Lack of recognition..

[Beaully]

I work in a small team and recently one of our colleagues has received recognition for all her hard work in the company mag. I’m really pleased for her, and she does work hard but I can’t help feeling a little put out because myself and the other team members also work hard to achieve good results.

Am I being unreasonable for having these thoughts?

I hate most recognition initiatives with a passion and don't get me started on recognition schemes/ star of the week bullshit that they do where I work. It always brings out my inner 5 year old, what about meeeee, and memories of the time in year 2 when Julie got called out in assembly and I didn't.

Seriously I think unless you ensure to recognise everyone, in which case it becomes tokenistic, they can do more harm than good. For everyone being recognized and feeling good there are probably at least 3 people feeling cheesed off.

I agree with you here. Our company do shoutouts and I never get one despite hours over and going above and beyond.

Also, there's always people who get mentioned loads and others never. In my department of around 50 people, one guy gets mentioned literally every week and he's not that amazing, he does a solid job at team leader level and been there years but has he ever done anything new or innovative or saved the company money? No, he has not, but he gets mentioned every week without fail and I'm not even that bothered for myself any more but its unfair on other people.

Maybe you’re time will come.

I know last summer I was awarded but it has been made clear others since have been in line for same award/amount.

Most articles in company mags are written by the person they’re about. Ask if you can submit an article highlighting you and your team’s work and achievements. Nobody in work is going to blow your trumpet for you. You need to do it yourself.

He’s writing the articles himself - that’s why. In our organization the same group of people win all the awards because they all nominate each other. At our most recent call for nominations one person appeared in 5 categories, and they’re not notable in any of them!

Thanks everyone for your replies. I’m not really someone who is a fan of receiving the sort of recognition my colleague has had, mainly because it puts her aside from everyone else who is working their butts off too, but never gets a mention. The way I see it is, we’re all part of a team.

of course you are not unreasonable for feeling that way, it is only natural

It’s a difficult one. Often those sorts of things are more of a popularity contest than anything.

Do your immediate team leads take the time to thank you for your work and recognise your achievements? That’s something I make sure I do for my team regularly, and I recognise them for specific things and fairly so I almost rota it every week and pick out something someone did so we can all celebrate it, whilst also recognising that there’s been other achievements too.