I recently attended a webinar sponsored by an employee recognition company.

There was some good information on the call. The speaker mentioned that “stuff” like tricked-out offices and company merch doesn’t really engage employees (true), and that effective recognition doesn’t only come from the top down but flows in all directions throughout the company (very true).

But they lost me at the product demo. Apparently you are able to pre-schedule things like recurring birthday greetings and anniversary posts, so you don’t need to worry about forgetting them on the actual days. Once you get them scheduled, in fact, you never have to think about them again.

This is terrible. Expressions of employee appreciation should be real and authentic. They need to come from the giver’s heart and mind in the actual moment.

As a manager, if I’m pre-scheduling appreciation posts to get them out of the way, I’m robbing my employee of a sincere, timely expression of congratulations or thanks. I’m also robbing myself of the joy of giving that gift (not to mention an important reminder to myself that my employee is valuable and awesome. This can slip the mind of even the best managers every now and again).

Employees aren’t stupid. If you electronically pre-schedule your mom’s birthday greetings for the next 10 years out, she’ll know it. Bob in accounting will figure it out, too.

No one is saying you need to pen an original sonnet every time someone goes above and beyond at work, but the bottom line is that employee recognition efforts should take a little time, effort, and thought. If they don’t, what’s the point?

At that point, you’re just checking a box. And in the entire history of the world, box-checking has never impressed anyone worth impressing.

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