The original article can be found in: Barbados Advocate By Kerri Gooding
Yesterday at the inaugural Queen Elizabeth Hospital Employee Recognition and Rewards Celebration Pro-gramme, hosted to celebrate service excellence across all areas at the hospital, Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dexter James took the opportunity to commend the outstanding quality of service offered during the last quarter by staff and employees.
During his address, Dr. James said, “Our system has been developed to meet two key human resource requirements: the first was the need to instantly empower and reward staff who has performed well, and secondly, to give management and supervisors a tool to motivate and appreciate staff in just seconds.” Continuing, he affirmed, “The timing for this programme is just right. We are demonstrating our acknowledgement of the special efforts and commitment to you, our employees, and the value we place in you. I am sure this activity would go a long way in generating much goodwill, team-spirit and staff morale.”
Noting the plethora of benefits of acknowledging and rewarding employee efforts, James said that the recognition programme was against a backdrop of noticing that the employees were not satisfied with the level of appreciation displayed in the past. He said in our thankless society, persons externally are more often and more frequently praised unlike staff and employees. To appease these findings realised through surveys, James said, “we moved towards the development of our flagship employee recognition and rewards programme under the acronym RESPECT – Rewarding Excellent Service Promotes Employee Commitment and Teamwork.”In addition to strengthen service quality, there was the creation of the Service Quality Programme (SQP) as well. Yesterday’s celebration merely highlighted the excellence attained to date by the system of the RESPECT programme and the SQP.
The creation of RESPECT, SQP and the celebration programme are just three components of showing appreciation. James said, “Many studies on the work place have shown that being recognised for achievements, knowing that one’s contributions matter to the organisation, and the opportunity for growth and professional development, have a considerable impact on employee satisfaction and commitment.” The objective is to improve and enhance the work environment. Happy employees work better.
In closing however, James stated, “Let us acknowledge that a recognition programme is not a quick fix; it is a long term integrated marketing programme available to all levels of management as a vehicle to encourage and recognise improved performance.”
