Empowering

Workplace Culture
Through Recognition
Copyright Standards
This document contains proprietary research, copyrighted and trademarked materials of Gallup,
Inc. Accordingly, international and domestic laws and penalties guaranteeing patent, copyright,
trademark and trade secret protection safeguard the ideas, concepts and recommendations related
within this document.

The materials contained in this document and/or the document itself may be downloaded and/or
copied provided that all copies retain the copyright, trademark and any other proprietary notices
contained on the materials and/or document. No changes may be made to this document without
the express written permission of Gallup, Inc.

Any reference whatsoever to this document, in whole or in part, on any webpage must provide a link
back to the original document in its entirety. Except as expressly provided herein, the transmission
of this material shall not be construed to grant a license of any type under any patents, copyright or
trademarks owned or controlled by Gallup, Inc.

Gallup® and the Gallup Panel™ are trademarks of Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks
and copyrights are property of their respective owners.

ii
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 What Workplace Culture Is and Why It Matters
5 Recognition Builds Workplace Culture and Engages Employees
7 Practical Steps to Transform Your Culture Through Recognition
13 Conclusion
14 Survey Methodology

iii
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Introduction
An organization is only as strong as its work culture. In fact, 84% of the value of an S&P 500 company
comes from the talents, skills, knowledge, work ethic and health of its employees.1 But, as daily
stress remains at a record high and a majority of the world’s workers are not engaged, companies
must ask themselves: What can be done to foster a strong culture of connection and engagement?

It starts by investing in people.

To assemble and energize the workforce of the future, organizations must prioritize the “human
element” of their business, recognizing that productivity and efficiency come when employees are
engaged, inspired and connected to their coworkers. And one of the best ways to do that is to
recognize employees for who they are and what they do.

Every organization is unique. The culture that spurs one organization toward future success in
alignment with its mission may look much different from another organization’s ideal way of working.
Fortunately, strategic recognition can be a flexible and potent tool to shape and reinforce workplace
culture in any organization. In fact, when employees strongly agree that recognition is an important
part of their organization’s culture, they are 3.8 times as likely to strongly agree that they feel
connected to their culture.

Recognition not only helps to build strong company cultures, it also makes good business sense. In
Gallup and Workhuman’s From Praise to Profits report, it is estimated that if the median organization
in Gallup’s database doubled the number of employees who strongly agreed that they received
recognition or praise for doing good work in the last seven days, they would see a 9% increase in
productivity. For the average organization with 10,000 employees, that productivity gain would
amount to a $91,989,474 increase in employee output.2

Despite the importance of culture to an organization, a clear understanding of culture is often veiled
by varying interpretations. This makes defining workplace culture difficult and changing it even
harder. In this report, Gallup and Workhuman define what workplace culture is, why it matters and
how recognition can be leveraged to build it. The report explores how recognition can vitalize an
organization’s culture and generate engagement; it also offers four practical steps an organization
can take to realize these benefits.

The bottom line is when organizations understand and activate the power of strategic
recognition, they cultivate strong cultures that unite their employees and drive them to
achieve the organization’s mission.

1 Robison, J. (2021, May 11). Every Company Has Human Capital -- Not Every Company Develops It. Gallup.com. Retrieved August
28, 2023, from https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/348860/every-company-human-capital-not-every-company-develops.
aspx#:~:text=Human%20capital%20is%20serious%20capital,even%20the%20health%20of%20employees
2 Productivity value per-employee was calculated using average salary and labor share estimates from the BLS. Results assume that
per‑employee productivity value to an organization is a ratio between average salary of an employee ($58,260 across all occupations in
2021) and U.S. labor share (57% in 2022).

1
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

What Workplace Culture Is

and Why It Matters
Defining Workplace Culture
Workplace culture is inherently complex and often eludes a singular definition. Depending on whom
you ask, you are likely to hear workplace culture described as a system of various forces at play
within an organization or in terms that describe its primary characteristics i.e., “family,” “agile” or
“performance-based.”

Gallup conceptualizes workplace culture simply as “how we do things around here.” And, more
specifically, it is a function of how people within the organization interact with one another and
how they get their work done. An organization’s culture clarifies what its employees, as well as its
customers, can expect when they interact with one another.

While the effects of a workplace culture can certainly be good or bad, the construct of culture itself
and its components are neutral; not inherently right or wrong. And its quality is not determined
by comparing them to some neat archetype that is common across all organizations. The optimal
culture is unique to every organization and should reflect its past and present along with its goals
and vision for the future. Strong cultures emerge when there is cohesion and unity in how individuals
do things in an organization. Furthermore, the best cultures align how people do things with what
will best help an organization to engage its employees, achieve its goals and accomplish its mission.

2
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Why Workplace Culture Matters

The world of work has shifted. Employees have found and embraced new ways of completing
their work and have adjusted their expectations in alignment with these changes. Employers and
employees remain in a push-pull relationship regarding remote work and the market for top talent
continues to be competitive. Organizations that once enjoyed thriving, ubiquitous cultures may now
find them segmented and eroded if they have failed to keep pace with these workplace changes.3

In this new playing field, leaders need to forge and leverage a culture that attracts talented
employees to their organization and engages them in driving it forward. Most organizations
are failing to do so. Just two in 10 U.S. employees strongly agree they are connected to their
organization’s culture.4

The way employees experience their organization’s day-to-day culture matters. When a workplace
culture is broken, people feel it. They talk about it, too.

In a recent Workforce survey, employed members of the Gallup Panel were asked to describe their
work culture in three short words or phrases. Engaged employees were more likely to use words
such as “caring,” “innovative” and “inclusive” whereas actively disengaged employees were more
likely to use words such as “toxic,” “disorganized” and “chaotic.”

Top words U.S. employees use to describe the culture of their workplace

Engaged Employees Actively Disengaged Employees

Caring | Friendly | Fun | Integrity Toxic | Disorganized | Money

Innovative | Inclusive | Service Unorganized | Stressful | Profit
Quality | Professional Horrible | Chaotic | Fast-Paced

When organizations don’t have a clear purpose or culture that unites their employees, it can feel
like the only reason work is done is to make money. While “money” and “profit” are essential to
the success of an organization, focusing disproportionately on financial outcomes and neglecting
the journey to achieve them can cast an organization adrift without an identity. Disengagement
rises, and organizations may soon find themselves with a “horrible” culture that cripples morale
and performance.

Instead, when organizations rally employees around their purpose and values, they find
their employees become passionate brand advocates who stay longer and drive results. The
way engaged employees describe their culture also illustrates how they are uplifted by their
day‑to‑day experiences (“fun,” “caring,” “inclusive”) and the type of work they produce
(“innovative,” “quality,” “professional”).

3 Gallup. (n.d.). Organizational Culture. Gallup.com. Retrieved August 11, 2023, from https://www.gallup.com/471521/indicator-
organizational-culture.aspx
4 Ibid.

3
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

A Connection to Culture Drives Professional and Personal Results

Those who strongly agree with "I feel connected to my organization's culture" are:

3.7x 5.2x 68% 55%

AS LI KELY A S L I KE LY L ES S L I K ELY L ES S L I K ELY

to be to strongly agree to feel burned to be watching for

engaged they would recommend out at work very job opportunities
at work their organization as a often or always or actively looking
great place to work for another job

Culture is the soul of an organization. Organizations accelerate toward their goals when they define
and reinforce the values and causes that motivate employees to give their best every day. In this way,
a strong culture acts both as a catalyst to generate engagement and as a road map to channel that
engagement in a way that best serves an organization’s goals and mission.

Having established what culture is and why it matters for an organization’s bottom line, this report
will highlight recognition as one of the strongest forces for building and maintaining culture
and engaging employees.

4
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Recognition Builds Workplace

Culture and Engages Employees
Recognition Clarifies and Amplifies Workplace Culture
Recognition stands uniquely as an element of culture in and of itself, while also wielding the power
and flexibility to bolster other elements of how work gets done.

Through positive reinforcement, recognition spotlights the behaviors that best exemplify the culture
an organization is aspiring to and motivates employees to model those behaviors more often. When
leaders practice recognition and emphasize its importance, it sparks a chain reaction. Leaders signal
to employees, and soon employees signal to one another, what’s important to them by expressing
recognition, gratitude and appreciation for the things they want to see more of in their organization.

The impact of recognition in culture-building is clear:

Among employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their culture,
seven in 10 strongly agree that they feel connected to their organization’s culture.

Recognition can be targeted to promote the desired cultural elements of any given organization.
It can also be adjusted and fine-tuned over time to adapt to changing workplace demands.
Recognition is a consistent, direct tool for leaders to communicate their cultural goals and
expectations. It is essential in helping employees develop a robust connection to their workplace
culture. It also helps create unity not just in stated values, but in the way work gets done across
an organization.

5
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Strategic Recognition Generates Employee Engagement

The value of using recognition to link employees to their organization’s culture can be easily
observed through the relationship between consistent, quality recognition and employee
engagement. Recognition doesn’t just feel good — it powers thriving employees and thriving
organizations. Employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their
organization’s culture are 3.7 times as likely to be engaged and about half as likely to experience
frequent burnout than those who do not.

In past research, Gallup and Workhuman identified five essential pillars of strategic recognition.
The research shows that recognition is most effective when it is fulfilling, authentic, personalized,
equitable and embedded in company culture.

Fulfilling Authentic Personalized Equitable Embedded

Employees' It isn't just a One size It’s given fairly, in an
Recognition "checklist" doesn't fit all. without playing Organization's
thing. favorites.
Expectations Culture
The amount It’s integrated
you receive into the
makes sense. day-to-day.

When leaders practice recognition that is perceived as excellent across each of the five pillars of
strategic recognition (what Gallup and Workhuman define as “great recognition”), employees
become energized and buy into how people interact with one another and how work gets done
within their organization. Specifically, the research shows that employees who receive great
recognition are 20 times as likely to be engaged as employees who receive poor recognition.
(“Poor recognition” being the worst recognition experiences across all the pillars.)

By promoting great recognition, organizations can create strong, embedded cultures and tap
into the sweeping benefits of an engaged workforce. Gallup’s extensive research on employee
engagement has consistently confirmed the relationship between engagement and key business
metrics, including customer loyalty, profitability, productivity, turnover and safety.5

5 Gallup. (2023, January 7). The Benefits of Employee Engagement. Gallup.com. Retrieved August 11, 2023, from https://www.gallup.com/
workplace/236927/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx

6
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Practical Steps to Transform Your

Culture Through Recognition
For recognition to transform company culture and generate employee engagement, it not
only needs to be given strategically but extensively — it needs to touch each individual at an
organization. Yet only 34% of employees say that their employer has a recognition program. And
while having a recognition program can catalyze more frequent giving and receiving of recognition,
simply having a program isn’t enough: Just 13% of employees with a recognition program rate it as
excellent. This may not be for a lack of trying — 70% of employees believe that their leaders care
about their recognition program.

There is a widespread lack of synergy between how leaders implement recognition programs
and how employees experience them. Great recognition programs become successful not just
through leadership buy-in, but through clear goal setting and intentionally aligning culture,
values and recognition with the organization’s business strategy. When this calibration is achieved,
an organization lives and breathes its culture and values, and employees experience them in a way
that is palpable.

The details matter too. If an organization is driving toward a culture of innovation, it will be crucial to
recognize all aspects of the creative process, not just those moments when successful innovation is
achieved. For instance, an employee who fails but learns from trying out something new should be
recognized too.

Among employees who have great recognition experiences,

72% say that performance for little things is commonly
recognized at their organization, compared with 16% of
employees with poor recognition experiences.

Employees at organizations with a great recognition program receive and give recognition that is
authentic, meaningful and tells a clear story about the organization’s values. Recognition is infused
into the identity of these organizations and is embraced at all levels.

7
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

To maximize the impact of recognition in your organization, here

are four practical steps to transform your culture or protect the
culture you have already built:

Establish your Use recognition Continuously Promote quality

workplace culture to reflect your evaluate and recognition across your
goals and values in workplace culture refine your organization so your
alignment with goals and values. recognition strategy. culture can flourish.
business strategy.6

6 Herway, J. (2021, May 21). To Get Your People's Best Performance, Start With Purpose. Gallup.com. Retrieved August 28, 2023, from
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/350060/people-best-performance-start-purpose.aspx

8
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Establish Your Workplace Culture Goals and

Values in Alignment With Business Strategy
The first step in transforming your culture should always be to define the culture you’re striving
toward. While your organization’s mission statement and long-term goals may help to describe what
your organization does and why, your culture determines how it’s done.7

While some elements of culture, such as integrity, may be a desirable target for most organizations,
the rest need to be informed by what will bring you closest to your company’s unique goals. Though
the mission of their work may overlap, the culture that will drive an established multinational,
multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical company will look different than the culture that empowers an
innovative startup in the same industry.

In shaping the culture that will propel your organization toward its future goals, it is also important
to consider the past and present state of your organization and its people. Identify what aspects of
your culture have helped fuel your organization’s success so far and what has held it back. Make note
of your organization’s historical identity and the strength of its influence. It’s crucial to pinpoint what
causes your employees are likely to rally around and what might be rejected. Your employees’ and
customers’ expectations can help inform what will activate the employees in your organization.

The process of establishing your workplace culture goals extends beyond identifying overarching
values to adhere to. You will also need to define the daily behaviors, rituals and routines that
will best support your business strategy. For example: How do employees stay in touch and
communicate throughout the day? How are decisions made? How are anniversaries at work
celebrated? How close are employees across departments and levels of leadership? And today’s
most pressing question — where do employees work?8

Fully realizing your ideal culture takes time and intentional effort. Your culture also needs to be
actively managed. The best leaders have their finger on the pulse of their organization to identify
and adjust aspects of their culture that do not or no longer work. While consistency over time in your
cultural goals will foster cohesion, this must be balanced with the knowledge that the aspects of
culture that engage employees and drive your organization today may also change over time.

7 Musser, C. (2019, September 9). One Employee Question That Leaders Can't Afford to Ignore. Gallup.com. Retrieved August 11, 2023,
from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/267014/one-employee-question-leaders-afford-ignore.aspx.
8 Gandhi, V. (2023, January 10). Hybrid Work: What's Best for Your Employees and Your Business? Gallup.com. Retrieved August 11, 2023,
from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/467399/hybrid-work-best-employees-business.aspx

9
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Use Recognition to Reflect Your Workplace Culture

Goals and Values
Once you have established the culture that you want to create, it is essential that you clearly
communicate it throughout the organization and generate buy-in. Recognition bridges the goals
for your culture from being ideals to becoming tangible behaviors.

Recognition models and positively reinforces how your ideal culture will manifest in employees’
day-to-day lives. Simply stating a value or other element of culture but doing nothing to reinforce
it can lead to feelings of ambiguity or disinterest among employees. Instead, when you recognize
employees for behaviors that exemplify the culture your organization aspires to, they gain insight
into what is expected of them and are more likely to engage in similar behaviors in the future.

Employees who say their recognition program is aligned with the values of their
organization are 4.9 times as likely to strongly agree that they know what is expected of
them at work compared with employees who indicate their recognition program is not
aligned with the values of their organization.

Recognition also taps into and makes use of employees’ ability to learn socially. When you publicly
recognize an employee for a certain behavior, others are more likely to engage in that behavior once
they identify that your organization values it.

Through recognition, an employee’s understanding of a value such as “service” can transform from
words on paper to behaviors in action. This may be something like proactively calling a customer
to provide progress updates on a project, extending a workday to help a coworker prepare for a
high-stakes presentation or just remembering and using an individual’s preferred name throughout a
conversation. When employees notice, recognize and attribute these behaviors to the organization’s
value of “service,” they contribute to producing a more robust and actionable understanding within
the organization.

If you are looking to use recognition to communicate your workplace culture goals, it is helpful
to consider what behaviors are most important to building your culture and proactively plan to
recognize them. It is also vital that you remain alert to and recognize other unanticipated behaviors
that align with your cultural goals and elevate your organization’s work.

10
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Continuously Evaluate and Refine Your

Recognition Strategy
As you lean in to using recognition as a tool to transform your organization’s culture, it is crucial
that you make proactive, intentional assessments of the story that is being told by the recognition
being given across your organization. Even if you’ve done all the foundational work, the direction of
the recognition being given in your organization can sometimes drift off target. Through analytical
insights and conversations with employees across the organization, evaluate not only if you are still
promoting the workplace culture you’ve set out to achieve, but also consider how it is coming to life.

Recognition programs provide invaluable real-time data about how your organization’s culture is
manifesting. Thorough comparative analysis can reveal any inequities or biases present in how
recognition is being given and map out where your culture is catching on. These data can also be
leveraged to understand what is and is not being recognized and inform any needed adjustments.

For example, if you value a high-performance culture of activation and execution, are employees
only being recognized for putting out fires to ensure delivery at the last minute, or are they also
praised for the initial efficiency, thoughtfulness and energy invested into their work being done
right? Both behaviors can be fairly classified as “high performance,” but each may correspond with
different dimensions of the workplace culture you seek to achieve.

It is important to recognize not just results but also the behaviors and progress along the way. By
recognizing employees’ efforts and behaviors, leaders can more specifically communicate their
cultural expectations and ensure all their employees feel like they are appreciated. This practice
also helps include employees who are at various stages of their career development and employees
whose work may be less directly tied to traditional measures of performance. By recognizing and
rewarding progress along the way, leaders can help employees develop an understanding of what
excellent performance looks like in their roles and encourage them to replicate it in the future. This is
a practice that is especially critical (and helpful) for employees new to the organization or their role.

Consistent, thoughtful evaluation of how your recognition is being directed is essential to building
a culture that is robust and faithful to what you strive to create. Your leaders must ensure that their
recognition is not only aligned with your organization’s culture goals but that it is aimed in the right
direction for all employees.

11
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Promote Quality Recognition Across Your Organization

So Your Culture Can Flourish
While cultural transformation may start with the leaders, it is not complete until it takes hold
throughout your organization. The final, ongoing step to help you achieve your cultural goals is
to practice and promote the delivery of recognition in the most effective ways across all levels of
your organization.

As noted earlier, the research shows there are five essential pillars to strategic recognition. These
serve as a blueprint for promoting quality recognition to fully leverage the ability of recognition
to connect employees to your culture. Recognition should be fulfilling, authentic, personalized,
equitable and embedded into your culture.9

Recognition that incorporates the five pillars will maximize the speed and strength by which your
culture develops. Conversely, recognition that is given infrequently or without meaning may fail
to deliver the benefits of recognition as well as produce adverse effects. Employees who receive
recognition that is inauthentic and generic may feel their work is anonymous and that they are
not valued as individuals. Recognition that is given infrequently limits the creation of language
and understanding on your culture goals and can send conflicting messages. If an employee is
recognized for a certain behavior once, but never again afterwards, they may wonder if expectations
have changed or if that behavior is still valued at all.

To accelerate and sustain their cultural transformations, leaders should familiarize themselves with
and hone their skills in applying the five pillars of strategic recognition. To amplify these effects,
leaders can educate employees across all levels of their organization on the best practices for giving
recognition. The full power of recognition is unlocked when an organization finds ways to embed it
as part of their culture and incorporate it into daily practice.

This includes an organization’s people, not just their leaders. Employees who excel at giving
recognition in their organizations fulfill each of the five pillars of strategic recognition and seamlessly
incorporate it into frequent, meaningful conversations with their team members. The employees
best at giving recognition are intentional in finding ways to incorporate recognition into check‑ins,
goal-setting sessions, coaching, immediate performance feedback and other developmental
conversations throughout the year, as opposed to saving it for year-end reviews.

Gallup research finds that, in many organizations, traditional performance reviews may do more harm
than good, and that only 14% of employees strongly agree their performance reviews inspire them
to improve.10 Instead, through more organic and frequent conversations that include recognition,
employees with direct reports can reward performance, reinforce behaviors that contribute to
success and modify those that don’t. Simultaneously, these conversations yield all the other benefits
of effective recognition and help employees strengthen their connection to and understanding of
their organization’s culture.

9 Maese, E., & Lloyd, C. (2023, July 18). Is Your Employee Recognition Really Authentic? Gallup.com. Retrieved August 11, 2023, from
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/508208/employee-recognition-really-authentic.aspx
10 Sutton, R., & Wigert, B. (2019, May 6). More Harm Than Good: The Truth About Performance Reviews. Gallup.com. Retrieved August 11,
2023, from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/249332/harm-good-truth-performance-reviews.aspx

12
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Conclusion

A strong culture acts both as a catalyst to generate engagement and as a road map to
channel that engagement in a way that best serves an organization’s goals and mission.
Recognition stands uniquely as an element of culture in and of itself, while also wielding the
power and flexibility to reinforce other elements of how work gets done in an organization.

In this report, Gallup and Workhuman define what workplace culture is and examine why a strong
culture is vital to the success of every organization. The research highlights recognition as a pivotal
tool for building culture and illustrates how a culture boosted by recognition can drive engagement
and produce other tangible results. It is a call to action for leaders and provides four practical steps
to leverage the power of recognition to transform and sustain the culture that will propel them to
achieve the long-term goals and mission of their organization:

Establish your Use recognition Continuously Promote quality

workplace culture to reflect your evaluate and recognition across your
goals and values workplace culture refine your organization so your
in alignment with goals and values. recognition strategy. culture can flourish.
business strategy.

13
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.
Workhuman_RPT_EXT_engUS_digital_092223_kr
Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition

Survey Methodology
Primary results from this report are based on a survey conducted from May 26 – June 6, 2023, with
1,081 adults who are employed full-time or part-time, aged 18 and older and living in all 50 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia, as a part of the Gallup Panel. For results based on these samples
of national employed adults, the margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±4.6
percentage points for response percentages around 50% and is ±2.8 percentage points for response
percentages around 10% or 90%, design effect included.

Some results from this report are based on a survey conducted from February 3 – 14, 2022, with
15,982 adults who are employed full-time or part-time, aged 18 and older and living in all 50 U.S.
states and the District of Columbia, as a part of the Gallup Panel. For results based on these samples
of national employed adults, the margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±1.2
percentage points.

14
Copyright © 2023 Gallup, Inc. All rights reserved.