26 Key Stats on Employee Recognition

At Ambition, we preach the gospel of results-driven employee recognition. Here are 26 key quotes and statistics from leading human resource firms showing the tangible impacts of employee recognition on company culture and bottom-line.

26 Key Stats on Employee Recognition 

1. “Nearly 75% of organizations have a recognition program (despite the fact that only 58% of employees think that their organizations have recognition programs).” Bersin By Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012.

2. "Best Employers excel at leadership, reputation, performance culture, and ultimately, employee engagement." Aon Hewitt, 2015 Trends in Global Employee Engagement. 

3. "Roughly eight out of 10 employees at best employers see strong leadership, think their company has a strong reputation and purposeful EVP, and think their company has a performance culture." Aon Hewitt, 2015 Trends in Global Employee Engagement. 

4. "Positivity is the most important personality attribute, predicting all five of the engaging leader behaviors." Aon Hewitt, 2015 Trends in Global Employee Engagement. 

5. "14% of organizations provide managers with the necessary tools for rewards and recognition." Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013.

6. “Organizations that rated themselves “proficient” in workforce data analysis were far more likely to rate their business leaders as “satisfied” with workforce data, to draw connections between retention and recruiting, to calculate HR’s impact on business strategy, and even, among publicly traded companies, more likely to financially outperform those who rated themselves as “deficient” at workforce data analysis.” Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013.

7. "Values-based employee recognition significantly contributes to bottom-line organizational metrics." SHRM/GloboForce Employee Recognition Survey, 2015.

8. "89% of managers running 4 results-driven employee recognition programs perceive those programs as meeting goals." WorldAtWork, Trends in Employee Recognition, 2015.

9. "Recognition was perceived to positively impact engagement for 90 percent of respondents practicing values-based recognition vs. just 67 percent for non-values based programs. Retention was likewise affected—68 percent of values-based programs perceived a positive impact vs. 41 percent for non-values-based programs. A full 66 percent of companies with values-based recognition said their recognition program is helping them build a stronger employer brand vs. only 28 percent of those with non-values-based recognition.” SHRM/GloboForce Employee Recognition Survey, 2015.

10. "Companies with strategic recognition reported a mean employee turnover rate that is 23.4% lower than retention at companies without any recognition program." HCI/Taleo, The Business Impact of Talent Intelligence, 2012.

12. "60% of Best-in-Class organizations stated that employee recognition is extremely valuable in driving individual performance." Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013.

13. “Organizations with recognition programs which are highly effective at enabling employee engagement had 31% lower voluntary turnover than organizations with ineffective recognition programs.” Bersin By Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012.

14. "14% of organizations provide managers with the necessary tools for rewards and recognition." Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013.

15. "Companies with strategic recognition reported a mean employee turnover rate that is 23.4% lower than retention at companies without any recognition program." Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013.

16. "Companies running 4 results-driven employee recognition programs increased employee motivation, satisfaction and engagement by at least 30% vs. companies running 0 results-driven recognition programs." WorldAtWork, Trends in Employee Recognition, 2015.

"17. In 2013, 67% of Best-in-Class organizations have a formal recognition program in place, compared to 58% of Best-in-Class organizations in 2012." Aberdeen Group, The Power of Employee Recognition, 2013.

18. "In these environments, (where opportunity and well-being are part of the culture) strong manager performance in recognizing employee performance increases engagement by almost 60%." Towers Watson, Turbocharging Employee Engagement: The Power of Recognition from Managers, 2009.

19. "Organizations with strategic recognition programs in place exhibit 28.6% lower frustration levels than companies without recognition programs." Bersin By Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012. 

20. "Organizations with the most sophisticated recognition practices are 12 times more likely to have strong business outcomes." McKinsey Motivating People, Getting Beyond Money.

21. "Praise and commendation from managers was rated the top motivator for performance, beating out other noncash and financial incentives, by a majority of workers (67%)." McKinsey Motivating People, Getting Beyond Money.

22. "Companies who make a commitment to recognition and milestone awards are experiencing better results, and seeing difference in measurements of both culture and business results." SHRM/GloboForce Employee Recognition Survey, 2015.

23. "When companies spend 1% or more of payroll on recognition, 85% see a positive impact on engagement." SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey, 2012.

24. “In those organizations in which individual employees or teams are recognized, the entity’s average core for employee results was approximately 14% higher than in organizations in which recognition does not occur.” Towers Watson, Turbocharging Employee Engagement: The Power of Recognition From Managers, 2009.

25. "Our research finds that those organizations with the most mature employee recognition approach are 12 times more likely to have strong business results." Bersin By Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012. 

26. "When asked what leaders could do more of to improve engagement, 58% of respondents replied, 'Give recognition.'” Psychometrics, A Study of Employee Engagement in the Canadian Workplace 2010.

More Information on Employee Recognition

For further reading, check out these recent Ambition Blog posts:

1. How to Give Employees Ownership Over Goals
2. How to Recognize and Reward Millennial Employees
3. 5 Ways to Keep Millennials Loyal to Your Company

Ambition: The Leader in Sales Recognition Software

Ambition is a sales management platform that syncs every sales organization department, data source, and performance metric on one easy system.

Companies use Ambition to enhance sales performance visibility and employee recognition. Ambition's drag-and-drop interface lets non-technical sales leaders create custom scorecards, contests, reports, and dynamic TVs.  

Ambition is endorsed by Harvard Business Review, AA-ISP (the Global Inside Sales Organization), and USA Today as a proven solution for increasing sales team recognition opportunities. Hear from our clients below.

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4. Vorsight: Monthly sales conversations grew 300% in 6 months.

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