Keeping employees motivated is a never-ending process that many organizations struggle with. However, finding the right way to bring the best out of each employee is vital for sustainable business success.

Meaningful employee recognition is one of the best ways to motivate employees, with 37% of people agreeing it’s the best motivator for great work.

But what exactly is meaningful recognition, and how can companies utilize it to meet the needs and preferences of their people?

Get all your motivation-related questions answered below.

What is employee motivation?

Employee motivation refers to how committed, enthusiastic, and energetic people are as they work. It drives actions, decisions, and effort, and directly reflects employee productivity, engagement, and overall contributions.

In general, there are two types of motivation to be aware of:

1. Intrinsic motivation: when employees find enjoyment and purpose in their work
2. Extrinsic motivation: when employees are motivated by outside factors such as rewards or monetary compensation

These may sound like opposites, but that’s where employee motivation recognition comes into play. Meaningful recognition, while an extrinsic motivator, can provide employees with more enjoyment and purpose at work, building their intrinsic motivation.

The impact of employee recognition on motivation

Employee rewards and recognition are the best ways to create and sustain motivation in your people, especially when they meet the needs, preferences, and expectations of each person.

Employee rewards boost motivation for those tasks that may not be inherently fulfilling because it offers desirable compensation for doing a good job.

Employee recognition, on the other hand, boosts motivation by showing employees the value of their work by expressing appreciation for their efforts and the impacts they have. This reinforces employees’ feelings of value and connection to their work, increasing their purpose and enjoyment.

Center of Excellence research: the true impact of recognition on motivation

Awardco’s Center of Excellence shared fresh research designed for one purpose: to help HR leaders make recognition programs that change how people show up at work.

The team surveyed 2,000 employees across 15 industries in the US and UK, then used statistical modeling to unpack what actually drives effort and which recognition levers move outcomes like engagement, intent to stay, and wellbeing.

Why focus on motivation, not engagement

The researchers made a deliberate choice to anchor the study in motivation instead of engagement. The reasoning was practical: engagement often means different things to different leaders, which makes it harder to get traction across an organization. Motivation within the workplace is more universally understood and easier to translate into action.

The seven motivators behind effort at work

When people make an effort, it is rarely because of one factor. The study surfaced seven distinct motivators:

• Material reward: Not just pay, this includes job security, status, and the ability to build a comfortable life.
• Expectations from colleagues: The pull of social pressure at work, including wanting to avoid criticism or earn respect.
• Expectations from personal life: Similar pressure, but from family, friends, and social circles outside work.
• Contribution: Wanting to help the team win and be part of a culture of hard work.
• Ideology: Mission and values alignment, plus a sense of learning and growth that moves someone forward.
• Achievement: The drive to hit goals, solve hard problems, and take pride in accomplishment.
• Enjoyment: Finding the work interesting, energizing, and absorbing.

One standout finding: when the researchers tried to treat money as its own variable, it did not fit cleanly into the model. The takeaway was that while pay is important, it alone does not explain effort.

Five motivation profiles you can plan for

People rarely sit in just one motivator, which is why the COE broke the seven motivators down into five common profiles:

1. Actively demotivated: Very little is lighting up. Low enjoyment, low purpose, low connection.
2. Disconnected: Slight enjoyment and achievement, but still low across most motivators.
3. Obligated: The largest group. Effort is driven mostly by expectations and external pressure, not enjoyment or purpose.
4. Bought in: Strong internal drivers like purpose, enjoyment, and contribution.
5. Firing on all cylinders: Both internal and external motivators are active. Purpose and enjoyment coexist with status and material reward.

This is useful because it moves the conversation beyond engaged versus disengaged. It also gives leaders a more realistic target. Not everyone will land in the top profile, but programs can shift people in healthier directions over time.

Recognition influences motivation more than motivation influences recognition

The research tested a key question: do motivated people get recognized more, or does recognition drive more motivation?

Both relationships showed up, but the stronger effect ran in one direction: recognition was the more powerful driver of motivation profile.

This matters because it frames recognition as an intervention. It's not a perk or a nice-to-have, it's a reliable lever that can change what fuels effort.

What types of recognition helped shift profiles

The research also explored which recognition types showed up in different profiles.

• People in the actively demotivated group were still getting recognition, but mostly from their manager in private one-to-ones. It was not enough to spark stronger motivation.
• Movement toward bought-in was linked to recognition becoming more visible and more distributed, including meeting shout-outs and recognition from peers and senior leaders.
• The shift into firing on all cylinders was connected to a mix of recognition sources plus informal, day-to-day recognition through tools like Slack or Teams layered on top of other methods.

More than one channel and more than one recognizer made recognition feel real, driving greater overall motivation.

Four program levers that mattered most

The research called out four levers HR can actually design for:

• How recognition shows up: one-to-ones, meeting shout-outs, email, platform posts, chat messages, awards
• Who gives it: senior leaders, managers, peers
• Frequency: how often recognition happens and how consistently
• Reward options: what employees receive when there is a reward component

What employees get most today

Over the prior three months, the most common recognition channels were private one-to-ones, meeting shout-outs, and manager emails.

What had the strongest impact on outcomes

A few findings stood out:

• Company awards were associated with the strongest lift in outcomes like engagement and intent to stay.
• Slack or Teams alone showed no measurable lift in sentiment outcomes, even though chat recognition helped when layered with other recognition types.
• Service anniversaries and birthdays were tied to meaningfully higher engagement. The gap was large enough to make these worth revisiting as a simple, scalable baseline.

Who recognition comes from changes what it influences

Recognition source mattered:

• Senior leader recognition carried the most weight, which is why leader buy-in is a program requirement, not a bonus.
• Manager recognition still mattered and needed to be consistent.
• Peer recognition did not move engagement or intent to stay as much, but it did improve wellbeing. For teams in demanding environments, that is a serious lever.

Frequency also had thresholds:

• Recognition from senior leaders needed to happen at least yearly
• Manager recognition needed to happen at least quarterly, with more frequent being better

Rewards: what people want and what drives outcomes can differ

Employees overwhelmingly said they prefer gift cards. But gift cards showed a slight negative relationship with engagement in this dataset.

The rewards tied to stronger engagement were:

• company-branded items
• team activities or outings

The takeaway was not to avoid gift cards. It was to pair choice-based rewards with options that build identity and connection.

Practical takeaways from the COE research

If you want the shortest path to action from this session, it is this:

• Keep the program simple enough that employees and managers can remember how it works.
• Design recognition to come from more than managers. Build peer and leader visibility into the system.
• Treat chat recognition as a layer, not the whole strategy.
• Audit whether birthdays and service anniversaries are being consistently recognized, then automate what you can.
• Balance reward choice with culture-building options like shared experiences and branded items.
• Focus on incremental improvement. The goal is movement, not perfection.

For a deeper dive into the COE's research, watch the full presentation recording here. You can also review a longer white paper on this topic with additional findings, to dive deeper into this subject.

Further tips for meaningful recognition that motivates employees

Meaningful recognition is personalized to the recipient in such a way that it meets their needs and preferences. 

For example, if someone puts in a ton of extra work and expects monetary compensation, they’ll be disappointed by a team dinner. On the flip side, a gift card or cash bonus may feel unneeded if the employee was expecting a public shoutout for their work.

Here are ways to ensure your employee recognition hits the spot and impacts motivation every time.

1. Learn employee preferences

Talk to employees to learn what kind of recognition they like. Do they prefer public or private recognition? Do they want money more than non-monetary appreciation? You could even ask them when the last time they received lackluster recognition was and what about it was disappointing.

Additionally, understand each employee's professional goals so that you can recognize them when they make progress or learn new skills.

2. Include professional development as recognition

When employees are consistently providing great work, they should feel like they’re moving upward in their careers. Once again, learn about their career goals and recognize their efforts with new opportunities that align with those goals.

Maybe someone wants to travel to new locations for business. Maybe someone wants to start managing a team. Maybe someone else wants to go back to school.

By tailoring rewards and recognition to each person’s goals, their motivation will increase as they realize that their work is helping them make noticeable progress toward where they want to be.

3. Tie recognition into results and impact

Studies show that having a sense of purpose at work drives motivation, productivity, and engagement. A sense of purpose at work basically means experiencing fulfillment beyond a simple paycheck. Work is transformational, not simply transactional.

By tying frequent recognition into each employee’s specific achievements and helping them see how their work impacts business success, you can help build a feeling of purpose for everyone.

Here’s an example. Fred has put a lot of extra effort into building a new tool for your company app, and customers are loving the new feature. In recognizing Fred, make sure to share customer reviews or anecdotes to show him how much his work means to the company and its customers. Seeing the results will help Fred be motivated to put just as much effort into his next task.

4. Be genuine, timely, and specific

As general guidelines, recognition needs to follow these three principles:

• Genuine. Appreciation needs to feel real to be effective. Don’t settle for a cookie-cutter thank you card or a careless compliment. Take the time to offer genuine recognition that speaks to the recipient’s preferences.
• Timely. Offer recognition within a few days of the behavior being recognized. If someone exceeded expectations for a project on Monday, don’t wait until next Wednesday to recognize them!
• Specific. In addition to tip #3, make sure recognitions are specific to the behavior and the results being recognized. A generalized “Great job,” will feel much less special than a personalized message explaining why the recipient is appreciated.

Increase motivation with impactful employee recognition

The reasons for employee recognition are hopefully clear—when done right, employees respond with greater motivation, engagement, and productivity because they know they’re cared about and their efforts are appreciated.

See how modern recognition strategies can boost motivation by scheduling a demo with Awardco today.