Recognise This! – Trends inform us of the past. Setting the future is up to us.

Yesterday on Compensation Cafe I blogged about the latest Trends in Employee Recognition report from WorldatWork.

Click over to the Cafe to get the full summary of trends, business benefits and areas for improvement, but below is a quick highlight of key points:

86% – Companies with recognition programmes.

Programmes to motivate specific behaviours is the fastest growing type of recognition programme with a 9% growth rate. Thankfully, attendance programmes are dropping the fastest. I never did see the point in recognising someone for showing up — the bare minimum of the job requirement — or at worst, encouraging them to come to work while ill.

The three most popular rewards, by far, are certificates and plaques (77%), gift certificates for product purchases and personal services (65%), and cash (62%). This tells me employers are beginning to get the message that gift cards and certificates offer the variability and fungability of cash in terms of vast choice of reward option, while avoiding the hazards of cash rewards.

International/global employees lose out on the opportunity to participate in the wider organisational culture. Only 39% of global employees participate in the same programmes as their North American colleagues. This disturbs me. Think of the message conveyed to these international employees – “you and your efforts aren’t as important as those at headquarters.”

Only 14% train managers on recognition practices. That’s just setting yourself up for failure.

What other trends are you seeing? What surprised you in this trends report?