Recognition & Performance: Finding the Right Balance

How do we balance building an appreciative, supportive culture with communicating performance expectations and criticisms? 

Performance and recognition shared the stage during a recent webinar hosted by HeyTaco. Performance Reviews & Recognition: The Good, the Bad, and the Pointless focuses on bringing these two essentials together. We highly recommend listening in. 

Whether you do or don’t, HeyTaco has some takeaways that can help prevent one from undermining the other. 

Takeaway #1: The regularity of recognition

Performance reviews are not the best time to meet that acknowledgment quota. Padding criticisms and hedging words render both evaluation and recognition pretty powerless. 

Above all else, recognition is a daily practice. It can help inform discussions during performance reviews, but it is never reserved for that quarterly or annual meetup. 

Takeaway #2: Using peer recognition to help measure performance

We laud peer recognition for covering those managerial blind spots all the time. How can we accurately evaluate performance if we don’t get a glimpse of what the rest of the team sees?

On the surface, someone’s output may merely look acceptable. Peer recognition can reveal what they do to facilitate others and contribute to the greater good.

Takeaway #3: Highlighting core values in performance convos 

Building off of that last takeaway, daily peer recognition can show us who champions core values that yield long-term results. 

A performance evaluation is more accurate and useful when we don’t just go by the usual numbers. Is someone getting a noticeable amount of peer recognition for a core value? This is a great opportunity for positive reinforcement. 

Takeaway #4: Enhancing performance reviews with recognition data

Context, nuance, and other nouns that define the subtler aspects of being human. This helps employees accept feedback as true, complete, and well-thought-out.

Performance reviews aren’t meant to be based on recognition data. Still, that data can bring patterns and areas of serious improvement to the surface. That can make what they do with the feedback much more impactful. 

Takeaway #5: Conducting personal performance reviews with self-evaluation

Recognition shouldn’t only be given at performance reviews. And performance reviews shouldn’t be the only time employees think critically about their performance. 

Peer recognition helps employees identify their strengths and assess their value at work. Self-awareness goes a long way in delivering our best possible performance.

HeyTaco hints for careful, complementary layers of performance and recognition

Just like building the perfect taco, proportions and placement matter. Performance and recognition can offer the perfect blend of insight and awareness when you add peer-led tools like HeyTaco to the mix.

• Incorporate recognition into weekly team meetings–don’t save it for performance reviews.
• Promote lateral recognition, so employees pass out tacos to those in other departments and in different roles.
• Use Taco Tags to hashtag company values. It normalizes celebrating small actions that contribute to big results.
• Share HeyTaco analytics with management before performance reviews. This way, they have accurate, 360° insight into their contributions.
• Encourage everyone to use their taco history to reflect on what behaviors or qualities they display that garner the most recognition. 

Get more tips and techniques from our guide on integrating performance and recognition.