Although the COVID-19 pandemic created a crisis for all organizations to navigate, nowhere was this more apparent than in healthcare. Frontline healthcare workers were asked to perform heroic acts of selflessness to protect and save the lives of others. Often, they needed to do this without the necessary supplies and equipment to protect themselves.
While the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us, there are valuable lessons to learn about how organizations can use recognition to support their employees during a crisis. This blog post describes some of what we learned from our research on recognition in the healthcare industry during the pandemic.
Our research examined how employees in a healthcare organization used different types of recognition (recognition v. acknowledgment) for frontline employees working in the organization’s hospitals during the second major COVID wave and how recognition giving changed with daily indicators of the severity of the pandemic in the hospitals. We found that the recognition given to frontline employees became more focused on the behaviors that were making a difference to the hospital and patients.
Recognition focused on acknowledging employees (e.g., happy birthday eCards) dramatically declined. The amount of recognition given to the frontline employees followed a pattern similar to the COVID indicators in the area of the hospitals. On the days that case counts, deaths, or ICU capacity utilization increased, so did recognition for frontline employees. In other words, recognition was being used as real-time response to the increased demands the frontline healthcare workers faced on any given day.
Lessons Learned:
1. During a crisis, it is more important than ever to recognize your employees who are on the frontlines for the ways that they are helping the organization handle the crisis. Focus the recognition on what matters most in addressing this, so these employees know that their extraordinary efforts matter and are valued.
2. Dynamically adapt your recognition frequency and mix to respond to the unfolding events of the crisis. Although recognition may decline overall during a crisis, it is critical that the amount of recognition increases as there are spikes in the severity of the situation.
3. Don’t forget about your non-frontline employees. Although there is less of an acute need to recognize how these employees contribute to the crisis response frequently, it is still important to acknowledge these employees and make them feel valued at times when other groups of employees are the focus of attention.
4. Include your recognition program as part of your organization’s resiliency, continuity and crisis planning. Ensure that the features and access that will be needed during a crisis are in place before a crisis emerges. Once it emerges, it is too late.
All organizations face crises. Leveraging your recognition program during these times can help the organization and its employees weather the storm.
Interested in learning more about how to leverage recognition to weather the storms your organization is facing? Contact us for more information.
Charles Scherbaum, Ph.D. is a nationally recognized expert in analytics, talent management, assessment, performance management, and employee and customer research. Charles has worked with and overseen many research and analytics initiatives for Fortune 500 companies and is the winner of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology’s M. Scott Myers Award and the Innovations in Assessment Award from the International Personnel Assessment Council.
Connect with him on LinkedIn.
