Gone are the days when employees were recognized for their outstanding performance with trophies and plaques. The corporates are devising innovative strategies to recognize their employees because recognition today has a broader meaning. Companies are increasingly realizing the fact that the right pat on the right shoulder is the only way to accelerate performance and more importantly the best way to retain bright brains.

Pramod Jajoo, Managing Director of Xora, recalls an interesting way of recognition in the U.S. “When I was looking for a parking slot on M.G. road some time back, one incident which flashed in my mind was my not getting a parking slot when I had gone to visit my wife at a hospital in the U.S. I could not find a single slot to park my car. But there was a vacant slot right in front of the entrance, which, I was told, was reserved for the employee of the month. I was curious about this, and I later learned that it was one of the ways to reward recognition in the U.S.,” says Jajoo.

The human yearning for recognition, love, care and affection unfolds in various ways in companies. Recognizing helps people excel in performance and makes them more loyal to the organization. The relevance of recognition in human beings can be noticed from childhood. For instance, children look for simple appreciation as recognition from their parents rather than expensive gizmos.

Today most of the organizations have realized that appreciation and recognition confirm the employees that their work is valued. So they have introduced the same as a strategy to make their employees really effective in their jobs. Formal, informal, and day-to-day recognition programs, when linked to the organization’s values and goals, can create a culture of recognition that enhances employee engagement, performance and retention, according to Trends in Employee Recognition survey in 2005 by the National Association for Employee Recognition (NAER) in the U.S.

The culture of recognition was not very prevalent earlier. However, today there is a lot of importance for human resources. This is probably due to the fact that we are presently in the information age. Unlike in the industrial age, today the wave has turned in favor of human resource management.