For organisations in the Middle East to stay agile, it is essential to invest in resources, tools, and opportunities to keep the workforce engaged. Additionally, they should support employees' needs, understand their viewpoints, and recognise their contributions in meaningful ways. Leaders should also provide employees with the flexibility to approach work in ways that suit them best, says Ryan Jensen, Speaker & Workplace Culture Strategist O.C. Tanner Institute. 

In this exclusive interview with People Matters, Ryan shared his insights and those from O.C. Tanner’s Global Culture Report 2024, focusing on Middle Eastern workplaces. He explored emerging workplace trends and key areas of talent management, including the diverse needs of employees, which, if addressed, can lead to better engagement, retention, and employee relations.

Here are the edited excerpts: 

Could you please share more about the O.C. Tanner Institute and its key research areas involved in producing the Global Culture Report? Additionally, how do you ensure the research's validity and reliability?

The O.C. Tanner Institute’s research and education on corporate culture, employee experience, and recognition empowers organisations around the world to intentionally create healthy, productive workplace cultures.  Each year, our annual Global Culture Report uncovers and examines the latest trends, issues, and perceptions shaping workplace cultures uniquely from the employee perspective. 

To ensure validity, we use multiple research methods including interviews, focus groups, cross-sectional surveys, and a longitudinal survey. For our most recent 2024 study, qualitative findings came from 18 focus groups made up of employees and leaders of larger organisations across various types of private and public entities. Quantitative findings came from online surveys, representing a sample size of more than 40,000 employees from 27 countries. All survey data is collected and analysed by the O.C. Tanner Institute. 

Could you share some exclusive findings and trends from the Global Culture Report 2024, focusing on Middle Eastern workplaces?

For years, the O.C. Tanner Institute has tracked year over year changes in six essential elements (“Talent Magnets”) that define thriving workplace cultures: purpose, opportunity, success, appreciation, wellbeing, and leadership. Geographically, our most recent study found that the IMEA region scores highest in these “Talent Magnets”. 

The rapid growth of multinationals establishing satellite offices throughout the IMEA region increasingly puts importance on the role that leaders must play in building a thriving culture across diverse teams.  Here are three key areas of focus for IMEA leaders to consider from our research:

• Lead with practical empathy: Employees today need more than just listening or feeling. They are yearning for practical empathy – a practice of care, grounded in understanding and backed by action. Taking a practical approach to empathy by providing proper training, resources, and boundaries will ensure that empathy fatigue is a thing of the past, while creating a culture where both employees and leaders feel supported and connected. 
• Provide purposeful, meaningful recognition: Ironically, we found that when IMEA employees work for companies that have recognition integrated into their workplace culture, they have 16X higher odds of perceiving their workplace culture as empathetic. So, leaders need to express genuine appreciation through recognition of their employees’ everyday efforts, above-and-beyond achievements, and contributions over time. 
• Develop skill-building opportunities: When considering a new job, 91% of IMEA workers say that skill-building opportunities are important to them. Not surprisingly, we found that when leaders provide skill-building opportunities that are flexible, inclusive, and allow employees to explore their interests, it can transform how their team members view career development and growth in their workplace. Additionally, skill-building opportunities improve the odds of employees feeling a sense of belonging, inclusion, and community across the board. Finally, we also found that employees have a 4X greater odds of being satisfied with their skill-building experience when leaders recognise them both during and after completion of a training programme. 

What is the significance of recognition within a work culture, and how does it contribute to employee engagement, retention, and overall morale?

Our research shows that employees today want to be acknowledged and recognised more than ever. They need to feel gratitude from their peers, leaders, and the organisation itself so that they know that they are on the right track, valued, and doing great work. Having said that, recognition must be frequent, timely, and authentic.

The real power of recognition to help transform culture happens when an organisation can move it from feeling transactional to where it becomes a purposeful and meaningful part of the everyday employee experience.

In fact, our research shows that when recognition is truly integrated into the culture of an organisation, employees are 9X more likely to feel like the organisation truly cares about them and that they have the support they need to navigate through change. Unfortunately, only 21% of organisations score high in integrated recognition so there is a lot of opportunity out there for companies to improve. In terms of best practices, we found that the best organisations focus their recognition programmes in three distinct areas by

1. Encouraging effort,
2. Rewarding results, and
3. Celebrating careers.

Each of these areas differ in their visibility, frequency, and even types of awards that should be given; however, each area has distinct benefits and when combined help organisations achieve a critical mass where employees are giving, receiving, and observing recognition as a natural part of everyday culture. 

How can leaders ensure employee recognition efforts align with organisational values and objectives? What are common pitfalls in implementing recognition programmes, and how can they be mitigated?

An important component of recognition is to make sure that employees understand what great work looks like and that recognition of accomplishments can be aligned with the company’s core values. This focused recognition helps to reinforce those behaviours and results that are most important to the company. 

For example, let’s say an R&D company has “agility” as one of its core values and they want to build a culture that champions innovative results. They can reinforce and encourage this by establishing a culture of empathy and nimble resilience where their core value of agility can be consistently emphasised and where outcomes that are advanced through idea-sharing, collaboration, and transparency are regularly rewarded. Then, leaders and peers should be empowered to recognise innovative efforts and accomplishments with the option to align those awards with agility as a core value. Additionally, leaders should find ways to give employees the flexibility to approach work in ways that work best for them. When leaders do this, the odds that their team members will see them as nimbly resilient increases by 148%. This is important because our research found that when employees see their leaders as nimbly resilient, it leads to higher likelihoods of engagement (+582%) and feeling a strong sense of fulfilment in their work (+233%). In this scenario, employees will be even more determined to continue delivering innovative results that align with the success and future growth of the company. 

We miss the mark on recognition when it feels generic, infrequent, and when it fails to recognise personal impact in a timely manner. Here are a few key recommendations from our research that can help mitigate against these risks and ensure that recognition initiatives are sustainable:

• Craft recognition experiences around the individual – Recognition needs to be personalised to the individual employee in ways that aligns with their styles, what’s relevant to them, and that is customised to their recognition preferences. When that’s done right, recognition moves from feeling like a transaction to a meaningful and purposeful experience for the individual. For example, recognising an employee in front of their entire department might mean the world to them but could be a nightmare scenario to another employee that would prefer a more intimate, less public setting. 
• Leaders need to frequently recognise employees – The more our people see senior leaders giving meaningful recognition frequently and in ways that are personalised to the recognition preferences of the individual, the more your people will begin to feel a cultural shift and experience the importance of expressing appreciation through timely and genuine acts of recognition. 
• Continually improve recognition programmes and technology – Organisations need to regularly assess how to improve their recognition initiatives to ensure they are fresh, current and (most importantly) can reach their entire employee population. 
• Recognition consistently seen throughout the organisation – Recognition isn’t just a leader’s job and should be seen more than just on a quarterly or annual basis. Make sure genuine recognition is consistently seen coming from every level of the organisation in ways that encourage daily efforts, reward above-and-beyond achievements, and acknowledge contributions over time. 
• Frequent peer-to-peer recognition – Peers often see so much more than leaders do and frequent recognition with personalised notes of appreciation go a long way to build a culture of collaboration, inclusiveness, and trust across the company.

Once the above is happening regularly, recognition starts to spread and becomes contagious. Over time recognition becomes a way of life and a natural response to great work. It moves from being not just something that we do to a reflection of who we are and becomes more sustainable over the long-term. 

What specific challenges do essential frontline workers often face, and how can culture initiatives be tailored to address these challenges?

In our recent study, we found that 80% of the world’s workforce, employees who spend minimal, if any, time behind a desk, are feeling more disconnected and unappreciated than ever.  The O.C. Tanner Institute identified two major discrepancies (access and enablement) in their work experience that organisations and leaders need to remediate to help these employees feel connected and valued. To increase access, organisations need to invest in the resources, tools, and opportunities that will help this essential part of the workforce stay connected. Then, enable them by supporting their needs, understanding their viewpoints, and recognising their contributions in ways that are truly meaningful to them. For example, creating a diverse recognition programme means pairing on-the-spot tangible awards with symbolics or other forms of recognition across easily accessible channels to ensure that all employees have access and are enabled to give, receive, and redeem recognition in equitable ways, no matter their job or location. 

We found in our research that providing these employees with high access and enablement can improve the odds of their willingness to stay 3+ years by 208%. When coupled with recognition to help them feel seen and valued, not only are they staying longer, but they will be much more focused on delivering great work to the organisation. 

What steps can organisational leaders take to translate appreciation for employees into meaningful actions and support? 

Appreciation is an emotion, but feelings of appreciation aren’t enough. Without expressing approval and gratitude through purposeful and meaningful recognition, employees won’t ever know how you feel about them. The O.C. Tanner Institute’s research is the driving force behind our Culture Cloud suite of products and services that empowers leaders to recognise in frequent, specific and meaningful ways in celebrating everyday victories, above and beyond achievements and career milestones—allowing employees to thrive and do their best work. 

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What do you foresee as the future trends in workplace culture regarding employee recognition? 

The key to success in the coming 5^th industrial revolution is to blend the best of human and technological strengths in ways that elevates the experience for employees, their organisations, and even our societies at large.

Recognition is a central piece to helping organisations build people-centric cultures but achieving the scale that is needed will require leveraging recognition technologies that enable people to put their human touch on appreciation and recognition, regardless of the job or location of any given employee.