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As we enter the second year of the Covid-19 pandemic, front-line public sector workers such as health-care professionals, teachers and social workers are under more strain than ever. At the same time, organizations in every industry are being forced to downsize and restructure, meaning they have less cash in the bank to support an increasingly burned out work force. In these trying times, what can managers do to keep their employees motivated?
To answer this question, we conducted a series of studies in collaboration with the nonprofit group What Works for Children's Social Care, examining the impact of light-touch, cost-effective interventions designed to promote the overall happiness of social workers. While many organizations have traditionally used monetary incentives to boost employee morale and performance, recent research suggests that symbolic awards-such as congratulatory cards, public recognition and certificates-can significantly increase workers' intrinsic motivation, performance and retention rates. As such, we were interested in measuring the impact of symbolic awards that demonstrate the organization's appreciation and respect for employees without offering cash incentives.
While past studies have outlined some of the benefits of symbolic awards, most of the research on this topic has been conducted in the private sector. Those results may thus not be fully applicable to the nonprofit and public sector organizations that employ many of the front-line workers most impacted by the pandemic. To better understand the effectiveness of symbolic recognition for public sector employees, we ran a study focusing on the impact of sending personalized letters of appreciation to social workers at home addresses. We randomly assigned half the social workers as recipients of letters from their direct...