Half of employees haven't been meaningfully recognized in the past three months. That single stat, shared during a recent HR.com webinar with Awardco's Christi Gilhoi, sets the stage for a bigger conversation: recognition isn't a nice-to-have. It's one of the most powerful, most underused levers HR teams have.

Christi, who leads employee experience and corporate integration on Awardco's Center of Excellence, walked attendees through new research on how recognition impacts retention, engagement, inclusion, and well-being. Below are the highlights.

Why recognition works

Motivation comes from two places: intrinsic (the pride and ownership we feel doing good work) and extrinsic (the recognition, rewards, and visibility we get from others). Most people lean intrinsic, but the research shows real impact comes from combining both. Quality of work drives intrinsic motivation, while frequency of recognition fuels the extrinsic side.

A few numbers worth sharing with leadership:

• Engagement: Meaningfully recognized employees see a 31% change in engagement scores.
• Intent to stay: Recognized employees are far more likely to see themselves at the company long term.
• Inclusion: A 27% shift in employees feeling like they belong and can bring their authentic selves to work.
• Well-being: A 30% change in overall well-being, tying recognition directly to mental health support.

Recognition doesn't need a budget

One of the clearest takeaways: recognition is a muscle, not a monetary transaction. Awardco's research found you can run a fully nonmonetary program and still see meaningful gains in retention and engagement. Money can act as a supercharger, adding a little extra weight to a moment, but leaning on it alone risks creating an entitlement culture where people expect a payout for routine thanks.

The demographics might surprise you

Age, gender, and seniority level showed almost no meaningful difference in how much people need or want recognition. Everyone wants to be seen. The differences that did show up were small:

• Tenure: Employees further along in their careers show a slight preference for one-on-one conversations.
• Gender: Women showed a slight edge toward public shoutouts.
• Level: Senior employees showed a modest preference for formal company awards.

The real insight is that people vary in how vocal they are about wanting recognition, not in whether they need it.

Mode matters more than you'd think

Not all recognition channels carry equal weight. Company awards had the strongest overall impact, driving engagement, intent to stay, inclusion, and well-being all at once. Personal emails from a manager and private one-on-one conversations followed close behind.

One catch: a quick Slack or Teams message, used on its own, showed almost no measurable connection to any of these outcomes. It's still worth doing, but it works best layered with more visible or personal moments of appreciation.

Frequency has a shelf life

Recognition doesn't hold its impact indefinitely. For managers, engagement scores start dropping if employees go more than three months without recognition. Senior leader recognition carries further, lasting closer to a year, but showing up more often only strengthens the effect. The takeaway for HR teams: build a cadence, and don't let annual reviews be the only moment someone hears "great job."

Peer-to-peer recognition is the quiet hero

While peer recognition doesn't move the needle much on whether someone stays with the company, it has an outsized effect on well-being. That makes it especially valuable in high-burnout environments like health care, manufacturing, and frontline retail, where the people doing the hardest work often go unseen by leadership entirely.

What people redeem matters too

Ask employees what they want and they'll usually say gift cards. But the data tells a different story. Redemption options that had the biggest measurable impact were:

• Company branded apparel: A surprising top performer, driven by a sense of pride and belonging.
• Team activities or outings: Strong impact on both engagement and well-being.
• Gift cards: Slight negative impact, likely because they blend into the background rather than connecting back to the company or team.

Even younger employees entering the workforce, who you might expect to want flexibility above all, showed a preference for swag that let them feel connected to something bigger.

The bottom line

Recognition is one of the few levers in HR that costs little, works across every demographic, and compounds over time. Build the habit, vary the mode, keep the cadence, and don't underestimate the power of a peer simply saying "I see you."

Want the full conversation, plus audience Q&A and more detail on the research methodology? Watch the complete webinar recording to hear Christi Gilhoi break it all down.