Our recent Q2 session on “Cultivating a Culture of Recognition” run by Lloyds Banking Group served as an excellent platform for clients from various organisations to collaborate, share insights and learn from each other’s journeys in getting recognition right.
Aligning Recognition with Culture
An organisation’s culture is the lifeline of its operations, and recognition can be a powerful tool to reinforce or supress certain behaviours that drive an organisation’s desired culture. We had the privilege of learning about the significant strides various organisations have made in this area. As discussed in the session, it’s imperative to align both formal rewards and informal recognition with an organisation’s cultural values. We heard about a variety of creative ways companies are doing this from sharing stories of “culture champions”, to framing peer to peer recognition nominations in the desired cultural values.
Building Purposeful Recognition Programmes
The essence of any good recognition programme lies in its purposefulness. Recognition should not be a one-size-fits-all process, but rather, a bespoke experience tailored to the individual. We learned that many organisations have the same challenges around ensuring recognition is meaningful and adequately tailored to the audience. It became clear that meaningful storytelling is a powerful driver of successful recognition and reward programmes.
Case Studies presented by Hani Nabeel (Chief Behavioural Scientist at IpsychTec) showed that organisations should first seek to understand the conditions needed to create a culture of recognition, and thus, ensure that recognition programmes will succeed. Hani illustrated cases of unique organisations that used Culturescope to understand important conditions they needed to focus on first (psychological safety and wellbeing) before they could foster a culture of recognition in their organisation.
Internal research from Lloyds Banking Group provided a fascinating perspective on the behavioural drivers of a culture of recognition, emphasising the following behaviours:
- Conformity: High importance placed on laws, rules, values, and obligations above relationships so that people treat each other fairly based on these laws and rules.
- Empowerment: Decisions are delegated to lower levels with supportive guidance.
- Team focus: Group efforts and team results are prioritised over individual results.
- People focus: A working environment that focuses more on people rather than purely on tasks and outputs.
Evaluating the Impact of Recognition
Evaluating the effectiveness and impact of recognition programmes is as crucial as implementing them. The session demonstrated how CultureScope can simply show progress through isolating individuals who have received recognition and rewards and evaluate the extent to which their behaviours align with the organisation’s values.
Paul Bennett (People and Culture Manager at Lloyds Banking Group) shared insightful progress on understanding the profound impact of recognition in unlocking behaviours that bolster their desired culture.
Conclusion
This Q2 session was a testament to the value of shared learning and idea exchange within the CultureScope community. The insights generated will surely inspire and guide us in our respective journeys towards cultivating a culture of recognition.
As we wrap up this session, we are already excited about the next one. We look forward to further enhancing our understanding of corporate culture and the many ways to harness it for organisational success. See you in three months, and until then, let’s keep the culture of recognition growing.
