Have you ever worked hard, delivered great results, and then felt your efforts went unnoticed? If so, you’ve experienced what is known as the recognition gap.
What is the Recognition Gap?
The recognition gap is the divide that exists between the contributions, efforts, and work that people do and the recognition that they receive in return. When employees consistently feel undervalued, motivation, engagement, trust, and job satisfaction can all suffer.
Recognition Gap in the Workplace
In this guide, you’ll discover:
- What the recognition gap is
- What causes it
- How it affects employees
- How managers can reduce it
As a manager, giving recognition requires a level of emotional intelligence on your part, in that it is not simply enough to just say thank you once in a while.
Indeed, it is about ensuring that the employee feels valued, respected, trusted, and also thanked and praised, as we have an innate need to be valued as people and as employees.
As a good leader or manager, the recognition gap is something that matters as it impacts employee motivation, engagement, and trust, key aspects of an effective employee experience management strategy.
The recognition can come in different forms, including:
- Formal acknowledgment – such as with an award, bonus, or promotion.
- Informal gestures or acknowledgments – such as some form of verbal appreciation, written appreciation, and a show of thank you in a team meeting, etc.
The problem is that many people, particularly those in less visible roles or marginalized groups, often experience a lack of recognition.
This can affect employee morale, mental health, and future engagement.
What are the Causes of the Recognition Gap?
The recognition gap is usually caused by poor management practices, limited employee visibility, and a lack of time or structured recognition systems.
1. Badly Trained or Inexperienced Managers
It is often not our fault as new managers because we are often not provided the right training we need when we first become a manager.
As mentioned in the most common issues and challenges for 1st-time and new managers, budget cuts or a lack of priority on training can mean that the training we need is sometimes ignored, leaving us lacking some key management skills.
Moving forward, if you are a manager, try to think about each of the people you manage and how you treat each person.
Do you include every employee, i.e., are you an inclusive manager, or do you have your favorites?
Do you make a point to thank employees often, i.e., you proactively use gratitude giving?
Try to be more self-reflective as a manager and consider the interactions you have with each employee.
2. Role and Visibility Issues
Employees in certain roles may go unrecognized due to:
- Working in back-office or support roles with limited visibility
- Holding positions not seen as “customer-facing” or strategic
- Being more introverted and less inclined to seek recognition
- Management bias toward extroverted or more vocal team members
It’s also worth thinking about how diversity and inclusion play a role here. People from different backgrounds or minority groups can sometimes be unintentionally overlooked, not because of bad intent, but simply because their efforts aren’t always visible to managers who aren’t trained to notice this.
Managers can help bridge this gap through strategies like job crafting, which guide employees to shape their own roles, which in turn can help them gain better recognition for their efforts.
3. Time and Resource Constraints
Sometimes, a manager might simply be so busy that the issues associated with a gap in recognition is unintentionally ignored.
Furthermore, on a company level, a lack of structured recognition programs can also be a cause of these gaps.
What Are the Effects of the Recognition Gap?
The recognition gap can reduce employee motivation, engagement, trust, wellbeing, and retention while also affecting team performance and organizational culture.
The effects can actually be quite strong and affect individual employees, the team, and the company:
Individual Employees
The feeling of being unappreciated tends to lead to low morale, less workplace motivation, and can also lead to burnout. A lack of recognition can also affect an employee’s mental health because it can lead to them questioning their value and worth at work.
It also undermines psychological safety when employees do not feel safe to express their ideas or ask for feedback.
The Team
A lack of recognition can also erode morale and productivity levels on a team level. An individual employee’s decreasing morale and motivation inevitably end up impacting the team and others they work with.
The company
As you can imagine, the employee and team then filter down through the company, and a company who do not train managers in good management processes is likely to result in higher staff turnover. Gallup research shows that regular recognition from managers significantly improves employee engagement and retention.
It can also cause employee retention rates to drop.
Example of the Recognition Gap
Recognition gaps often occur when employees make valuable contributions but receive little appreciation or acknowledgment for their work.
Example 1: Bob the Garage Mechanic
Bob is quite new to being a car mechanic, but he is clearly skilled and fits in well in this busy garage in a busy auto repair shop.
He’s been doing a great job, learning fast, and he is already able to fix all types of vehicles that come in, and his real skills are with computers, which have been so handy for working with the electric cars that have started to come in.
Even though he works hard, Bob unfortunately feels undervalued because no one ever tells him that he’s doing a good job or gives him any real encouragement.
The front desk staff gets all the gratitude from customers, and this never filters down to the likes of Bob. Likewise, management never seems to show gratitude.
This recognition gap has left Bob feeling demotivated and questioning whether his efforts are truly valued.
The garage manager became aware of this issue through chatting with Bob in an annual review meeting, and as a result, the manager introduced a weekly Employee Spotlight (weekly because the garage has 30+ employees) that rotates through all team members, highlighting individual contributions in team meetings and on the company notice board.
Bob’s manager and the other senior managers also collectively decide to make a much greater effort to show gratitude, so much so that they call in a freelance trainer for a gratitude-giving session for the management team.
The management team realizes what great assets their employees are and what a great team they have, and they seem determined to learn from their mistakes.
This new approach makes Bob feel seen and appreciated for his hard work, and he stays long-term.
How Managers Can Address the Recognition Gap
Managers can reduce the recognition gap by consistently acknowledging employee contributions, showing appreciation, and creating a culture where recognition is part of everyday management.
1. Awareness and Self-Reflection as a Manager
If you are a manager, then take a little time to reflect on how you recognize (or fail to) those people you manage.
Do you recognize the people you manage in the way that you should? Do you sometimes rely on assumptions and biases that also affect the way in which you treat certain employees?
2. Offer Training and Create a Culture of Appreciation as a Company
As a company, you can implement recognition, giving, and appreciation in the workplace to ensure that employees are recognized for their contributions regularly.
Also, providing training to new and existing managers in gratitude giving can be worthwhile. Likewise, training on feedback giving can also be useful for managers.
FAQs
What causes the recognition gap?
The recognition gap is usually caused by poor management practices, limited employee visibility, unconscious bias, heavy workloads, or a lack of formal recognition systems. Employees in less visible roles or those who are quieter may also receive less recognition, even when they make valuable contributions.
Why does employee recognition matter?
Employee recognition is important, but we all naturally want to feel valued and respected, and this includes in the workplace. By recognizing staff, we build better trust, employee engagement, and help retain valued staff through high levels of job satisfaction.
What are examples of employee recognition?
Examples can include showing recognition in meetings of employees for employee achievements, offering rewards such as extra time off or gifts, or offering promotion or other career development opportunities.
What are the signs of a recognition gap in the workplace?
When you start noticing that morale is low, staff turnover is too high, and absenteeism is high, these are some signs that you might need to look at the recognition gap.
Teaching 1st-time Managers
Training managers to recognize and appreciate employees consistently helps improve engagement, trust, and retention.
These materials can be instantly downloaded and used for teaching employees, such as managers.
See the Employee Engagement Training Materials
