Personalizing Meaningful Recognition

Meaningful recognition can have a powerful impact on your unit, but it takes an individualized approach and more effort to implement than your typical pizza party or lunch tote for nurses’ week. The extra effort is worth it though! Developing programs to recognize nurses in a way that is personalized and meaningful enhances a sense of value and honor in the person being recognized. They can see the value they bring to the organization. The organization also benefits from successful recognition programs through increased employee engagement and staff retention, which tend to improve the financial health of the organization.In “Registered Nurses and Meaningful Recognition: Contemporary Preferences of a Diverse Workforce,” the authors sought to evaluate nurses’ perceptions of meaningful recognition along with the health of their work environment. The authors recognized that a huge generational shift in the nursing workforce has occurred in the past 4 years, and that led them to look at how this shift affected the nurses’ preferences for recognition. The results will probably come as no surprise. The study showed that demographic differences did indeed influence the recognition preferences of the current workforce and indicated that more tailored and personalized recognition programs are needed.