On Employee Appreciation Day: Standing on the Shoulders of Those Who Taught Us to Value People
By Bruce Bolger
The Contributions of the Pioneers
The Next Level of Engagement: Purpose
Recognition, Carrots, and Appreciation Opened the Door
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The world of engagement is entering a new era based on a growing body of research that a strategic and systematic approach to fostering the proactive
involvement of all stakeholders in an organization’s purpose, goals, objectives, and values provides a competitive edge. But we would not have gotten here today without the work of three pioneering advocates for the power of employee engagement. Multiple studies now demonstrate a clear link between having highly engaged employees and enhanced performance including the work of Irrational Capital and its Human Capital Factor (See The Holy Grail of Investing and HR? New Solution Connects Human Capital to Return on Equity; this study last year by the Oxford University Wellbeing Research Center (see Another Major Study Finds Happier Employees Drive Higher Profits, Stronger Company Value, and Better Stock Performance) and this study by Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School, A Theoretical Exchange Traded Fund (EFT) of Great Places to Work UK Public Companies Significantly Outperforms the FTSE index over 23 years.
The Contributions of the Pioneers
All three of these pioneers remain active in advancing their visions. For more than twenty years, Dr. Bob Nelson, Chester Elton, and Dr. Paul White have helped shape the global conversation on recognition, incentives, and appreciation. In 1995, Dr. Bob Nelson published 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, a book with reportedly over 1.4 million copies in print that offers practical, creative, and research-backed ideas for recognizing and motivating people at work. His work has helped managers see that meaningful recognition — often simple and inexpensive — can help enhance morale, performance, and culture. Nelson is credited with conceiving of Employee Appreciation Day being celebrated this week.
Chester Elton helped bring motivation into the mainstream with The Carrot Principle, a multi-year bestselling book that demonstrates — with data — the measurable performance impact of strategic recognition. He once had a regular short segment on the former New York City highly influential all-news station News Radio 880 and has crisscrossed the world sharing his insights. Through his multiple books, consulting, and global keynotes, he has helped leaders understand that carrots and recognition are not soft management — it’s performance management done right.
Dr. Paul White, co-author with Dr. Gary Chapman of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, expanded the conversation further by showing that appreciation must be personalized and designed to recognize people for who they are as well as for what they do. He identified the important distinction between recognizing people for performance and appreciating people for whom they are when it comes to building a durable culture. This bestselling book, now published in over two-dozen languages, adapts the “love languages” for marriage concept to work environments, helping leaders communicate appreciation in the ways individuals most deeply receive it.
Together, these three leaders identified a fundamental flaw in traditional management: organizations were trying to drive performance without genuinely valuing people in a systematic way. They recommended new solutions — recognition systems, carrots, and personalized appreciation — that reshaped leadership practices across industries and changed the discussions about employees and culture. Their contributions to the dialog were enormous.
And yet, we must confront a sobering reality: despite the enormous influence of these pioneers and others, decades of recognition programs, culture initiatives, and engagement campaigns, employee and customer engagement remain at troubling lows. Burnout persists. Trust remains fragile. Loyalty increasingly rare. Discretionary effort is uneven. Investors, CEOs, and CFOs lack any consensus on the most meaningful metrics to track when it comes to evaluating the impact of all stakeholders on financial and other goals.
The problem these pioneers diagnosed has not disappeared. This is not an indictment of their work. It is evidence that their work was foundational — but not final: much like the founding fathers of any movement or country for that matter.
Carrots, recognition, and appreciation answer the vital question: Do you see me or the work I’ve done? But today’s workforce is asking an even deeper one: Does my work matter? That question demands purpose.
The Next Level of Engagement: Purpose
The next evolution of leadership is not abandoning recognition, carrots or appreciation — it is integrating them into a holistic system anchored in shared purpose. A system that harmonizes the interests of employees, customers, investors, and communities around meaningful impact. Based on everything we have learned from these pioneers, the path forward must combine into a coherent system:
- Brand architecture: A clear and lived purpose for every organization with transparent goals, objectives, and values for each team.
- A strategic and systematic approach to fostering the proactive involvement of all stakeholders toward a common purpose.
- Voice and continuous feedback.
- Transparent and effective communication.
- Learning and growth opportunities.
- Job design.
- Recognition and meaningful rewards
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Analytics and impact measurement
Recognition, Carrots, and Appreciation Opened the Door
On this Employee Appreciation Day, we honor Chester Elton, Dr. Bob Nelson, and Dr. Paul White not only for teaching us to recognize people for accomplishment, provide carrots for motivation, and express appreciation to people for whom they are and not just what they accomplish— but for laying the groundwork for valuing people as true assets.
Those of us in the world of enterprise engagement owe these three influential pioneers the recognition and appreciation they have earned and benefit from their continued advocacy.
Now it is our responsibility to take their wisdom to the next step to help organizations actualize this wisdom for the benefit of customers, employees, distribution and supply chain partners, communities, shareholders, and society.
Enterprise Engagement Alliance Services
Celebrating our 15th year, the Enterprise Engagement Alliance helps organizations enhance performance through:
1. Information and marketing opportunities on stakeholder management and total rewards:
ESM Weekly on stakeholder management since 2009; click here for a media kit.
RRN Weekly on total rewards since 1996; click here for a EEA YouTube channel on enterprise engagement, human capital, and total rewards insights and how-to information since 2020.
2. Learning: Purpose Leadership and Stakeholder
Management Academy to enhance future equity value and performance for your organization.3. Books on implementation: Enterprise Engagement for CEOs and Enterprise Engagement: The Roadmap.
4. Advisory services and research: Strategic guidance, learning and certification on stakeholder management, measurement, metrics, and corporate sustainability reporting.
5. Permission-based targeted business development to identify and build relationships with the people most likely to buy.
6. Public speaking and meeting facilitation on stakeholder management. The world’s leading speakers on all aspects of stakeholder management across the enterprise.
