managers who receive the text coaching and the other that does not. It will allow you to gather baseline and post-intervention data from recipients of the text messaging coaching and employees on their leader or manager's perception.
Find out how the leaders and managers felt about getting this intermittent messaging with recognition related content through text and if they would sign up for additional texting reminders after the trial period you're testing. You must evaluate self-perception and employee feedback on whether any changes occurred with the leader's/manager's recognition abilities, positive actions towards employees, and the observed impact on both the recipients and givers of recognition.
- Did employees state that they felt better recognized and engaged?
- Did the frequency of recognition increase?
- How did employees feel about the quality of recognition they received?
- Was there any uplift in key performance indicators?
- What overall improvements did they observe?
Benefits of Text Messaging
Text messaging generates a much faster response rate than emails do, and which often go ignored. Studies show that participants open up 98 percent of text messages in intervention cases.
Organizations have used texting for several years as a health promotion tool, providing health and wellness tips and reminders. Research shows that texting interventions are very successful in creating short-term behavioral change. And 89 percent of intervention participants say they benefited from the texts they received.
Getting the Recognition Message Out
Set up a team of professionals familiar with recognition practices and behaviors in your organization. Work together to craft a variety of short and succinct recognition text messages.
Limit all recognition messages to only 50 words or less: the shorter, the better! All recipients must understand the messages with no explanation needed. However, you can always provide a short URL link to access further information. Do not use any abbreviations to eliminate misunderstanding.
Rinse and Repeat
Once you have received the focus group feedback, analyzed the results and reviewed recommendations for content changes, you are ready to explore maintaining the text message coaching. Start a fresh round of behavioral recognition content to trigger your leaders and managers to recognize and appreciate their staff every day.
Just as customers' expectations have changed over the years, so have your employees' expectations. Finding new ways to improve recognition and engagement within an organization needs a bit of creativity, and it might just be a text conversation!
