July 3, 2025 • 12 mins
Sometimes the most common causes of low employee engagement aren't actually what is causing it on your team. Over 8 episodes we'll cover some of the less-obvious causes so you can take steps to mitigate them.
Welcome to the Engagement Exchange.
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Welcome to the Engagement Exchange.
Patreon Account: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=22174142
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/hacking-your-leadership-podcast--4805674/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
On today's discussion and employee engagement, we're continuing the talk
that we started a few weeks ago on kind of
the more insidious causes of a lack of employee engagement
that aren't kind of at the high level easy to
easy to figure out, you know, from a leadership standpoint,
what are the things happening behind the scenes that might
be the causes of a disengaged employee or a disengaged
(00:24):
team that might not be you know, right right in
your face when it's happening, kind of have to dig
a little bit to kind of find out what's going on.
If you haven't listened to the last few episodes on
this they are great discussions. Last week we talked about
what happens when a lack of transparency exists on a team.
On this episode, the topic that I want to discuss
is when there is not enough reward or recognition for employees.
(00:46):
And this this is a touchy subject because you know,
on the one hand, rewards and recognition oftentimes erroneously get
grouped in with compensation, right like the compensation for doing
your job. Whatever you're paid, even if it is you know, bonuses,
That is not rewards and recognition. That is the cost
(01:06):
of doing business. That's the reciprocal agreement you made with
an employee when they were hired, that you do this
for them and they do this for you. That's what
compensation is. Rewards and recognition is completely separate from that.
It is not part of their compensation package. It's different
even if it even if it looks like compensation, even
if it some which sometimes it can, but but it
(01:28):
looks different than that. And it needs to meet people
where they are because you can have a ton of
rewards and recognition. If it's not landing the right way
on some people, they will disengage.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, exactly, No, I think it's it's so much of
that is going to be like how people feel and
are you, you know, providing things I think in general
that everyone is appreciative of, and I think that's important.
You kind of have to start with a very big
base around. These are things where you know, we feel
good about the work that we do, and we feel
(02:00):
that like we get credit for the work, we get
recognized for the work, we celebrate the work. Those types
of things feel really good when it comes to really
dialing into employee engagement. It really is defined by the
individual and that takes some time. Like now, I think
that there are things that if you're in certain industries,
(02:21):
you know, doing certain types of work, there are some
some very general styles of recognition that people kind of
get used to or somewhat expect. But when it comes
to like if you're if you're trying to make sure
that people are feeling good about the work, then I
think including them in the dialogue around recognition, and I
(02:41):
like to do it personally, like as a larger group,
let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let's talk about the fact that people do see.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Recognition different and we want to be conscious of the
fact that people see it differently. But we also have
to solve for the larger team. So let's talk as
a larger team.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Does that look like for you?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Was it like for you?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
What are some things that we've done that you've appreciated.
What are some things that we've done that maybe fell short.
But getting that element of dialogue going and then being
able to work with the team to define the things
you're going to do from a recognition reward standpoint, I
think that can be extremely helpful and just owning the
narrative of what is recognition and are we doing something
(03:21):
intentional with it? And I think for a lot of
people they appreciate that, even if it's not exactly what
they would want or how they would want it done,
they know there's a real effort being done to recognize
but also to include in what that looks like for
the larger team.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Right for sure, For sure it needs to meet them
where they are or at the very least get as
close as you can. And part of that is part
of that involves inviting the individual people into the discussion
about what that looks like for them, like what do
they want it to look like? What do they not
want it to look like? I know some people who
would be absolutely mortified, terrify, embarrassed if they were shouted
(04:02):
out in front of the team for something positive. They
just don't want it. But that doesn't mean they don't
want recognition or reward for doing a good job. It
just means they want it differently than somebody who wants
to stand up on the podium and take a bow.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Right Like, there's two.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Different people, both hardworking and both define positive recognition and
reward for themselves differently, but both of them will stop
producing and disengage if they're not getting it in the
way that they want. So if the person who wants
the whole team to clap for them when they do something, well,
if all they're getting is a behind the scenes, you know,
(04:36):
kind of handshake for the manager going hey, great job yesterday,
that person might disengage. On the other hand, the person
who does not want the public recognition and that's all
they want is the handshake and.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Say, hey, that was a great job yesterday.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
That could be all that is needed to drive them
for the next two months to do the best work.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
They've ever done.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So again, it's individualized, and you, as a leader have
to meet people where they are. So I want to
go over some of the things you can do as
a leader to make sure you're doing this correctly and
in a way that is both that both is fair
and it seems fair from each person on your team.
But first, let's give up to word from one of
our sponsors. All right, if you're a leader of people
and you're trying to figure out where best to kind
of meet your people where they are from a recognition
(05:15):
and reward standpoint, Uh, there's a there's a book that
was out, you know, many many years ago called the
Five Love Languages, and it talks about, you know, in
a romantic relationship with somebody, there are different ways that
they want to be.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Talked to from a love language.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And there's you know, physical touch, there's acts of service, quality, time, gifts,
like there's different things that you can that and while
they all might be great, there's usually one, maybe two,
but usually one that a person just really gravitates towards,
like in terms of if you do this for them,
then that's how you show them that you love them,
(05:52):
like they feel loved.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
When you do this thing for them.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think employees are no different, even though the ways
that you do are clearly going to be differ and
in a workspace, but employees want to be recognized and rewarded.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
All of them do.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
But the way they want to be recognized or rewarded
is going to be different from person to person, and
you need to figure out what that is individually. You
need to talk to individual people within the parameters of
what is possible. Right, you know, someone can't say the
way I want to be rewarded is for you to
increase my salary every time I do something well that
might not be in the parameters of what you can
do as a leader, so that wouldn't be on the table,
(06:27):
but within the parameters of what you can do.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Talk to people.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
About how they want to be rewarded and recognized, things
like quality time that can be a shared thing. I
know that if a leader were to pull me aside
and say, hey, let me buy a cup of coffee,
let's just talk about the future, like to me, I
feel like I'm being rewarded and recognized. I want to
have those conversations where I kind of get to know
my leader better and they get to know me better.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Feeling like I can put on.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
The table what my long term goals are in the
hopes that maybe they'll take some of those under their
wing and help me accomplish them.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You know, to me, that is being rewarded and recognized.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Other employees just want like a quick pat on the
back and a handshake and and a great job. And
you know, they would look at the idea of having
a one on one conversation with the leader about future
goals as daunting, and they have no desire to do that,
and they just want to be able to get their
work done. So each individual person is going to be different,
and you, as a leader can't just kind of, you know,
cookie cutter it across everybody because it might be the
(07:23):
way that you enjoy giving recognition or that it's easy
for you to do.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It needs to be in.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
A way that they actually want to be recognized, and
oftentimes employees won't be able to tell you that until
after they've gotten it. Oftentimes employees who have never been
asked how they like to be recognized don't know the
answer to that. They can only know how it made
them feel when you did something already. So, hey, the
other day, I recognize you for doing this, and this
is the way.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
That I did it. How did that feel?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Did that sit right okay with you? Would you prefer
it a different way? And sometimes that you have to
put it in the context of something they've already been
through to get them to the point where they can say,
you know what, yeah, I actually did like that, or
maybe I prefer this instead. Again, having the conversations about
it with your individual employees so that you know how
to recognize people will be the most important thing you
(08:11):
can do to make sure that the recognition you are
giving is actually doing something for the person and not
just you know, something they're trying to avoid.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, and I think too you were kind of talking
through this, and I was thinking about the fact that, like,
I think it's also important to review and talk about
what are your recognition and review kind of options or
what are the things that you do or the organization
does that you work for and say, hey, Chris, like
I want to talk about you know, recognition and rewards
(08:39):
with you, and I want to kind of go over
some of these things, but I also want to better
understand within all these options that we have, are there
ones here that you prefer most? Are there ones here
that work best for you? Are the things that we're
not thinking about that you think are something that we
could do? Here, like having that dialogue, because I think
that we tend to want to go right to like
what do you want versus here's what we have what
(09:02):
works best for you? And that if there's something that
we're not thinking of or that we could consider, we
can have that conversation as well. But many times within
that conversation there's a lot of options and things that
can be done in a way that work best for you.
And provides you with what you're looking for. And if
somebody says like, well, I mean you want to recognize
(09:22):
and reward me like I'd like to make more money,
then let's have that conversation. You know, I'm saying like, like, like,
what do you do and how does that happen? And
how do you get to the point of increasing your
income so that it's where you want to be. And
then as we do that and as you do this work,
how do you want to be recognized when you do
a great job, because like you need to do a
good job to a great job to have opportunities to
(09:44):
then be able to impact your income. Like you can
still have that whole conversation, but I think that that
for me, if you're really looking to solve for a
greater you know, understanding of how do you recognize your
people uniquely, start with giving them all that the things
that you already do and finding out what works best
for them, and then you can have some more dialogue
(10:05):
if there's you know, things that are close or you
that are within the scope of your capability.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Right for sure, because there's very few, very few things
are off the table. They just might not be on
the table in the way the person is thinking about
it to begin with. Right, So your your example of
I want more money, great, let's get you more money.
Here's how you get promoted to the next level to
where you would get more money. It's like, oh, no, no, no,
I mean like when I do something well, right, that's
what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
When you do something well, it puts.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You on the path to be able to get to
the promotion that you want to get more money. You're
telling me this is what you want. I'm gonna tell
you how to get there, and I'm committed to getting
you there as long as you are too. And and
if you go about it that way and kind of
you know, kind of redefining it with that person in
that conversation about what's possible, you'd be surprised what what.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
What is left that is not on the table? What's
not possible?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Very few things, you know, if you if it's framed
correctly and in a way that is not just kind
of like transactional, right, the recognition that is that is transactional,
that is very short term. I did this thing, well,
therefore I'm going to do this for you. That kind
of transactional recognition. That's important too, but that doesn't you know,
you don't get promoted for doing something well once, right,
(11:19):
you don't get more money for doing something well once.
The ways that you recognize people individually, for those little things,
that's what will get them the book or library of
behaviors and repeated results and outcomes over time that will
get them the promotion that they want. And oftentimes a
(11:39):
leader who doesn't do a great job of the individual
transactional pieces of recognition, those are the ones that fail
their people in the long term because the lack of
that transactional recognition that happens on one off basis is
what causes them to not want to repeat the actions
they did that got them the transactional recognition, and that
(12:00):
then leads to a consistent pattern of behavior of the
positivity and the results that then lead to the larger
kind of doors being opened and career opportunities for them.
So all of these kind of broader things that people want,
the promotions, more money, more responsibility, these things, they very
few of them are possible without those individual pieces of
(12:22):
recognition that you can give people on one off basis.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
They are so important.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It's the little things add up to be bigger than
the big things. Thank you all for joining us on
this discussion and employ engagement. We'll finish up this discussion
next week when we talk about the last kind of
item of insidious ways that your employee engagement can be low.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
You have a great day.
Hey, this is Chris with Hacking your Leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
On today's discussion and employee engagement, we're continuing the talk
that we started a few weeks ago on kind of
the more insidious causes of a lack of employee engagement
that aren't kind of at the high level easy to
easy to figure out, you know, from a leadership standpoint,
what are the things happening behind the scenes that might
be the causes of a disengaged employee or a disengaged
(00:24):
team that might not be you know, right right in
your face when it's happening, kind of have to dig
a little bit to kind of find out what's going on.
If you haven't listened to the last few episodes on
this they are great discussions. Last week we talked about
what happens when a lack of transparency exists on a team.
On this episode, the topic that I want to discuss
is when there is not enough reward or recognition for employees.
(00:46):
And this this is a touchy subject because you know,
on the one hand, rewards and recognition oftentimes erroneously get
grouped in with compensation, right like the compensation for doing
your job. Whatever you're paid, even if it is you know, bonuses,
That is not rewards and recognition. That is the cost
(01:06):
of doing business. That's the reciprocal agreement you made with
an employee when they were hired, that you do this
for them and they do this for you. That's what
compensation is. Rewards and recognition is completely separate from that.
It is not part of their compensation package. It's different
even if it even if it looks like compensation, even
if it some which sometimes it can, but but it
(01:28):
looks different than that. And it needs to meet people
where they are because you can have a ton of
rewards and recognition. If it's not landing the right way
on some people, they will disengage.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, exactly, No, I think it's it's so much of
that is going to be like how people feel and
are you, you know, providing things I think in general
that everyone is appreciative of, and I think that's important.
You kind of have to start with a very big
base around. These are things where you know, we feel
good about the work that we do, and we feel
(02:00):
that like we get credit for the work, we get
recognized for the work, we celebrate the work. Those types
of things feel really good when it comes to really
dialing into employee engagement. It really is defined by the
individual and that takes some time. Like now, I think
that there are things that if you're in certain industries,
(02:21):
you know, doing certain types of work, there are some
some very general styles of recognition that people kind of
get used to or somewhat expect. But when it comes
to like if you're if you're trying to make sure
that people are feeling good about the work, then I
think including them in the dialogue around recognition, and I
(02:41):
like to do it personally, like as a larger group,
let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Let's talk about the fact that people do see.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Recognition different and we want to be conscious of the
fact that people see it differently. But we also have
to solve for the larger team. So let's talk as
a larger team.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
What does that look like?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Does that look like for you?
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Was it like for you?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
What are some things that we've done that you've appreciated.
What are some things that we've done that maybe fell short.
But getting that element of dialogue going and then being
able to work with the team to define the things
you're going to do from a recognition reward standpoint, I
think that can be extremely helpful and just owning the
narrative of what is recognition and are we doing something
(03:21):
intentional with it? And I think for a lot of
people they appreciate that, even if it's not exactly what
they would want or how they would want it done,
they know there's a real effort being done to recognize
but also to include in what that looks like for
the larger team.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Right for sure, For sure it needs to meet them
where they are or at the very least get as
close as you can. And part of that is part
of that involves inviting the individual people into the discussion
about what that looks like for them, like what do
they want it to look like? What do they not
want it to look like? I know some people who
would be absolutely mortified, terrify, embarrassed if they were shouted
(04:02):
out in front of the team for something positive. They
just don't want it. But that doesn't mean they don't
want recognition or reward for doing a good job. It
just means they want it differently than somebody who wants
to stand up on the podium and take a bow.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Right Like, there's two.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Different people, both hardworking and both define positive recognition and
reward for themselves differently, but both of them will stop
producing and disengage if they're not getting it in the
way that they want. So if the person who wants
the whole team to clap for them when they do something, well,
if all they're getting is a behind the scenes, you know,
(04:36):
kind of handshake for the manager going hey, great job yesterday,
that person might disengage. On the other hand, the person
who does not want the public recognition and that's all
they want is the handshake and.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Say, hey, that was a great job yesterday.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
That could be all that is needed to drive them
for the next two months to do the best work.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
They've ever done.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So again, it's individualized, and you, as a leader have
to meet people where they are. So I want to
go over some of the things you can do as
a leader to make sure you're doing this correctly and
in a way that is both that both is fair
and it seems fair from each person on your team.
But first, let's give up to word from one of
our sponsors. All right, if you're a leader of people
and you're trying to figure out where best to kind
of meet your people where they are from a recognition
(05:15):
and reward standpoint, Uh, there's a there's a book that
was out, you know, many many years ago called the
Five Love Languages, and it talks about, you know, in
a romantic relationship with somebody, there are different ways that
they want to be.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Talked to from a love language.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
And there's you know, physical touch, there's acts of service, quality, time, gifts,
like there's different things that you can that and while
they all might be great, there's usually one, maybe two,
but usually one that a person just really gravitates towards,
like in terms of if you do this for them,
then that's how you show them that you love them,
(05:52):
like they feel loved.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
When you do this thing for them.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I think employees are no different, even though the ways
that you do are clearly going to be differ and
in a workspace, but employees want to be recognized and rewarded.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
All of them do.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
But the way they want to be recognized or rewarded
is going to be different from person to person, and
you need to figure out what that is individually. You
need to talk to individual people within the parameters of
what is possible. Right, you know, someone can't say the
way I want to be rewarded is for you to
increase my salary every time I do something well that
might not be in the parameters of what you can
do as a leader, so that wouldn't be on the table,
(06:27):
but within the parameters of what you can do.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Talk to people.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
About how they want to be rewarded and recognized, things
like quality time that can be a shared thing. I
know that if a leader were to pull me aside
and say, hey, let me buy a cup of coffee,
let's just talk about the future, like to me, I
feel like I'm being rewarded and recognized. I want to
have those conversations where I kind of get to know
my leader better and they get to know me better.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Feeling like I can put on.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
The table what my long term goals are in the
hopes that maybe they'll take some of those under their
wing and help me accomplish them.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You know, to me, that is being rewarded and recognized.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Other employees just want like a quick pat on the
back and a handshake and and a great job. And
you know, they would look at the idea of having
a one on one conversation with the leader about future
goals as daunting, and they have no desire to do that,
and they just want to be able to get their
work done. So each individual person is going to be different,
and you, as a leader can't just kind of, you know,
cookie cutter it across everybody because it might be the
(07:23):
way that you enjoy giving recognition or that it's easy
for you to do.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
It needs to be in.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
A way that they actually want to be recognized, and
oftentimes employees won't be able to tell you that until
after they've gotten it. Oftentimes employees who have never been
asked how they like to be recognized don't know the
answer to that. They can only know how it made
them feel when you did something already. So, hey, the
other day, I recognize you for doing this, and this
is the way.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
That I did it. How did that feel?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Did that sit right okay with you? Would you prefer
it a different way? And sometimes that you have to
put it in the context of something they've already been
through to get them to the point where they can say,
you know what, yeah, I actually did like that, or
maybe I prefer this instead. Again, having the conversations about
it with your individual employees so that you know how
to recognize people will be the most important thing you
(08:11):
can do to make sure that the recognition you are
giving is actually doing something for the person and not
just you know, something they're trying to avoid.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, and I think too you were kind of talking
through this, and I was thinking about the fact that, like,
I think it's also important to review and talk about
what are your recognition and review kind of options or
what are the things that you do or the organization
does that you work for and say, hey, Chris, like
I want to talk about you know, recognition and rewards
(08:39):
with you, and I want to kind of go over
some of these things, but I also want to better
understand within all these options that we have, are there
ones here that you prefer most? Are there ones here
that work best for you? Are the things that we're
not thinking about that you think are something that we
could do? Here, like having that dialogue, because I think
that we tend to want to go right to like
what do you want versus here's what we have what
(09:02):
works best for you? And that if there's something that
we're not thinking of or that we could consider, we
can have that conversation as well. But many times within
that conversation there's a lot of options and things that
can be done in a way that work best for you.
And provides you with what you're looking for. And if
somebody says like, well, I mean you want to recognize
(09:22):
and reward me like I'd like to make more money,
then let's have that conversation. You know, I'm saying like, like, like,
what do you do and how does that happen? And
how do you get to the point of increasing your
income so that it's where you want to be. And
then as we do that and as you do this work,
how do you want to be recognized when you do
a great job, because like you need to do a
good job to a great job to have opportunities to
(09:44):
then be able to impact your income. Like you can
still have that whole conversation, but I think that that
for me, if you're really looking to solve for a
greater you know, understanding of how do you recognize your
people uniquely, start with giving them all that the things
that you already do and finding out what works best
for them, and then you can have some more dialogue
(10:05):
if there's you know, things that are close or you
that are within the scope of your capability.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Right for sure, because there's very few, very few things
are off the table. They just might not be on
the table in the way the person is thinking about
it to begin with. Right, So your your example of
I want more money, great, let's get you more money.
Here's how you get promoted to the next level to
where you would get more money. It's like, oh, no, no, no,
I mean like when I do something well, right, that's
what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
When you do something well, it puts.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
You on the path to be able to get to
the promotion that you want to get more money. You're
telling me this is what you want. I'm gonna tell
you how to get there, and I'm committed to getting
you there as long as you are too. And and
if you go about it that way and kind of
you know, kind of redefining it with that person in
that conversation about what's possible, you'd be surprised what what.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
What is left that is not on the table? What's
not possible?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Very few things, you know, if you if it's framed
correctly and in a way that is not just kind
of like transactional, right, the recognition that is that is transactional,
that is very short term. I did this thing, well,
therefore I'm going to do this for you. That kind
of transactional recognition. That's important too, but that doesn't you know,
you don't get promoted for doing something well once, right,
(11:19):
you don't get more money for doing something well once.
The ways that you recognize people individually, for those little things,
that's what will get them the book or library of
behaviors and repeated results and outcomes over time that will
get them the promotion that they want. And oftentimes a
(11:39):
leader who doesn't do a great job of the individual
transactional pieces of recognition, those are the ones that fail
their people in the long term because the lack of
that transactional recognition that happens on one off basis is
what causes them to not want to repeat the actions
they did that got them the transactional recognition, and that
(12:00):
then leads to a consistent pattern of behavior of the
positivity and the results that then lead to the larger
kind of doors being opened and career opportunities for them.
So all of these kind of broader things that people want,
the promotions, more money, more responsibility, these things, they very
few of them are possible without those individual pieces of
(12:22):
recognition that you can give people on one off basis.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
They are so important.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
It's the little things add up to be bigger than
the big things. Thank you all for joining us on
this discussion and employ engagement. We'll finish up this discussion
next week when we talk about the last kind of
item of insidious ways that your employee engagement can be low.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
You have a great day.
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