Recognize This! – Don’t let productivity increases slip through your fingers by ignoring the importance of relationships in the workplace.

How important is building a team culture in your organization? A recent British survey reported in HR Magazine found:

“16% of Brits state that getting on well with co-workers increases productivity in the workplace. A further 39% also claim that knowing their colleagues strengths and weaknesses helps them to work better as a team.”

That finding links in well with the webinar I led yesterday with Workforce Management, “Building a Global Team Culture with Recognition.” (You can get the recording here.)

In the webinar, I discussed the three challenges of:

1. Creating a winning, engaged, strong, team culture.
2. Overcoming localized, disparate recognition programs
3. Proactively managing company culture so your culture doesn’t “just happen.”

I also tackled the 3 key ways to build a global team culture through strategic recognition:

1. Elevate team engagement through shared values and goals.
2. Use industry best practices to create a culture of recognition.
3. Build relationships with global technologies for social and mobile recognition.

There were also some great questions, including:

• What’s the appropriate frequency of recognition? (Daily – not quarterly, and certainly not annually)
• Isn’t peer-to-peer free “ethanks” a great way to recognize employees? (Peer-to-peer is a critical part of a strategic recognition program mix, unless employees are also recognized by managers and with awards with economic value, they can become cynical about the real worth of their efforts to the organization.)
• How do you get buy-in from management and commitment of budget for recognition? (You need the metrics and data to support the importance of recognition. 

If you missed the webinar, be sure to watch the recording.