You're listening to Foresight, a podcast about making work better.I'm your co-host, Mark Edgar, a former consultant and coach who now works as a chief people officer on a mission to make work more human.
And I'm Naomi Teitelman, a former big firm consultant and HR executive now striving to make work better, one organization and one leader at a time.
Every week, we'll discuss the latest trends that are impacting the new world of work to help you be a better leader for the future.
Welcome everybody to the Full Site Podcast.My name is Mark Edgar, one of your co-hosts, and I'm delighted today to be joined by Nikhil Narula, who is the head of Americas for Frontier Circle.Good to have you here, Nikhil.Thank you, Mark.
Lovely to be here.And you're joining us from Calgary, which is not many miles away from where we are in Toronto, but it's nice to have you here.
We'll give an opportunity for Nikhil just to tell us a little bit about his story shortly and tell us a bit more about Vantage Circle.
I had the opportunity to meet Nikhil just through some work that we're doing at Wagex and conversations we're having around the important topic of recognition and some of the interesting work that they're doing at Vantage Circle.
And through that, the opportunity to appear with one of Nikhil's colleagues on their own podcast.So I thought it was only fair to get you on our podcast, Nikhil, and delighted to have you here.But maybe we could start with a bit of your story.
So tell us a bit about what being head of America's Advantage Circle entails, maybe a bit about the company for those who aren't familiar, and then we'll get into a check-in question.
Perfect.Thank you, Mark.So you're being the head of America's Advantage Circle has a very important thing that I do for them, which is P&L, but it's not my favorite thing.
My favorite thing is what I'm more passionate about, which is employee recognition, which is a backbone of what we do.So of course, at the end of the day, I'm answerable to our board when it comes to profit and loss.
So some boring number crunching things there, but I know behind that, what we do to achieve those profits are to empower companies that we work with to create great cultures and to get the best out of recognition, which is one of the most, I would say, underutilized organizational interventions today.
And maybe just a bit more about Vantage Circle, if you don't mind, Akhil, because I know that they're your global organization.You have clients all over the world, which makes it super interesting, I think.
Yeah, I think just how we've evolved.There's been a lot of diversity in the way Vantage Circle has evolved and has reached where it is today in its shape and form.
But also the fact that we are global also brings in a lot of diversity to the way we think, the way we put things together in the way we deliver.So Vantage Circle is now, I would say, a seasoned teenager.
They're in it, you know, closing the 14th year, you know, beginning the 15th year.So, you know, everything that goes with the good things of being a teenager.And this is a company that started in, it was founded in India.
And today we got offices in four different countries.North American headquarters are actually Calgary.So we support all our customers in both Canada and the United States from our hub in Calgary.
But we of course have offices in other parts of the world too. in Europe, in the Middle East, of course, back office and in tech in India where the company was formed.We work with more than 700 companies.
Some of our customers are, have employees using our systems and solutions in 70 plus countries.So that's how diverse, you know, or widespread our solutions are.
Yeah, that's fascinating.That's great.
I love a couple of things you said there, particularly about the fact that recognition is an underutilised tool.I'm sure that's something we'll get into.I also love your analogy in terms of Vantage Circle being a teenager.
I remember working for an 18-year-old company and we had that similar analogy.I'm wondering what that means for Wage Act, because Wage Act is 165 years old now.I'm wondering what that means for us. You've got to break it down to generations now.
That's great.Thank you.Yeah, I think we're reinventing ourselves.Let's think about it that way for another 165 years.But yeah, that's fascinating.Well, looking forward to getting into it.
I thought I'd give you a bit of a softball for the checking question that we have, which recognising that you do have such a knowledge and passion for recognition.So I thought I'd ease you in here today.
And curious, how do you like to recognise other people, Nikhil?That's where I was heading with this one.How do you like to recognise other people?
Recognition, in my opinion, should be authentic and should be impactful.And that's how I like recognizing people that I interact with.
So essentially what I'm trying to say is recognize at the right moment, for the right reason, in the most touching way. Things like who's around when you recognize, your choice of words, the surprise element.
These are some very, very underrated aspects that, that make a difference.So I, you know, when I'm recognizing people, I always try and follow these criteria, but it's easier said than done.And often that judgment as to, should I recognize now?
Should I recognize for the effort now? Or should I recognize for the outcome two days from now?What if I miss this opportunity?Right.
What if we don't achieve that end outcome, but I still want, you know, I want people and I want teams to still try again.So those are some dilemmas that even seasoned, you know, professionals encounter.
So it's not always easy, but, but I think that's the way I would like to recognize and I try my best.
Yeah, it's interesting because it almost feels like it, you know, that makes me think that you need, there's a lot of thought that goes into it, but at the same time you want to make sure it is authentic.
So in some ways you don't want to overthink it.So it's finding that balance, isn't it?So yeah, really interesting.That's great.
Just to zoom out for a second, I like asking our guests about what their thoughts are around the world of work from their perspective.
Obviously, everyone brings a bit of a unique lens to this, but curious what your thoughts would be around how you think the world of work has changed in recent years.
Well, changed it has and quite significantly.I look at it, I think there are two major events that I think have shaped and orchestrated this change.One is, of course, the easier one, which is the pandemic and all the changes that it brought.
It challenged us, it questioned our way of working, and we had no option but to adapt to a transformation to remote working.And then there was a re-transition to hybrid working.
And I actually, from my lens, I see market indicators telling me that this hybrid is tending more towards, you know, return to office.
Now, through all of these transformations, I think the biggest challenges for employers have been around employee motivation, around burnout, around social isolation, ineffective communication, ineffective collaboration, low innovation.
And then, you know, need to learn new tools and softwares just to do the same job that you did before.So I think those have, those have been the major changes.And I think we're still adapting to those changes.
I don't know how many of us are doing those, you know, wholeheartedly with full belief that this is the right way to do it.A lot of us are just doing it because there's no option.
The second change, the second event, I think, is the pattern shift between the generation of leaders.I think we've seen almost the exit of the last of the baby movers from the workplace.
And as we see, I think a lot of the early Gen Xs are also now in that mode of either retired or retiring, and we'll see a lot more of that.What that means is that while you will still have a lot of them at positions where strategy is being
developed and rolled out.The execution is largely being led now by the Gen Ys.And so I think what that does is it just changes how tasks are envisioned, how tasks are performed, and how they're communicated.
So I think that's how the world of work has changed.I think in my opinion, these are the to more significant events.And I think we're still going to see some more changes.
And then of course, technology, technology always comes and gives us more options, right?Sometimes you don't want so many options.
Yeah, no, it's an interesting point.Yeah.I mean, I think it's, you know, technology can certainly be as much as a way of helping us.It can also present a whole bunch of challenges as well.
You know, I know some previous podcast episodes that I was listening to one of them this morning that were released soon from Tracy Bower, who talks about the future of work.And she references that in her episode. But yeah, it's interesting.
I think the generational piece of it is interesting that you mentioned.I haven't heard somebody reference that.
Generations was such a big topic a few years ago and your point around how it's shifting with retirements and those retirements likely accelerating during the pandemic and then how that's resulted in work getting done differently through a different generation.
I think that's really interesting.Is there anything
specifically you see in terms of the Gen Ys in terms of how they're working differently, particularly perhaps through your lens of when you're interacting with clients, what's perhaps a difference that you would see just to identify or put a bit of a pin in that?
I think what I see a lot of is, you know, decision making and how decision making is done.I think they're more instinctive than some of, and I work with a lot of leaders in the early part of my career, leaders who were You know, from the Gen Xs.
And I've seen that there was probably a lot more method to the Magnus than I see now, which is not a bad thing because I, you know, as a culture too, we want to, you know, a lot of companies want to promote.
It's all about speed and scalability now, you know, if you deal with investors. You know, this is one common theme that would come on, grow fast, scale big.
And so that's when you need to be more instinctive in your decision-making, which I think comes more naturally to the Gen Ys.And I don't know what kind of leaders the Gen Zs are going to be.
No, I think we still have to learn to a certain extent.We'll see how that evolves.But yeah, that's really interesting insight.
And I think without taking us too much down the rabbit hole, it probably illustrates a little bit about how frustrated those people could get if an organisation does continue to be a bit more bureaucratic and have a bit too much process.
So it's an important reminder of just how work has to adapt again, isn't it?Yeah.Interesting. Well, maybe shifting gears a little bit, I mean, both of those things, both of those events impact recognition.
But I know when we first spoke, I was particularly impressed with the approach that you have for recognition, the framework you have, which I think you've touched on already a little bit in terms of your preferred approach.
I've had a bit of a teaser there, but could you just share that with our listeners?Because I think it's quite one of the more holistic approaches I've heard about in terms of how you think about recognition at Vantage Circle.
I think, you know, one of the, one of the realizations for us and, you know, personally from me to having, and I'm closing, I'm closing now, what, two decades of being in this space of recognition.
And, you know, it goes back to the days when we used to consult with, with companies in the space of total rewards, but I never knew that there's something called total rewards that exists, right.As a, as a term.And, and so over the course of.
Seeing the evolution of recognition from initially being recognition for service, for longevity, for loyalty, service awards, was for the longest, the only form of recognition in companies.
Then to its next stage or next phase where companies started saying, okay, can we also use recognition for certain outcomes, performance outcomes, not necessarily ones that would intertwine with
you know, your annual performance reviews, but we weren't creating enough scope for peer fusion anyway.
And to now, in its third phase, the current phase that, you know, where we are in, where we're talking about recognition as a way to drive behaviors.
And I think the next phase is going to be a more formed version of this, where those behaviors are going to become more specific than they are today and point directly towards possible C-suite priorities.
But one of the things that we realized through this whole journey is that the most impactful factor or success factor is the design of the program.That's where most companies get it wrong.
We see a lot of companies still ask us questions like, tell us what Google is doing.Tell us what Microsoft is doing.We want to do the same. It may not necessarily make sense for you.So there is a lot that goes into the design of a program.
I mean, and I think that's where we spent a lot of time.So through research, and of course, through our own center of excellence, we developed a framework, which we call the AIR framework.
And then this is the AIR basically jots down for you four pillars of Employee recognition programs from a design perspective and I'm saying for because it's, it's spelled as AI are with a small E, which is like the exponentially.
And so these four are pillars of any program design when it comes to employee recognition.A stands for appreciation, I is incentivization, R is reinforcement, and E is emotional connect.
So when you're designing a program, whether that program is for driving behaviors, whether that program is to award outcomes, whether that program is to promote competency building, or to create role models for service, retirement, any component.
We say, look at the program design from the lens of its level of appreciation, which is driven by coverage and frequency.So is this program covering all job families, all levels, all grades, all departments, all locations?
And maybe every program need not, but a combination of programs.And that's what a framework is.When you plug all your recognition programs together, what's the level of coverage, what's the frequency, right?So the level of appreciation.
Similarly, incentivization is driven by clarity and impetus.Do I have a clear line of sight as to what do I need to do to get a certain level of recognition or a certain level of reward, right?And does it drive the right impetus?
And if you're looking at a combination of The first two drivers and these two drivers actually will help you arrive at the right budget.Often what a lot of companies get wrong is the budget incorrectly, sometimes too low, sometimes too high as well.
Reinforcement is the most underutilized pillar of program design. Most often we recognize people without reinforcing what we want them to repeat and what we want others to do.
So, you know, classic case for me, and I always say this, one of the most common programs that you would come across, and I'm happy that its occurrences are reducing now, is Employee of the Month. It literally reinforces nothing, right?
So what are you reinforcing?Is it specific?And is it aligned?You also don't want to be reinforcing a behavior or a combination of behaviors that doesn't align with what you need to do to achieve that end goal for the company.
And then of course the emotional connect.
which we write as a small e just to emphasize that that's the catalyst that's what will exponentially drive impact to your program right and and that's a combination of personalization and delivery what level of personalization are you bringing into your program because that drives emotional connect
And also, how are you delivering that recognition?And like I said, like who's around when you're doing that recognition, who can see that recognition, you know, your choice of words.And you know, is it text?Is it speech?Is it more graphic?Right?
Well, you know, we live in a world of emojis and GIFs, right? So that's, that's the way we look at it.And so program design is extremely important.
That's great.I love it.I love the model.
And I think it does make you think differently about recognition that you're perhaps rather than as you, as you suggest, rather than thinking about it as employee of the month and it feeling a bit like a tick box exercise and something that you've, you've done as an HR leader to respond to a need.
to something which is going to therefore drive much more impact.
I love the little e because it feels as though it very much ties in with how, when you were sharing in the checking question, the things like the surprise element and those other dimensions that you referred to.
Maybe I'll just go through it quickly again.You've got the appreciation, the incentivization and the reinforcement. appreciation includes the frequency and coverage.Within incentivisation, it includes the clarity and the impetus.
Then reinforcement is around the alignment and the specificity, which is always a hard word to say, the specificity of what it is you're trying to do.Then the emotional connection that almost feels like, as you say, the catalyst for all of that.
It's very holistic. Maybe just how would you distinguish between something like impetus and reinforcement?What's the difference there?I know that there are different levels of the framework, but curious about that bit.
No, I think that's a great question.And so, so when, you know, when we say impetus, it is, it is to some extent, the value.Okay.What value are you seeing?And is it giving you that impetus to, you know, go that extra mile?Right.
Reinforcement is more specifically aligned to what, what is this asking you to change? Okay.What's it reinforcing or what is it giving more importance to?
And that gets you back to the phases that you've seen over the years in recognition in terms of shifting more into behavior change, which is ultimately what a lot of, I would argue, a lot of HR programs are there to do.
It's designed to try and align around behaviors.So that makes a lot of sense.
And then it feels like a practical point, but I love the way in which you use appreciation and incentivization to then inform the budget because we often do start the other way.
We start with a budget and then think about what can we kind of cram into this program.Course fitment.
That is a common practice that we see. Yeah.And there's also a lot of misinformation out there, right?
There are, there are a lot of organizations, you know, collectively who've gone and published that you should be spending 1% of payroll on recognition.Like, where did that even come from?Nobody's questioning them back.Right.
But that sometimes what happens is that might be right in certain scenarios, but not always. But then when you just reference that as your starting point, that's where the trouble is.
Yeah.Yeah, that makes sense.I kind of understand the way in which the value of recognition or the purpose of recognition has shifted, as you mentioned, from maybe recognizing loyalty to more performance outcomes, to more behavior change.
Curious over the years, what are the changes have you seen, if any, either in terms of how leaders use recognition as a tool or around what people's expectations are around recognition?Anything you've seen that's changed there?
Yeah, no, I think it has.And I think one of the biggest changes has been the introduction of a non-monetary component of recognition.So the early forms were all driven by money, right?Or something that you can buy directly, something that's tangible.
In the more recent versions, we've started to all acknowledge and understand that there is a value that is more relational than transactional and how that is important.
And would that be instead of some of the more transactional rewards or in addition to?It is in addition.Okay.Okay.Yeah.
Any sense of what's driving that?Well, I think it's the evolution of, I would say, total rewards.Total rewards itself. is something that was largely very transactional.
You know, even when we coined this term, it was all about compensation and salary and bonuses.Yeah.
And then now we see there's a, there's other, the other end of the spectrum, which is more, you know, relational where it's more about opportunities and, and feel good and motivation.
And, and, and I think that's where there are components of recognition, which need not be monetary, but can still drive that emotional connect.
So it sounds like it's as we've developed more of an appreciation of how people are motivated, they're motivated by different things at different times, et cetera, that people need recognition as another tool in their toolbox in some respects to be able to drive that.
And as you spend, I wish I'd sent you, Joe, as I get to know you, as you kind of stare into your crystal ball and kind of predict what the future looks like for recognition, any sense of any emerging themes there for the future?
You mentioned earlier the kind of maybe a stronger link to strategic priorities.
Yes, yes, absolutely.I think that is certainly there.So it's pretty much a sum of some of the things that I probably might have said, but I will summarize it.I think the future, firstly, I think the future is great.
And we see that, you know, being in this business, when you see demand for what you do, that is a signal of, you know, the growing.So I think from a, from a future perspective, the future is bright and rightfully so.
I think the first thing that has changed, which needs to change more is Total rewards is still tending more towards the transaction side.I know we say there are other components, but really, what do we emphasize more on?
What do we think makes the most difference?Is that annual increment?Is that bonus?Is that promotion?So I think we're going to start seeing, we already have started to see companies define total rewards differently.
and then communicate them differently.Even when it comes to benefits, I don't think people are swayed by, you know, how fancy the components of your benefit package is.It's more to do with what really is meaningful for them.
And so I think that is one thing that is changing.From a recognition perspective, I think what's changing is for the longest, we've said recognition is a driver of engagement.Yes, it is.But it is also a driver of what I call as C-suite priorities.
So something like, I'll just give a couple of quick examples.You want to create a culture of innovation.What does that mean?A culture of innovation means that you want employees to come up with ideas on the floor.
They don't have to be told there's an idea contest.I'm thinking about my job.I'm thinking about how I can improve it.Not every innovation needs to be radical.Some of them can be incremental.
But I've created that ecosystem where I'm encouraged to share ideas.So an increase in that happening. A culture of, or an ideal state of a culture of innovation is those more of those ideas are being adopted.
A higher percentage of the ideas are actually being implemented, right?So that's one, that's something that recognition can drive, because it can drive the right behaviors, the behaviors of, let's say, challenging the status quo.
in the nicest way so far.In fact, a company that we work with, we actually coined a new value, which became something that people would recognize, what was called carefrontational.
So confront with care, challenge the status quo, but don't make a mess out of it.You won't find that word in the dictionary.That's the power of recognition.That's what it can do.
You think of ESG, for example, one of the most important priorities for most businesses today.How do you drive sustainability?Can recognition play a role?Absolutely.
anything that requires employees to change the way they behave and continuously do that.Do it to an extent that it becomes a habit.Recognition is the best tool in your hands.
But the program then needs to be designed in a manner that it's all connected and it's driving the right behavior. program design is important.
So I think that's what the future is for companies to start looking at recognition from that either this can help me improve my ESG metrics.This can help me improve, you know, bring innovation on a daily basis in my company and so on and so forth.
I love the examples.And does that mean that you need a different recognition program depending on the outcome or how do you kind of make sure that your recognition program is going to achieve those multiple different outcomes that you're looking for?
Yeah, I think as a, as a framework, there would be a combination of programs addressing each of these needs, but the underlying core drivers still need to be the same.Doesn't need to be a cultural elements.
Right.If you want to drive innovation, but your values are largely centered around compliance, right?It's not going to be easy, right?Compliance is the biggest enemy of innovation.So. And I'm not saying that compliance is not important, right?
But you get what the analyst is talking about.So yeah, different programs, but the same team.
Yeah.And it sounds like you're anchoring it in the, you know, however an organization defines a culture.So, you know, Wage Act is like many organizations, we have a set of values.
So you're, you're anchoring it in the values and hopeful that the values are aligned to the strategic, delivering the strategic priorities.
Because if they're not, I mean, back to your point, then you've got that mismatch, which is where the framework will start to draw that out.You'll identify that there's a gap there because you won't be aligned around the right thing.
So you can say again, where putting everything through that filter of the framework will help make sure that things are joined up.So yeah, very helpful.
What would your advice be for HR departments to kill who perhaps are thinking about their recognition programme?
Perhaps they have one already and they're not sure whether it's getting the, what I would say is a pretty compelling kind of vision from you about what a breakthrough it can make.
So perhaps they're not getting the impact that they think they should, or perhaps they don't have a programme.What would your advice be?
Well, I think those that don't have a program definitely to think about it and prioritize it in, in, you know, maybe their next annual plan.
It used to be, I mean, I've, I've lived through times when this was a good to have in the early part of, you know, as this industry was emerging in the early part of my career.And I can confidently say now it is a must have.
So in what format, what level of maturity that can be different, right?You don't have to always achieve the North star straight away.You can. Because there's a change management that you have to deal with.
We always say adopt a crawl, walk, run approach.Don't try and shade away, do an all-wide rollout.So definitely start thinking about it.But for those that have a recognition program, evaluate what are you getting out of it.
Are you fully leveraging the value of recognition, or have you only you know, looked at it from a lens of this is going to help improve employee engagement.And that is definitely one of the things that it does.
But again, it cannot do that independently too.Your engagement scores are also dependent on other things.
Yeah, there'll be so many other factors that go into that, which would make being able to make that kind of correlation difficult.But I imagine that you would encourage people to think about those outcomes.
So you're trying to drive innovation, you're trying to drive ESG.So those are the ways in which you're able to really measure impact.Is that right?
That's right, absolutely.And the reason why we have this, we feel this framework is for companies to start looking at their own programs from that lens.So do that, you know, look at it from a lens of AIRD.
In fact, we even have an assessment, which is a free to use assessment, where you can actually go and see where you stand and, you know, know if there is any need for change.
We'll put those links in the show notes, but yeah, that's fantastic that that's available for people to appreciate that.Excellent.Well, thanks Nikhil, really appreciate the time.
And I think you've given people a really good sense of the value of recognition and how to think about it differently using the framework, which I really appreciate.I think people have a lot of value there.
Before we get into how people can get in touch, we end with a bit of a feel good.So what are you feeling good about right now?
When I'm feeling good about it, it's still nice and sunny, which it mostly is.It hasn't become as cold, but no, I think personally for me, and I think I've spoken to you, so I tore my Achilles tendon early this summer.
And so for the longest, I was, you know, doing all my work from my bedroom.So I had to shift like my office desk.I couldn't go to office.We have a hybrid model.We have an office just on 17th Ave.
So I couldn't go to office, but, but let alone that I also have a home office that I'd built in the basement and I couldn't go there.So today is the first day that I'm sitting at a different spot at home and I'm recording the session with you.
So I'm feeling good about that.That's good.
That's good.I wish you continued speedy recovery.That's good to hear. How do people learn more about your work, Nikhil, and get in touch if they're interested in exploring more?
We have a team in both across Canada as well as in the United States.I think the best way to reach out to us is either directly on my email ID, which I think we can link, but also even directly on our website.
There's a lot of good knowledge content there for anybody to absorb.And there are also ways to get in touch with us from there.
Yeah, there's some great, great resources in there and I appreciate a lot of the work you're doing around community as well with groups and podcasts and other content as well.So I appreciate that.
Well, thank you very much for taking the time today, Nikhil.Really appreciate you sharing all of your knowledge on the important topic of recognition.To our listeners, I hope you found that useful.Please do share it with a friend.
Also, make sure that you're subscribed to future episodes and we'll see everybody next week.Thank you very much.Thanks, Nikhil.
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