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Sep 30, 2025
💬 Constructive feedback or recognition: what really engages employees?
💡 Do you know what really engages your employees? In this article, we explore the differences between constructive feedback and recognition programs, and how each impacts organizational culture, talent retention, and employee engagement. Find out why feedback alone isn't enough — and how recognition can be the differentiator for a proactive, motivated, and above-average team.
At YouDeserve, we specialize in building employee recognition programs that value and engage each collaborator. One of the big questions we receive during our conversations with clients is: "Can I give feedback through the platform?" The answer is a resounding no.
Feedback and employee recognition are like cousins: They are from the same family, but have distinct objectives and approaches. Both are crucial and should be used together to enhance the overall culture of the company and boost employee engagement.
While feedback can indeed be positive, what we often see in day-to-day life is constructive feedback. Personally, I like to say that employees are often bombarded daily with negative reinforcement (constructive feedback) and not sufficiently recognized for their exceptional contributions.
This is exactly where a recognition program focused on valuing good performance comes in, positively reinforcing each employee to continuously improve their best contributions.
At this point, everyone should be aware of the concepts of feedback, but I need to put everyone on the same page regarding employee recognition and feedback.
📊 Concepts
| Feedback: Focus on Development | Recognition: The Fuel of Motivation |
|---|---|
| Feedback is a communication, usually between two people and almost always private, aimed at providing information that promotes continuous improvement or professional growth. It can be used to reinforce a positive aspect or, constructively, point out areas for improvement in an empathetic manner. Feedback is essential for aligning expectations regarding deliverables, developing technical and behavioral competencies, and improving performance over time. | Employee recognition is the act of valuing behaviors, attitudes, or results that are aligned with the organization’s objectives and values. It is usually done publicly and personalized for an individual or team. Its purpose is not only to value the one receiving it but also to serve as an example and inspiration for the other employees. Recognition is a powerful form of cultural communication that signals what behaviors and deliverables are valued by the company, and serves as a mechanism for intrinsic motivation. |
⚠️ The Danger of Mediocrity: Why Recognition is Indispensable
In practice, if your company focuses only on feedback, it is likely to be producing mediocre employees. And I don't use the term here with a pejorative and negative connotation, but rather in the sense of average or modest quality.
Every employee, even the most senior ones, has a mix of deliverables, behaviors, and attitudes: within expectation, above expectation, and below expectation.
If only the feedback mechanism is activated (barring rare exceptions), your company will form employees who stay within expectations. And being within expectations is nothing more than the average result.
"But my culture and team are always held accountable for performance above expectations; we provide financial incentives for that", really?
Are your employees truly building behaviors and attitudes that yield consistent results over the long term, or are they just pursuing their aggressive commission?
Here lies an interesting point: many CEOs and company directors talk a lot about employees needing to have an owner's mindset, being proactive and curious. But are we really valuing great performances and reinforcing those above-average attitudes so that this vision and dedication make it worthwhile?
Developing an exceptional delivery, above what is expected, is not always linked to excessive work or aggressive goals but rather to a conducive environment for it to happen.
According to recent data, 88% of employees who receive strong recognition for their performance are proactive in innovation. Furthermore, employee recognition not only boosts employee engagement but also increases productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to greater retention.
So, the "state of the art" on what we are discussing: build a good feedback program, but never forget to establish a robust recognition program, as it is here that your culture will rise from mediocrity to ABOVE average.
🏗️ Structure of the Programs
To assist you in building both programs, I will detail the step-by-step of each program, comparing them at each stage.
Building a solid structure for each program is the foundation for achieving success and consistency in its implementation. In this sense, we can use the same structure for both feedback and employee recognition. In general, we can set up a lean structure as follows:
1. Fundamental Principles
2. Methods
3. Models
4. Techniques
🎯 Principles
I strongly believe in principles; principles are initial truths or assumptions that serve as the foundation, basis, or guidance for every project we are starting. Therefore, let's start with them.
| Feedback Principles | Recognition Principles |
|---|---|
| 1. Clarity All feedback must be specific and easy to understand. If it's confusing, it can hinder comprehension and have the opposite effect. | 1. Clarity Just like in feedback, if it’s not clear, it becomes challenging, especially because recognitions are usually public. Everyone needs to understand the "why" of the recognition. |
| 2. Actionable It should have a roadmap for improvement, meaning feedback without guidance is not constructive. | 2. Personalization No generic statements. It's not just a "thank you"; it's necessary to detail the specific reason for recognition, connecting it to an action, behavior, or result. |
| 3. Frequency Being regular is essential to foster growth and avoid bottlenecks. Without rhythm, feedback can seem lost or too heavy. | 3. Frequency Recognizing only at the end of the year may be too late. Employee recognition should be continuous and timely to maximize its impact. |
| - | 4. Proportionality Especially when involving rewards, recognition should reflect how positive the activity, behavior, or deliverable is. |
Every company is unique and has an individual culture that derives from the initial behaviors of the founders. Therefore, understand that the principles above are just a starting point. I advise you to customize them by including the characteristics of your company’s culture. Remember, culture is alive, so principles are not immutable; you will likely evolve your concepts from experimentation.
🔄 Methodologies
Beyond principles, we need to discuss methods. Here is where the methodologies of each program come into play. Since feedback has been widely used for a longer time, we have more variations than recognition programs, as shown below.
| Feedback Methodologies: Tools for Growth | Recognition Methodologies: Celebrating Success |
|---|---|
| 1. Developmental Feedback Used to build technical and behavioral skills, helping employees in their professional development. It can be applied in 1:1 sessions or training programs. Focuses on progress in skills over time, seeking long-term improvements with follow-ups to verify advancements. | 1. Institutional Recognition This type of recognition can be parallel to developmental or evaluative feedback. The goal is to hold celebrations and recognitions aimed at elements that are part of the organizational culture. Common forms include: tenure, birthdays, milestone achievements, "employee of the month", cultural value representatives, and internal projects. |
| 2. Behavioral Feedback Frequently used for observable activities with visible impacts. Its aim is to seek improvements in workplace interactions and correct any errors. It should focus on actions rather than personal traits, aiming to be as objective and actionable as possible. | 2. Leadership-Driven Recognition This recognition is highly strategic. Studies show that 83.6% of employees feel that recognition affects their motivation for success at work. We can draw a parallel with developmental or continuous feedback because leader recognition focuses on performance and behavior. It can be executed after the delivery of important activities, developments in internal projects, Individual Development Plans (IDPs), directly tied to day-to-day occurrences. |
| 3. Continuous Feedback This is the day-to-day feedback that should be as close as possible to the event to generate greater absorption. Very common in agile environments where speed is crucial for performance. | 3. Peer-to-Peer Recognition Here, we allow all employees to participate in the recognition program: leaders-leaders, employees-leaders, employees-employees. Generally used to recognize daily actions and behaviors, such as assistance in activities, a good technical delivery, or a positive behavior. This type of recognition is super important, especially in very technical teams where much of the effort goes unseen by management, but is seen by the next person who accesses the work done. We can draw a parallel here with behavioral and continuous feedback, and it is of course peer-based. |
| 4. Peer-Based Feedback Great for capturing colleagues' and leaders' perspectives on performance. Generally used alongside tools that collect 360-degree feedback. It helps employees increase their "Johari Window," gaining better insight into their peers’ perceptions and what they can do to improve. | - |
| 5. Evaluative Feedback Lastly, but equally important, traditional evaluative feedback, which is basically annual reviews of employee performance, generally based on benchmarks and internal KPIs. | - |
🔺 The Triple Helix of Success in Recognition
To simplify, in your company, you will need the triple helix of success for a feedback or recognition program:
1. What the company can do: Structures and policies for institutional feedback recognition.
2. How to incentivize leadership: Engagement and training of leaders to recognize and give feedback.
3. Accessibility for all: Ensuring that all employees can participate and feel recognized and have guidance for improvement.
📋 Models
Now, for good programs, we need to have examples, or models, that are usually a set of steps, rules, and procedures, organized and simplified for use by multiple people in a "standardized" manner.
Standardized in quotes because it is very difficult to standardize something that depends on the human factor, but it is good to have a guide that provides a path. If the program does not have a minimum level of standardization, it may start to breed a sense of injustice among employees.
And it’s pretty easy; it's just a manager being more generous with recognitions than another that problems happen.
So, let's look at the models:
| Feedback Models | Recognition Models |
|---|---|
| Dear friends, there are many models, but our focus here is recognition, so I will mention only one that will be very useful, although for research purposes, here are some model names: CEE, SBI, DESC, STAR, IDEA, CEDAR. Feedback SBI: This is a very objective model and divides feedback into 3 clear, direct, and unbiased steps, always trying as much as possible not to take personal characteristics into account. How to do it: 1. Situation: Here, we need to be transparent about which situation (action, behavior, activity) we want to discuss. 2. Behavior: We should detail the observed action, leaving no room for interpretation. 3. Impact: What I consider most important, clearly stating the effect of this action on the team, project, or company. Example: "Fulano, I noticed that during your colleague's presentation (situation), you kept responding to emails on your laptop (action), and this behavior caused you to miss important information from the presentation and resulted in you asking about items that had already been discussed, delaying our meeting." Finally, we can conclude with a recommendation for improvement. | The concept is the same as the SBI feedback model but applied to recognition. Let's get straight to the examples: "Fulano, I noticed that during your colleague's meeting (situation), you stayed focused even amid distractions (behavior), and you were able to contribute effectively at the end of the presentation, bringing great ideas. Congratulations on your performance, this is part of our value 'being present'." It’s always good to link employee recognition to the company’s values. Here, recognition should be used to value a positive action. Unlike feedback, which should be done privately, you can perform this appreciation right at the end of the meeting. R.I.S.E Recognition (Recognition, Impact, Specific, Emotion) Here, we go into a little more detail about recognition: - Recognition: Which action do we want to recognize and what is its reason? - Impact: What impact does this cause on the team and the company? - Specific: Try to be as personalized as possible. - Emotion: How did this positively affect the environment? Example: "Fulano, I would like to highlight your focus and being present during the meeting (recognition). This had a significant impact on the quality of the insights suggested at the end of the presentation (impact), especially in introducing out-of-the-box ideas (specific), enriching the discussion and improving our initial idea (emotion)." |
My recommendation, for simplicity: Use the SBI model for both programs, as it is an easy-to-absorb structure that slightly standardizes all actions.
Again, if you want to bring any elements of your culture, feel free to add to the model to make it reflect your company's culture.
🛠️ Techniques
Finally, we need to implement techniques to recognize and give feedback, aiding the daily execution.
| Feedback Techniques | Recognition Techniques |
|---|---|
| 1. Sandwich Old-school, much criticized but effective. Here, during the feedback, you can place the constructive feedback between two positive feedbacks, or even between recognitions. Personally, I do not understand the reasons for the criticisms, as feedback is 50% the responsibility of the receiver, so softening it can be a good approach. | 1. Direct Use the method in an objective manner, without beating around the bush, focused on action and results. Perfect for meeting endings, celebrations, or something more institutional. |
| 2. Pendleton Here, the basic strategy is not just to talk but to interact and discuss the topic in the following steps: 1. Ask the receiver what went well 2. Tell the receiver what you saw working well 3. Ask what did not go so well and could be improved 4. Share what you believe did not go well and what could be improved It is more suitable to use when you have quality time because it requires a bit more conversation, but it is highly effective. | 2. Storytelling Transform employee recognition into a narrative. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good story? It helps create emotional connection, inspires other employees, and reinforces culture. I suggest doing this in places that serve as a record, as these are likely where you will highlight them. Example: "This month, we were under tight deadlines with clients and at risk of losing a contract. That’s when Fulano came up with an idea that, at first, I thought was a bit crazy, but ultimately proved to be a game-changer for us and our clients. Fulano took the lead on this initiative and executed [specific action] that brought us more agility and enabled us to meet the deadlines without needing to do overtime." I am "not great at storytelling," but you get the point: in your company, it's likely there are talents for telling stories! |
| - | 3. Connected with Values and Goals Effective employee recognition needs to be connected to the company's values and main objectives. Therefore, it's always important, at the end of the recognition, to link it to the company's values, explaining why the action represents these values and how it impacts the results. This helps reinforce strategic alignment, directing everyone toward our goals and "culturing" employees, as we are living the values. |
🚀 The Synergy that Drives Engagement and Retention
Finally, with principles, methodology, models, and techniques, your recognition programs will be successful. According to Gallup, the combination of feedback and employee recognition can lead to a 21% reduction in turnover in high-turnover business units and 51% in low-turnover units.
When we build the company's culture, we sometimes forget how we will live it. It is in these rituals of recognizing and improving that we can fully experience it. One of the main reasons for voluntary departures is the lack of a sense of belonging and employee engagement. Only 20% of employees who feel they don’t belong are engaged, compared to 91% of those who do feel they belong. One of the major reasons for this lack of belonging is feeling lost, not understanding the objectives and culture.
Everyone likes to know where they are going. Help them know that through a well-structured recognition program and constructive feedback.
📚 Keep Learning
Did you enjoy this content? We have much more material and resources to help you build an exceptional recognition culture in your company.
Access our exclusive resources and materials →
References
[1] SemosCloud. 21 Key Employee Recognition Statistics Leaders Must Know (2025). Available at: https://semoscloud.com/resources/blog/employee-recognitionstatistics/
[2] Gallup. The Importance of Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-recognitionlow-cost-high-impact.aspx
[3] Sociabble. 12 Employee Recognition Statistics You Need to Know in 2025. Available at: https://www.sociabble.com/blog/employee-engagement/employeerecognition-statistics/
[4] Gallup. Employee Engagement vs. Employee Satisfaction and .... Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236366/right-culture-not-employeesatisfaction.aspx
[5] Qualtrics. Belonging at Work: The Top Driver of Employee Engagement. Available at: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/belonging-at-work/
At YouDeserve, we specialize in building employee recognition programs that value and engage each collaborator. One of the big questions we receive during our conversations with clients is: "Can I give feedback through the platform?" The answer is a resounding no.
Feedback and employee recognition are like cousins: They are from the same family, but have distinct objectives and approaches. Both are crucial and should be used together to enhance the overall culture of the company and boost employee engagement.
While feedback can indeed be positive, what we often see in day-to-day life is constructive feedback. Personally, I like to say that employees are often bombarded daily with negative reinforcement (constructive feedback) and not sufficiently recognized for their exceptional contributions.
This is exactly where a recognition program focused on valuing good performance comes in, positively reinforcing each employee to continuously improve their best contributions.
At this point, everyone should be aware of the concepts of feedback, but I need to put everyone on the same page regarding employee recognition and feedback.
📊 Concepts
| Feedback: Focus on Development | Recognition: The Fuel of Motivation |
|---|---|
| Feedback is a communication, usually between two people and almost always private, aimed at providing information that promotes continuous improvement or professional growth. It can be used to reinforce a positive aspect or, constructively, point out areas for improvement in an empathetic manner. Feedback is essential for aligning expectations regarding deliverables, developing technical and behavioral competencies, and improving performance over time. | Employee recognition is the act of valuing behaviors, attitudes, or results that are aligned with the organization’s objectives and values. It is usually done publicly and personalized for an individual or team. Its purpose is not only to value the one receiving it but also to serve as an example and inspiration for the other employees. Recognition is a powerful form of cultural communication that signals what behaviors and deliverables are valued by the company, and serves as a mechanism for intrinsic motivation. |
⚠️ The Danger of Mediocrity: Why Recognition is Indispensable
In practice, if your company focuses only on feedback, it is likely to be producing mediocre employees. And I don't use the term here with a pejorative and negative connotation, but rather in the sense of average or modest quality.
Every employee, even the most senior ones, has a mix of deliverables, behaviors, and attitudes: within expectation, above expectation, and below expectation.
If only the feedback mechanism is activated (barring rare exceptions), your company will form employees who stay within expectations. And being within expectations is nothing more than the average result.
"But my culture and team are always held accountable for performance above expectations; we provide financial incentives for that", really?
Are your employees truly building behaviors and attitudes that yield consistent results over the long term, or are they just pursuing their aggressive commission?
Here lies an interesting point: many CEOs and company directors talk a lot about employees needing to have an owner's mindset, being proactive and curious. But are we really valuing great performances and reinforcing those above-average attitudes so that this vision and dedication make it worthwhile?
Developing an exceptional delivery, above what is expected, is not always linked to excessive work or aggressive goals but rather to a conducive environment for it to happen.
According to recent data, 88% of employees who receive strong recognition for their performance are proactive in innovation. Furthermore, employee recognition not only boosts employee engagement but also increases productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to greater retention.
So, the "state of the art" on what we are discussing: build a good feedback program, but never forget to establish a robust recognition program, as it is here that your culture will rise from mediocrity to ABOVE average.
🏗️ Structure of the Programs
To assist you in building both programs, I will detail the step-by-step of each program, comparing them at each stage.
Building a solid structure for each program is the foundation for achieving success and consistency in its implementation. In this sense, we can use the same structure for both feedback and employee recognition. In general, we can set up a lean structure as follows:
1. Fundamental Principles
2. Methods
3. Models
4. Techniques
🎯 Principles
I strongly believe in principles; principles are initial truths or assumptions that serve as the foundation, basis, or guidance for every project we are starting. Therefore, let's start with them.
| Feedback Principles | Recognition Principles |
|---|---|
| 1. Clarity All feedback must be specific and easy to understand. If it's confusing, it can hinder comprehension and have the opposite effect. | 1. Clarity Just like in feedback, if it’s not clear, it becomes challenging, especially because recognitions are usually public. Everyone needs to understand the "why" of the recognition. |
| 2. Actionable It should have a roadmap for improvement, meaning feedback without guidance is not constructive. | 2. Personalization No generic statements. It's not just a "thank you"; it's necessary to detail the specific reason for recognition, connecting it to an action, behavior, or result. |
| 3. Frequency Being regular is essential to foster growth and avoid bottlenecks. Without rhythm, feedback can seem lost or too heavy. | 3. Frequency Recognizing only at the end of the year may be too late. Employee recognition should be continuous and timely to maximize its impact. |
| - | 4. Proportionality Especially when involving rewards, recognition should reflect how positive the activity, behavior, or deliverable is. |
Every company is unique and has an individual culture that derives from the initial behaviors of the founders. Therefore, understand that the principles above are just a starting point. I advise you to customize them by including the characteristics of your company’s culture. Remember, culture is alive, so principles are not immutable; you will likely evolve your concepts from experimentation.
🔄 Methodologies
Beyond principles, we need to discuss methods. Here is where the methodologies of each program come into play. Since feedback has been widely used for a longer time, we have more variations than recognition programs, as shown below.
| Feedback Methodologies: Tools for Growth | Recognition Methodologies: Celebrating Success |
|---|---|
| 1. Developmental Feedback Used to build technical and behavioral skills, helping employees in their professional development. It can be applied in 1:1 sessions or training programs. Focuses on progress in skills over time, seeking long-term improvements with follow-ups to verify advancements. | 1. Institutional Recognition This type of recognition can be parallel to developmental or evaluative feedback. The goal is to hold celebrations and recognitions aimed at elements that are part of the organizational culture. Common forms include: tenure, birthdays, milestone achievements, "employee of the month", cultural value representatives, and internal projects. |
| 2. Behavioral Feedback Frequently used for observable activities with visible impacts. Its aim is to seek improvements in workplace interactions and correct any errors. It should focus on actions rather than personal traits, aiming to be as objective and actionable as possible. | 2. Leadership-Driven Recognition This recognition is highly strategic. Studies show that 83.6% of employees feel that recognition affects their motivation for success at work. We can draw a parallel with developmental or continuous feedback because leader recognition focuses on performance and behavior. It can be executed after the delivery of important activities, developments in internal projects, Individual Development Plans (IDPs), directly tied to day-to-day occurrences. |
| 3. Continuous Feedback This is the day-to-day feedback that should be as close as possible to the event to generate greater absorption. Very common in agile environments where speed is crucial for performance. | 3. Peer-to-Peer Recognition Here, we allow all employees to participate in the recognition program: leaders-leaders, employees-leaders, employees-employees. Generally used to recognize daily actions and behaviors, such as assistance in activities, a good technical delivery, or a positive behavior. This type of recognition is super important, especially in very technical teams where much of the effort goes unseen by management, but is seen by the next person who accesses the work done. We can draw a parallel here with behavioral and continuous feedback, and it is of course peer-based. |
| 4. Peer-Based Feedback Great for capturing colleagues' and leaders' perspectives on performance. Generally used alongside tools that collect 360-degree feedback. It helps employees increase their "Johari Window," gaining better insight into their peers’ perceptions and what they can do to improve. | - |
| 5. Evaluative Feedback Lastly, but equally important, traditional evaluative feedback, which is basically annual reviews of employee performance, generally based on benchmarks and internal KPIs. | - |
🔺 The Triple Helix of Success in Recognition
To simplify, in your company, you will need the triple helix of success for a feedback or recognition program:
1. What the company can do: Structures and policies for institutional feedback recognition.
2. How to incentivize leadership: Engagement and training of leaders to recognize and give feedback.
3. Accessibility for all: Ensuring that all employees can participate and feel recognized and have guidance for improvement.
📋 Models
Now, for good programs, we need to have examples, or models, that are usually a set of steps, rules, and procedures, organized and simplified for use by multiple people in a "standardized" manner.
Standardized in quotes because it is very difficult to standardize something that depends on the human factor, but it is good to have a guide that provides a path. If the program does not have a minimum level of standardization, it may start to breed a sense of injustice among employees.
And it’s pretty easy; it's just a manager being more generous with recognitions than another that problems happen.
So, let's look at the models:
| Feedback Models | Recognition Models |
|---|---|
| Dear friends, there are many models, but our focus here is recognition, so I will mention only one that will be very useful, although for research purposes, here are some model names: CEE, SBI, DESC, STAR, IDEA, CEDAR. Feedback SBI: This is a very objective model and divides feedback into 3 clear, direct, and unbiased steps, always trying as much as possible not to take personal characteristics into account. How to do it: 1. Situation: Here, we need to be transparent about which situation (action, behavior, activity) we want to discuss. 2. Behavior: We should detail the observed action, leaving no room for interpretation. 3. Impact: What I consider most important, clearly stating the effect of this action on the team, project, or company. Example: "Fulano, I noticed that during your colleague's presentation (situation), you kept responding to emails on your laptop (action), and this behavior caused you to miss important information from the presentation and resulted in you asking about items that had already been discussed, delaying our meeting." Finally, we can conclude with a recommendation for improvement. | The concept is the same as the SBI feedback model but applied to recognition. Let's get straight to the examples: "Fulano, I noticed that during your colleague's meeting (situation), you stayed focused even amid distractions (behavior), and you were able to contribute effectively at the end of the presentation, bringing great ideas. Congratulations on your performance, this is part of our value 'being present'." It’s always good to link employee recognition to the company’s values. Here, recognition should be used to value a positive action. Unlike feedback, which should be done privately, you can perform this appreciation right at the end of the meeting. R.I.S.E Recognition (Recognition, Impact, Specific, Emotion) Here, we go into a little more detail about recognition: - Recognition: Which action do we want to recognize and what is its reason? - Impact: What impact does this cause on the team and the company? - Specific: Try to be as personalized as possible. - Emotion: How did this positively affect the environment? Example: "Fulano, I would like to highlight your focus and being present during the meeting (recognition). This had a significant impact on the quality of the insights suggested at the end of the presentation (impact), especially in introducing out-of-the-box ideas (specific), enriching the discussion and improving our initial idea (emotion)." |
My recommendation, for simplicity: Use the SBI model for both programs, as it is an easy-to-absorb structure that slightly standardizes all actions.
Again, if you want to bring any elements of your culture, feel free to add to the model to make it reflect your company's culture.
🛠️ Techniques
Finally, we need to implement techniques to recognize and give feedback, aiding the daily execution.
| Feedback Techniques | Recognition Techniques |
|---|---|
| 1. Sandwich Old-school, much criticized but effective. Here, during the feedback, you can place the constructive feedback between two positive feedbacks, or even between recognitions. Personally, I do not understand the reasons for the criticisms, as feedback is 50% the responsibility of the receiver, so softening it can be a good approach. | 1. Direct Use the method in an objective manner, without beating around the bush, focused on action and results. Perfect for meeting endings, celebrations, or something more institutional. |
| 2. Pendleton Here, the basic strategy is not just to talk but to interact and discuss the topic in the following steps: 1. Ask the receiver what went well 2. Tell the receiver what you saw working well 3. Ask what did not go so well and could be improved 4. Share what you believe did not go well and what could be improved It is more suitable to use when you have quality time because it requires a bit more conversation, but it is highly effective. | 2. Storytelling Transform employee recognition into a narrative. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good story? It helps create emotional connection, inspires other employees, and reinforces culture. I suggest doing this in places that serve as a record, as these are likely where you will highlight them. Example: "This month, we were under tight deadlines with clients and at risk of losing a contract. That’s when Fulano came up with an idea that, at first, I thought was a bit crazy, but ultimately proved to be a game-changer for us and our clients. Fulano took the lead on this initiative and executed [specific action] that brought us more agility and enabled us to meet the deadlines without needing to do overtime." I am "not great at storytelling," but you get the point: in your company, it's likely there are talents for telling stories! |
| - | 3. Connected with Values and Goals Effective employee recognition needs to be connected to the company's values and main objectives. Therefore, it's always important, at the end of the recognition, to link it to the company's values, explaining why the action represents these values and how it impacts the results. This helps reinforce strategic alignment, directing everyone toward our goals and "culturing" employees, as we are living the values. |
🚀 The Synergy that Drives Engagement and Retention
Finally, with principles, methodology, models, and techniques, your recognition programs will be successful. According to Gallup, the combination of feedback and employee recognition can lead to a 21% reduction in turnover in high-turnover business units and 51% in low-turnover units.
When we build the company's culture, we sometimes forget how we will live it. It is in these rituals of recognizing and improving that we can fully experience it. One of the main reasons for voluntary departures is the lack of a sense of belonging and employee engagement. Only 20% of employees who feel they don’t belong are engaged, compared to 91% of those who do feel they belong. One of the major reasons for this lack of belonging is feeling lost, not understanding the objectives and culture.
Everyone likes to know where they are going. Help them know that through a well-structured recognition program and constructive feedback.
📚 Keep Learning
Did you enjoy this content? We have much more material and resources to help you build an exceptional recognition culture in your company.
Access our exclusive resources and materials →
References
[1] SemosCloud. 21 Key Employee Recognition Statistics Leaders Must Know (2025). Available at: https://semoscloud.com/resources/blog/employee-recognitionstatistics/
[2] Gallup. The Importance of Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-recognitionlow-cost-high-impact.aspx
[3] Sociabble. 12 Employee Recognition Statistics You Need to Know in 2025. Available at: https://www.sociabble.com/blog/employee-engagement/employeerecognition-statistics/
[4] Gallup. Employee Engagement vs. Employee Satisfaction and .... Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236366/right-culture-not-employeesatisfaction.aspx
[5] Qualtrics. Belonging at Work: The Top Driver of Employee Engagement. Available at: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/belonging-at-work/
At YouDeserve, we specialize in building employee recognition programs that value and engage each collaborator. One of the big questions we receive during our conversations with clients is: "Can I give feedback through the platform?" The answer is a resounding no.
Feedback and employee recognition are like cousins: They are from the same family, but have distinct objectives and approaches. Both are crucial and should be used together to enhance the overall culture of the company and boost employee engagement.
While feedback can indeed be positive, what we often see in day-to-day life is constructive feedback. Personally, I like to say that employees are often bombarded daily with negative reinforcement (constructive feedback) and not sufficiently recognized for their exceptional contributions.
This is exactly where a recognition program focused on valuing good performance comes in, positively reinforcing each employee to continuously improve their best contributions.
At this point, everyone should be aware of the concepts of feedback, but I need to put everyone on the same page regarding employee recognition and feedback.
📊 Concepts
| Feedback: Focus on Development | Recognition: The Fuel of Motivation |
|---|---|
| Feedback is a communication, usually between two people and almost always private, aimed at providing information that promotes continuous improvement or professional growth. It can be used to reinforce a positive aspect or, constructively, point out areas for improvement in an empathetic manner. Feedback is essential for aligning expectations regarding deliverables, developing technical and behavioral competencies, and improving performance over time. | Employee recognition is the act of valuing behaviors, attitudes, or results that are aligned with the organization’s objectives and values. It is usually done publicly and personalized for an individual or team. Its purpose is not only to value the one receiving it but also to serve as an example and inspiration for the other employees. Recognition is a powerful form of cultural communication that signals what behaviors and deliverables are valued by the company, and serves as a mechanism for intrinsic motivation. |
⚠️ The Danger of Mediocrity: Why Recognition is Indispensable
In practice, if your company focuses only on feedback, it is likely to be producing mediocre employees. And I don't use the term here with a pejorative and negative connotation, but rather in the sense of average or modest quality.
Every employee, even the most senior ones, has a mix of deliverables, behaviors, and attitudes: within expectation, above expectation, and below expectation.
If only the feedback mechanism is activated (barring rare exceptions), your company will form employees who stay within expectations. And being within expectations is nothing more than the average result.
"But my culture and team are always held accountable for performance above expectations; we provide financial incentives for that", really?
Are your employees truly building behaviors and attitudes that yield consistent results over the long term, or are they just pursuing their aggressive commission?
Here lies an interesting point: many CEOs and company directors talk a lot about employees needing to have an owner's mindset, being proactive and curious. But are we really valuing great performances and reinforcing those above-average attitudes so that this vision and dedication make it worthwhile?
Developing an exceptional delivery, above what is expected, is not always linked to excessive work or aggressive goals but rather to a conducive environment for it to happen.
According to recent data, 88% of employees who receive strong recognition for their performance are proactive in innovation. Furthermore, employee recognition not only boosts employee engagement but also increases productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to greater retention.
So, the "state of the art" on what we are discussing: build a good feedback program, but never forget to establish a robust recognition program, as it is here that your culture will rise from mediocrity to ABOVE average.
🏗️ Structure of the Programs
To assist you in building both programs, I will detail the step-by-step of each program, comparing them at each stage.
Building a solid structure for each program is the foundation for achieving success and consistency in its implementation. In this sense, we can use the same structure for both feedback and employee recognition. In general, we can set up a lean structure as follows:
1. Fundamental Principles
2. Methods
3. Models
4. Techniques
🎯 Principles
I strongly believe in principles; principles are initial truths or assumptions that serve as the foundation, basis, or guidance for every project we are starting. Therefore, let's start with them.
| Feedback Principles | Recognition Principles |
|---|---|
| 1. Clarity All feedback must be specific and easy to understand. If it's confusing, it can hinder comprehension and have the opposite effect. | 1. Clarity Just like in feedback, if it’s not clear, it becomes challenging, especially because recognitions are usually public. Everyone needs to understand the "why" of the recognition. |
| 2. Actionable It should have a roadmap for improvement, meaning feedback without guidance is not constructive. | 2. Personalization No generic statements. It's not just a "thank you"; it's necessary to detail the specific reason for recognition, connecting it to an action, behavior, or result. |
| 3. Frequency Being regular is essential to foster growth and avoid bottlenecks. Without rhythm, feedback can seem lost or too heavy. | 3. Frequency Recognizing only at the end of the year may be too late. Employee recognition should be continuous and timely to maximize its impact. |
| - | 4. Proportionality Especially when involving rewards, recognition should reflect how positive the activity, behavior, or deliverable is. |
Every company is unique and has an individual culture that derives from the initial behaviors of the founders. Therefore, understand that the principles above are just a starting point. I advise you to customize them by including the characteristics of your company’s culture. Remember, culture is alive, so principles are not immutable; you will likely evolve your concepts from experimentation.
🔄 Methodologies
Beyond principles, we need to discuss methods. Here is where the methodologies of each program come into play. Since feedback has been widely used for a longer time, we have more variations than recognition programs, as shown below.
| Feedback Methodologies: Tools for Growth | Recognition Methodologies: Celebrating Success |
|---|---|
| 1. Developmental Feedback Used to build technical and behavioral skills, helping employees in their professional development. It can be applied in 1:1 sessions or training programs. Focuses on progress in skills over time, seeking long-term improvements with follow-ups to verify advancements. | 1. Institutional Recognition This type of recognition can be parallel to developmental or evaluative feedback. The goal is to hold celebrations and recognitions aimed at elements that are part of the organizational culture. Common forms include: tenure, birthdays, milestone achievements, "employee of the month", cultural value representatives, and internal projects. |
| 2. Behavioral Feedback Frequently used for observable activities with visible impacts. Its aim is to seek improvements in workplace interactions and correct any errors. It should focus on actions rather than personal traits, aiming to be as objective and actionable as possible. | 2. Leadership-Driven Recognition This recognition is highly strategic. Studies show that 83.6% of employees feel that recognition affects their motivation for success at work. We can draw a parallel with developmental or continuous feedback because leader recognition focuses on performance and behavior. It can be executed after the delivery of important activities, developments in internal projects, Individual Development Plans (IDPs), directly tied to day-to-day occurrences. |
| 3. Continuous Feedback This is the day-to-day feedback that should be as close as possible to the event to generate greater absorption. Very common in agile environments where speed is crucial for performance. | 3. Peer-to-Peer Recognition Here, we allow all employees to participate in the recognition program: leaders-leaders, employees-leaders, employees-employees. Generally used to recognize daily actions and behaviors, such as assistance in activities, a good technical delivery, or a positive behavior. This type of recognition is super important, especially in very technical teams where much of the effort goes unseen by management, but is seen by the next person who accesses the work done. We can draw a parallel here with behavioral and continuous feedback, and it is of course peer-based. |
| 4. Peer-Based Feedback Great for capturing colleagues' and leaders' perspectives on performance. Generally used alongside tools that collect 360-degree feedback. It helps employees increase their "Johari Window," gaining better insight into their peers’ perceptions and what they can do to improve. | - |
| 5. Evaluative Feedback Lastly, but equally important, traditional evaluative feedback, which is basically annual reviews of employee performance, generally based on benchmarks and internal KPIs. | - |
🔺 The Triple Helix of Success in Recognition
To simplify, in your company, you will need the triple helix of success for a feedback or recognition program:
1. What the company can do: Structures and policies for institutional feedback recognition.
2. How to incentivize leadership: Engagement and training of leaders to recognize and give feedback.
3. Accessibility for all: Ensuring that all employees can participate and feel recognized and have guidance for improvement.
📋 Models
Now, for good programs, we need to have examples, or models, that are usually a set of steps, rules, and procedures, organized and simplified for use by multiple people in a "standardized" manner.
Standardized in quotes because it is very difficult to standardize something that depends on the human factor, but it is good to have a guide that provides a path. If the program does not have a minimum level of standardization, it may start to breed a sense of injustice among employees.
And it’s pretty easy; it's just a manager being more generous with recognitions than another that problems happen.
So, let's look at the models:
| Feedback Models | Recognition Models |
|---|---|
| Dear friends, there are many models, but our focus here is recognition, so I will mention only one that will be very useful, although for research purposes, here are some model names: CEE, SBI, DESC, STAR, IDEA, CEDAR. Feedback SBI: This is a very objective model and divides feedback into 3 clear, direct, and unbiased steps, always trying as much as possible not to take personal characteristics into account. How to do it: 1. Situation: Here, we need to be transparent about which situation (action, behavior, activity) we want to discuss. 2. Behavior: We should detail the observed action, leaving no room for interpretation. 3. Impact: What I consider most important, clearly stating the effect of this action on the team, project, or company. Example: "Fulano, I noticed that during your colleague's presentation (situation), you kept responding to emails on your laptop (action), and this behavior caused you to miss important information from the presentation and resulted in you asking about items that had already been discussed, delaying our meeting." Finally, we can conclude with a recommendation for improvement. | The concept is the same as the SBI feedback model but applied to recognition. Let's get straight to the examples: "Fulano, I noticed that during your colleague's meeting (situation), you stayed focused even amid distractions (behavior), and you were able to contribute effectively at the end of the presentation, bringing great ideas. Congratulations on your performance, this is part of our value 'being present'." It’s always good to link employee recognition to the company’s values. Here, recognition should be used to value a positive action. Unlike feedback, which should be done privately, you can perform this appreciation right at the end of the meeting. R.I.S.E Recognition (Recognition, Impact, Specific, Emotion) Here, we go into a little more detail about recognition: - Recognition: Which action do we want to recognize and what is its reason? - Impact: What impact does this cause on the team and the company? - Specific: Try to be as personalized as possible. - Emotion: How did this positively affect the environment? Example: "Fulano, I would like to highlight your focus and being present during the meeting (recognition). This had a significant impact on the quality of the insights suggested at the end of the presentation (impact), especially in introducing out-of-the-box ideas (specific), enriching the discussion and improving our initial idea (emotion)." |
My recommendation, for simplicity: Use the SBI model for both programs, as it is an easy-to-absorb structure that slightly standardizes all actions.
Again, if you want to bring any elements of your culture, feel free to add to the model to make it reflect your company's culture.
🛠️ Techniques
Finally, we need to implement techniques to recognize and give feedback, aiding the daily execution.
| Feedback Techniques | Recognition Techniques |
|---|---|
| 1. Sandwich Old-school, much criticized but effective. Here, during the feedback, you can place the constructive feedback between two positive feedbacks, or even between recognitions. Personally, I do not understand the reasons for the criticisms, as feedback is 50% the responsibility of the receiver, so softening it can be a good approach. | 1. Direct Use the method in an objective manner, without beating around the bush, focused on action and results. Perfect for meeting endings, celebrations, or something more institutional. |
| 2. Pendleton Here, the basic strategy is not just to talk but to interact and discuss the topic in the following steps: 1. Ask the receiver what went well 2. Tell the receiver what you saw working well 3. Ask what did not go so well and could be improved 4. Share what you believe did not go well and what could be improved It is more suitable to use when you have quality time because it requires a bit more conversation, but it is highly effective. | 2. Storytelling Transform employee recognition into a narrative. After all, who doesn't enjoy a good story? It helps create emotional connection, inspires other employees, and reinforces culture. I suggest doing this in places that serve as a record, as these are likely where you will highlight them. Example: "This month, we were under tight deadlines with clients and at risk of losing a contract. That’s when Fulano came up with an idea that, at first, I thought was a bit crazy, but ultimately proved to be a game-changer for us and our clients. Fulano took the lead on this initiative and executed [specific action] that brought us more agility and enabled us to meet the deadlines without needing to do overtime." I am "not great at storytelling," but you get the point: in your company, it's likely there are talents for telling stories! |
| - | 3. Connected with Values and Goals Effective employee recognition needs to be connected to the company's values and main objectives. Therefore, it's always important, at the end of the recognition, to link it to the company's values, explaining why the action represents these values and how it impacts the results. This helps reinforce strategic alignment, directing everyone toward our goals and "culturing" employees, as we are living the values. |
🚀 The Synergy that Drives Engagement and Retention
Finally, with principles, methodology, models, and techniques, your recognition programs will be successful. According to Gallup, the combination of feedback and employee recognition can lead to a 21% reduction in turnover in high-turnover business units and 51% in low-turnover units.
When we build the company's culture, we sometimes forget how we will live it. It is in these rituals of recognizing and improving that we can fully experience it. One of the main reasons for voluntary departures is the lack of a sense of belonging and employee engagement. Only 20% of employees who feel they don’t belong are engaged, compared to 91% of those who do feel they belong. One of the major reasons for this lack of belonging is feeling lost, not understanding the objectives and culture.
Everyone likes to know where they are going. Help them know that through a well-structured recognition program and constructive feedback.
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References
[1] SemosCloud. 21 Key Employee Recognition Statistics Leaders Must Know (2025). Available at: https://semoscloud.com/resources/blog/employee-recognitionstatistics/
[2] Gallup. The Importance of Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact. Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236441/employee-recognitionlow-cost-high-impact.aspx
[3] Sociabble. 12 Employee Recognition Statistics You Need to Know in 2025. Available at: https://www.sociabble.com/blog/employee-engagement/employeerecognition-statistics/
[4] Gallup. Employee Engagement vs. Employee Satisfaction and .... Available at: https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236366/right-culture-not-employeesatisfaction.aspx
[5] Qualtrics. Belonging at Work: The Top Driver of Employee Engagement. Available at: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/belonging-at-work/
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© 2021 - 2025 YouDeserve. All rights reserved | Made with ♥ in Lages.
© 2021 - 2025 YouDeserve. All rights reserved | Made with ♥ in Lages.
© 2021 - 2025 YouDeserve. All rights reserved | Made with ♥ in Lages.
© 2021 - 2025 YouDeserve. All rights reserved | Made with ♥ in Lages.