ABSTRACT
Managers have a variety of ways of recognizing their employees, one of which is through the feedback they offer, and in a study conducted by the authors, both receiving feedback that helped employees to improve their performance and satisfaction with the recognition they received from their managers were direct and indirect predictors, respectively, of employee engagement. The chapter defines recognition as a message of appreciation or positive reinforcement tied to an employee’s behavior or accomplishment. Examples of the kinds of behaviors managers can recognize and how to do so are provided. A number of strategies are presented for making recognition effective, and specific use of recognition as a reinforcer when employees are intrinsically motivated is discussed.
