Who Gets Remembered?

Your organization may have an active recognition program.

Birthdays are celebrated. Employees receive shout-outs. Volunteers are thanked. Gifts mark important milestones.

But look at the names.

Who received the last five public acknowledgments? Whose milestone was remembered? Who rarely appears?

An appreciation program can be generous and still distribute attention unevenly.

Appreciation reveals what we notice

Imagine a community organization celebrating a successful event.

At the next staff meeting, the director thanks the daytime team. They welcomed guests, answered questions, and kept the program moving.

The overnight staff prepared the space. They rearranged the furniture, checked the equipment, and made sure everything was ready before the first guest arrived.

They’ve gone home by the time the meeting begins. Their names never come up.

The director may have every intention of recognizing good work. But the people closest to the director’s day are the people most likely to be remembered.

Recognition can become unfair without anyone deciding to be unfair.

In research reported in 2022, Gallup and Workhuman found that only 26% of employees strongly agreed that they received similar amounts of recognition as colleagues with similar performance. That figure was 19% among Black employees and 21% among Hispanic employees, compared with 28% among White employees.

Those findings describe employees’ perceptions of fairness. They give us a reason to ask how recognition is experienced across an organization, including by people whose work leaders rarely see.

Comparable care can look different

The overnight team may appreciate hearing their contribution named at a staff meeting. They may also want the acknowledgment delivered during their own shift, when they can actually be there to receive it.

That is something to ask them.

The same applies to gifts. An experience and a gift card may look different from the outside. Either could be a thoughtful choice if it reflects what the recipient would welcome.

A more useful comparison is whether people doing comparable work had a similar opportunity to be recognized, whether anyone asked what they would appreciate, and whether similar resources were available.

The delivery can be personal. The standard of attention should be consistent.

Give thoughtfulness some shared support

If every manager makes these decisions alone, employees’ experiences will depend heavily on who they report to.

One manager remembers anniversaries and names contributions regularly. Another keeps meaning to get around to it. One department has a budget for gifts. Another has never been told what it can spend.

A few shared decisions can help. Agree on which milestones you’ll acknowledge, who is included, what resources are available, and how recipients can choose the form of acknowledgment.

They keep thoughtfulness from depending entirely on someone’s status, manager, or proximity to power.

For the organization hosting the event, that might mean asking each team lead who helped make it possible before preparing the thank-you. It might also mean setting aside time to visit the overnight shift and hear about the work firsthand.

Give people more than one way to be noticed

A leader will always have gaps in what they see.

Colleagues, clients, volunteers, and community members may notice contributions that never reach the person giving the public thank-you.

Ask the people involved who helped. Make it easy for a colleague to name someone’s contribution. Include preparation, cleanup, coordination, and follow-through when you talk about what made an event or project work.

Then ask recipients whether recognition is reaching them in a way that feels meaningful. A private conversation may tell you something the record of public acknowledgments cannot.

Look back over the past three months

Start with the acknowledgments and gifts you can reasonably identify. Include public thanks, milestone celebrations, awards, and any private gestures you know about.

Treat the list as a starting point. Some appreciation will have happened in conversations you weren’t part of.

Then ask:

• Who appears repeatedly?
• Which roles, shifts, or locations are missing?
• Which comparable contributions received different levels of attention?
• What do people themselves say about how recognition reaches them?

You may discover that the overnight team has been thanked privately and appreciates it. You may hear that they rarely learn what guests thought of the room they prepared. You may find that nobody has asked them.

Each answer gives you something to act on.

And before you finish, ask one more question. Who does the work of planning everyone else’s appreciation?

The person who remembers the dates, orders the gifts, circulates the cards, and organizes the celebration belongs in this conversation, too.

Look at the names. Then ask who your current way of showing appreciation keeps leaving out.