HR Means Business: The Power of Recognition in Employee Wellness

The Role Recognition Plays in Supporting Employee Mental Health and Wellbeing

Host: Mervyn Dinnen

Guest: Robert Ordever & Stuart Cheesman, O.C. Tanner Europe

Today, Mervyn talks with Robert Ordever and Stuart Cheesman about some of the key findings from O.C. Tanner’s Global Culture Report 2025.

During the conversation they discuss:

– Importance of Recognition and Support in the workplace

– How recognition can support better Mental Health at work

– The role of recognition in improving employee wellbeing

– How to improve the transitioning of employees to different roles

– AI’s role in employee recognition

– Building trust in the workplace

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Transcript follows:

Mervyn Dinnen 0:18
Welcome to the HR Means Business podcast, which is part of the HR Happy Hour Network. I’m your host, Mervyn Dinnen, today I’m very pleased to be talking to two friends and associates who are with OC Tanner, the recognition experts I was recently at their influence greatness conference, and finding out all the kind of research and data and insights for 2024-25 around recognition, around supporting our people. And I’m delighted today to be able to welcome Robert Ordever and Stuart Cheesman from OC Tanner in the UK to discuss some of the key findings with me. Robert and Stuart, Welcome to HR Means Business, and would you like to introduce yourselves?

Stuart Cheesman 1:07
Always the same? Yeah. Thank you Mervyn. It’s great to be with you again and joining the podcast again, which is, it’s always a great experience. I work with clients around the world of all things culture. So looking at how we can embed recognition programs within their organizations, but helping their employees thrive, making sure that we have a good intrinsic link between thriving workplaces, a thriving workplace culture, and actually thriving business results. The link between all three are very much embedded, as I’m sure you know. So making sure that businesses are meeting their objectives is primarily my role within OC Tanner so great to be view again.

Mervyn Dinnen 1:48
Thank you. And Robert,

Robert Ordever 1:49
Hi, well, I’m Robert. I have the privilege of leading our team out of the UK, a European team. My background is very much HR, so as well as kind of leading the OC Tanner team, I have keen interest and Mervyn, you probably know this, because you know enough about me. My desk is currently covered in notes and and post its and all sorts of stuff. You’ll forgive me I haven’t quite read through this huge document, which hopefully you can link to so that people can get a little bit more than I’m able to remember. But really excited to talk to you about it. Every year I know you head out to influence greatness, and every year we we spend a long time going through the research. It never fails to provide aha moments, and certainly a few this year.

Mervyn Dinnen 2:33
Oh, definitely, definitely, I suppose, getting straight into it the I think one of the big themes, certainly I’ve noticed this year, for all the conversations I’ve had with different people throughout the year, is obviously a keen not interest. But one of the more dominant themes has been supporting people, supporting our employees. You know, things like mental health, things like, kind of how we can, I suppose, at work, particularly in times when maybe things are a bit of a state of flux outside, you know, elections all over the world and things the stability that work can play. One of the first findings that I dug into when I was at influence greatness was about the kind of how many people consider themselves to be surviving at work, and how many people think that they’re thriving. And so you a lot of data came out from that. I mean, what? What would you say the overall kind of mixes?

Stuart Cheesman 3:37
Yeah, well, we noticed Mervyn there that our course studies show that 81% of employees are are are really looking for, for mental wellness, support, effectively in the workplace. So so when, by that, when we’re looking at a new role, a new organization to work for, it is 81% of employees are looking for an organization that has that has that support. And ultimately, what we what we really saw was that 31% of employees are merely surviving in the workplace. And this is a huge, huge factor. When we’re looking at greater change in the workplace than we ever have done before. We’re seeing employees really, just really going from day to day, even from paycheck to paycheck. So some of the things there that really sort of jump into mind are financial insecurity, poor work life balance, hopelessness about their future in their workplace, the lack of autonomy perhaps employees have in the workplace as well. So the studies really jumped out at me and someone that, like I said earlier, someone that really wants to make sure that businesses are thriving. But ultimately, why are your listeners? Why are HR practitioners doing their role, and ultimately is to make sure we have great workplaces where employees thrive. We’re looking we have a duty of care by nature being in HR so to hear those factors and some of those statistics, I think was really dambling, and something we need to address.

Robert Ordever 4:59
Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, if you I sort of listened to some of our institutes sort of talking about the the output and the research from this year, and the kind of the shift, when you look at total rewards, the shift away from, well, I say the shift away perhaps newer generations to the workforce, seeing it is very transactional. It’s almost, you know, an insulting kind of what will I get by way of return? Actually, they need to sit more holistic in terms of well being, offering, whether it be health benefits, whether it be care. You know, this idea that a good total rewards, and forgive me, I might get the phrasing just not quite right here. But Alex Lovell, who leads our institute, talked about good, total rewards, kind of offering as a cultural manifestation of care. Like that phrase, I think, is a fascinating kind of reframe. And what we’ve typically had is a, if you like, a statement of why you should stay. You know, I think we’re sort of beyond that now, actually, what we need in the sort of ever changing environment that we’re in is something which shows that we care, that we’re here, that we provide, as you say, that level of stability in the workplace that perhaps isn’t easy to find outside of the workplace currently.

Mervyn Dinnen 6:13
And I think that, again, one of the key things for me is understanding the role that recognition plays in supporting people that I think we’re hopefully for people in HR, we’re beyond the phase of thinking, Oh, this is a nice to have. But you know, ultimately, there are other things, and recognition is very much at the heart of everything we do to support and enable our people and help them to achieve what they want to achieve. So in terms of the role that recognition, that recognition and appreciation play in, I suppose, improving and supporting employee mental health, what were the key findings from the research this this year?

Stuart Cheesman 7:00
We noticed where recognition is integrated, Mervyn into the practices, and like you say, hopefully we’re a long, long way beyond that. Hopefully we’ve we’ve realized that looking at Operation resilience is key to our successes of business, and therefore we know that the people risks are what we’re trying to trying to mitigate. But we did actually see that there was a 57% decrease in burnout, 24% decreasing anxiety amongst workers, and actually a 28% decrease in just the perception of feeling depressed, once integration is is is recognized. And I think there’s a there’s a key factor of this that we often speak to a lot of organizations that are looking at recognition and how, how do they justify it? How does that return investment work? Well, looking at these key statistics, actually monetize some of those impacts. So if we think about the cost mental wellness is having within our, within our workplaces, we know actually it’s 7.7 100 million pounds worth of lost productivity globally, within our within our global ecosystem. If we think about actually how that impacts absenteeism or loss of practice productivity in your own organization, and then think about actually how we can decrease burnout, how we can decrease absenteeism for recognition, recognition scheme that’s actually thriving and and helping those employees. I think these are all key factors that we can really calculate and, and and help convince the C-suite why we should be doing this.

Robert Ordever 8:30
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how recognition and well being were kind of previously thought of as kind of two key ingredients. I think this is perhaps the first time where it’s become clear that recognition is in itself, a wellbeing activity or a wellbeing strategy, and the way in which recognition impacts in quite distinct ways, really, those that are surviving and those that are thriving. Right? So at the surviving level, it’s about a sense of belonging, a sense of security, a sense of safety. And on the on the thriving end, you know, it’s fueling engagement, is uplifting sentiment. And so I think, you know, that was one of the aha moments as as we started to unpack this, is that well, being and recognition are much, much more closely aligned, not just two important ingredients, but perhaps one in the same.

Stuart Cheesman 9:15
Same just on that point, Robert as well, Mervyn, there’s, there’s something I’m deeply passionate about, is, is when we think about the cost to the global economy of mental wellness and the inordinate amount of money corporations spend on actually trying to fix the problem after after the event, I think we’re retrospectively and why it’s it’s in our report. I knew it would be in our report because it’s a trend that that I see, and I’m talking to CHROs and CPOs around the world about constantly. But this isn’t a new problem as well, right? So what I’m trying to say there is that we need to address the pre active element of how we address this before it gets to a point where it’s costing us so much money. And I think recognition has got a huge part to play in that. I think if we’re. If we’re seeing our employees thriving at work, that they’re doing better within their own organization, they can see a path for them going forwards, because they congratulated on the work they’re doing then, then actually, we actually are ending that, that problem where we’re spending too much of our businesses money on on trying to fix the problem, when we can actually cut it off before it even really can some some traction.

Robert Ordever 10:22
Caveat to all of this, let’s be brutally honest, is that you gotta get the basics right. First, recognition is not a substitute for adequate compensation or for other kind of supporting benefits around health care provision. What it is, is, is, in my opinion, at least, is it’s an accelerator. Is, once those basic pieces are in this, this is going to supercharge your efforts in terms of well being. But I think the if anyone listening is under any misconceived idea that this can substitute good basic compensation packages.

Mervyn Dinnen 10:58
And presumably it’s the it’s the appreciation part that gets underlined because ultimately, particularly at times we’re saying, people say that they’re struggling, they’re surviving. It’s the kind of the recognition, I think, supports that kind of appreciation. Side of the organization appreciates what people are doing and and the efforts that they are making. And I think it’s, it’s important again, for, I suppose, improved mental health, you know, in the workplace, for people to feel that they are not just recognized but appreciated as well. Do you see much of a difference between the two when you speak to companies?

Stuart Cheesman 11:38
Yeah, absolutely. I sort of caveat my previous comment as well that that there were many reasons for mental mental wellness, of course, and there are many sad factors actually, that culminate to that. So, so in no way is this a plaster to fix over the problem, and we’ll solve the root causes moment, but, but absolutely we, we do see organizations that we really, really examine actually, how they work with their values, how they work with with their their their code of ethics affect effectively within organizations, how their leaders are are recognizing their employees, how their leaders are nurturing their employees through, Making them thrive Absolutely. We also appreciate that leaders, probably in the last couple of years, have fallen into leadership roles at far greater rate given the change we’ve had, given the pandemic of a few years ago. So how we’re engaging and educating our leaders and our workforces around recognition, and how we’re appreciating them, how we’re taking them through the life cycle of an employee as well is quite evident. So yeah, more organizations taking absolutely relevance on on recognition. How they use it is particularly key. It’s not just let’s put it in and that solves the answer. We need to we need to use it appropriately, and we need to use it where we we can see some absolutely tangible gains.

Mervyn Dinnen 13:00
One of the things you were looking at this year is, was transitioning people within the organization, transitioning to slightly different roles, different departments, different priorities, and the, I suppose, need for the support in that did you, did you find any particular areas where maybe companies aren’t quite getting it right at the moment.

Robert Ordever 13:25
You know, it’s interesting. I read this sort of part of the report with with keen interest and a little bit of guilt, because I think this is something all HR professionals probably have some way to go on. If you think about the effort we put into onboarding people when they join our business, and then the almost the ease at which we allow them to transition and assume that they’re going to be fine, particularly to Stuart’s point, people that have fallen into leadership positions or have become leaders as a result of being expert in their in their chosen field, when their expertise and their training is not in leadership, per say. So I read this with a with a level of guilt, sort of what more can I do to support those that transition, to help them connect with community, to help them connect with each other, to ensure there’s development path. And actually the other piece, and I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, but the other piece that I thought was fascinating, is the multiplier, when you add effective recognition into that transition support. So I mean, actually, it’s a thing that runs throughout, isn’t it? Care, emotional intelligence, you know, understanding what your employees are moving through and what is required to show care and support as they do. And this is another piece of that jigsaw, again, all supercharged by recognition, but just one of those moments where I thought it’s fascinating, and one that we probably take for granted. We think someone’s ready, and we allow them to go, and we allow them to move into a role that if they were an external candidate, we would surround them with a huge amount of support through. I mean, right through the selection process, through the onboarding process, through a probation, through objective setting, all of that stuff, something that that I think is very worthy of consideration by by all of us.

Mervyn Dinnen 15:14
And obviously, you know, somebody transitioning maybe to a bigger role or a slightly more involved role is, is a form of recognition.

Stuart Cheesman 15:23
So, yeah, absolutely. And I think there’s even those big forms Mervyn, but the role also small, smaller, smaller forms as well. I think if we look at our workplaces of today, the biggest, the biggest talking point a lot of the time in the last sort of 18 months certainly has been AI if you think about perhaps work, work, work, role displacement. Need to re skill and Up skill. The changing nature of organizations. Organizations are restructuring far greater than than they ever had and ever will over the next few few few months and years, as we continue the reason I mentioned that is because roles will change. Roles employees will transition. So it might not just be promotions or falling into leadership or becoming the next CEO that would be thinking about, would be thinking about a change of re skilling, because actually a role might have changed because of the the Advent in the introduction of of AI. So I think leaders have a real good point to a reference here to mark again. So where are our employees right now? Where are they in the future? Where were they six months ago and just thinking about that? AI, funnily enough, can help with that and recognition and the use of the tools that recognition and AI tools marry together to actually plot where someone is on their life cycle, some of the changes they’re going through. Can data help? Can automation of recognition help? In some aspects, they’re still making it personable. We always absolutely need to, need to make it relevant to the individual. But I think that’s the that’s the next big thing. We need to keep an eye on employees. And we want employees to change. We want them to involve. We want them to thrive. So we just need to keep an eye on that.

Mervyn Dinnen 17:01
It’s interesting that you’ve mentioned AI, because it that’s one of the things that in the report I was keen to look at and to see the kind of role that AI, as you say, it’s entered all our workplaces now. But what the role it plays in recognition? Is it a prompt? Is it? How can it? How can AI, almost amplify recognition? Is there a way that it can, I suppose, improve what people are doing at the moment?

Robert Ordever 17:31
I think there’s no question it can. I think the risk always is that we take something that is inherently emotional and around human connection, and there’s always a risk that you over automate, right? What we’re not looking for, and we’ll resist every turn, is, you know, receiving recognition from a bot. There can be nothing more demoralizing. You know, it has to be meaningful and authentic. And some of the AI tools that we’ve developed, and you would have heard some of this, Mervyn, when you were when you were at the conference, we have a recognition coach, and I think this is a good example. So a recognition coach does not send the recognition for you. What it does is look within your messaging for areas in which it can coach you to be better, not to replace your message, but to coach you said that next time you are you are able to get there sooner. Looks for unconscious bias. It looks for opportunities there to be more meaningful. It it provides suggestion, but what it isn’t is a copy paste. It is not a suggestion. Is intended to replace right? And if you’ve ever used kind of the AI tool on a LinkedIn post, but it’s not a helpful but it’s not designed to replace where you’re at, and it comes along with some coaching to help you understand the why of what’s suggested. But other tools that we have around trying to use machine learning to understand your circle, who are the people within your organization that you want to connect with that should be invited to comment on your anniversary yearbook that should see on their social wall, your achievements dashboards for leaders that will assess flight risk, right sort of retention risk. All of these things are designed to be additive and to make us better and more connected to the recognition, and we are very and I’m sure other businesses are the same as us, but we have a group dedicated to pushing us forward in terms of innovation, and we also have a governance committee who will very carefully evaluate those innovations to ensure that we are true to our values, staying true to What is important to the world of recognition and appreciation. If we turn it into bots, we’ve missed the point completely. And I’m sure people realize that, but I you know that’s the piece that makes me anxious, is that somehow the machine learning will will get us lazy into doing what we know best, which I think is good emotionally. Intelligent, caring leadership. That’s what this report talks about, right? It does not talk about automating. And if we think that sort of the the generations now in the workplace will tolerate that kind of automation, we’re very much mistaken.

Mervyn Dinnen 20:15
Yeah, no, no. Gen Z in particular, can can sniff out in in authenticity?

Robert Ordever 20:21
I think we all can, you know. I’m sure are very good at it, but I can sniff out in authentic kind of comment and recognition. And we all as leaders have to work hard to make sure we are we are on it. We’re not sending generic we’re not thanking everyone. We are thinking about the specifics and the specifics in the context of the individual, by the way, you know, back to surviving and thriving, whereas this employee in their, you know, in the wider sphere. And how can I best ensure they feel appreciated and recognized? And it’ll be different for every employee. That’s why AI, you know, isn’t going to replace us yet.

Mervyn Dinnen 20:59
No, I suppose, that respects in others.

Robert Ordever 21:04
Mervyn, but Yeah, indeed, not in terms of, you know, smart leadership.

Mervyn Dinnen 21:10
I suppose the the as a final kind of point, that the what, what? What is the role of the organization now, or, or the the company, the employer in people’s lives. I mean, it’s people, I think, are looking for institutions or things they can trust, the people organizations that operate with integrity, where they they they know that they’re appreciated. And what do you perceive, I suppose, from all the different findings, and hopefully, as I said, we’ll give a link to the download, because it’s quite a, quite a large report, but there’s so much in it to kind of pick, pick through. So do you see trust in the organization as increasing, or is it still something that leaders and managers in particular have to kind of really build and earn?

Robert Ordever 22:00
Right? I think you have to work hard at it, but I think it’s table stakes. Now it’s not a nice thing to have. You know, there was a time I’m sure when you know a good final salary, pension and a good salary would be enough to keep you there for 30 years, even if you didn’t trust the boss. Those days are done. You know, people are looking to work for organizations that deliver on their promises, that behave ethically, that have, you know, trust and integrity at their heart, you know, and all of the things actually, that we’ve talked about throughout this conversation around emotional intelligence, or, you know, recognition or understanding where people are at all of that is all about being a sort of a smarter, more trusted organization. And, you know, it’s interesting, even in the hiring process now, the number of questions you get around your culture, your way of being, the, you know, flexibility around, you know, around autonomy and that kind of thing, it’s just completely shifted. You know, the role of the employer now is far more, far more, one of a caring, stable environment, providing a caring, stable environment where people can can flourish, and only after that comes a number of the other things that we used to think of as the essentials.

Stuart Cheesman 23:16
I think, just to add to that as well, Robert, I completely agree. One thing is me. One thing for me is living your values. Mervyn as well. We hear a lot of organizations post their values and they’re not actually live, live them through or back them up. I mentioned earlier. We are in times of significant change in business, of course, with budgets around the world and potentially new new presidencies around the world coming around the corner, or maybe by the time we’ve we’ve posted the the podcast, we’ll be well into new, new new presidencies. But the point being is that the world is a changing place, and we need our employees to trust us, because we are asking them to change at a far greater rate. And I think for me, that is, that is the thing I I said at the beginning, at the top of the podcast, why do we why are we in the HR profession? Why are we there? Because one, I hope we care about our people, and I hope we want to grow our businesses and and see them flourish, but we need our people to do that, and at times have changed. We are going to need our employees to trust us, so that when we’re asking them to change and come along a journey with us, they realize that we’ve got their back and actually that we’re we’re taking them with us. So I think that’s the huge factor for me.

Mervyn Dinnen 24:32
Okay, well, it’s been a fascinating conversation, and I recommend everybody to to try and download or get their hands on a copy of the report, because they’re a mine of information in there. If I asked you both for I suppose a final kind of key takeaway, which doesn’t have to be about anything we’ve discussed, it can be about something else. What would you say?

Stuart Cheesman 24:55
Oh, what a great question. And put us on the spot. Then right, right at the end, I. Um, I think, yeah, absolutely. Look, look at the look at the data. Please. Please download the data. There is, like, you say, a wealth of data there. Like I say, it really helps think about how you can position some of your internal conversations as well. So have a look at the data. It’s very much regionalized from around the globe. It takes into the perspectives of around 50,000 employees in multiple countries around the world. What I would say is that this year’s report report some of the key findings that we spoke about, working to survive thriving at work, mental health link. Think about those jobs transitions and actually emotional intelligence as well. They’re all really interlinked. So from our reports this year, like I said, workplace, workplace health and mental well, mental health isn’t new. It’s been around on the agenda for some time, but thinking about how some of the other factors in workplace cultures are interlinking is probably my key takeaway. Think about your organization. Think about what it is some of this statistics may impact on your organization and where you might be able to make change, make an impact to your employees, okay?

Mervyn Dinnen 26:04
And Robert,

Robert Ordever 26:06
I’m going to keep it simple. I’m going to ask people just to be reframing and be thinking about recognition as a well being practice. I think that’s a healthy reframing, one that’s got me thinking, and I guess we’ve probably always known it, but actually, to have it, have it called out that they are not two separate ingredients into a great culture, but they are much more closely aligned than perhaps we’ve thought about before. Okay?

Mervyn Dinnen 26:31
Robert Ordever, Stuart, Cheeseman, thank you very much for your time, and it’s been a pleasure to chat to you, and I’m already looking forward to next year’s Global comm report. Thank you very much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai