From Total Rewards to Total Recognition: Building Culture Through Character in 2025
- Why Traditional Recognition Falls Short
- Rethinking Recognition Through the Lens of Character
- A Scandinavian Case in Practice
- Why It Matters for DEI and Psychological Safety
- Where to Start: From Concept to Practice
- In Closing
For over two decades, the Total Rewards model has structured how companies approach attraction, motivation, and retention — by combining compensation, benefits, development, and recognition.
But in 2025, reward structures alone are proving insufficient to sustain culture and engagement.
Across the Nordics, HR leaders are increasingly asking:
How do we recognize the kind of contribution that doesn’t appear in dashboards — but holds teams together?
Why Traditional Recognition Falls Short
Standard reward systems tend to focus on outputs — often privileging visibility over substance.
As a result, organizations can unintentionally overlook behaviors that are foundational to long-term resilience: quiet ownership, emotional maturity, and collaborative decision-making.
In high-autonomy environments, what gets recognized gradually shapes what gets repeated.
When recognition rewards only metrics, culture can quietly drift in ways no values statement will fix.
Rethinking Recognition Through the Lens of Character
Total Recognition shifts focus from transactional rewards to acknowledgment based on observable character-based behavior — such as integrity, courage, humility, accountability, and humanity.
This approach is explored in “Diagnosing and Strategically Implementing a Character-Based Culture” by Mary Crossan, Bill Furlong, and Corey Crossan. Their work emphasizes that character — not intentions or slogans — is what anchors sustainable culture.
Read the original article here
Their findings show that strengthening leadership character delivers:
- +14% in leadership effectiveness
- +18% in employee voice
- +10% in job satisfaction and psychological safety
These are metrics few initiatives can reliably shift — and they link directly to culture and retention.
A Scandinavian Case in Practice
In a mid-sized Scandinavian tech company (approx. 250 FTE), a shift from traditional performance-based bonuses to character-based peer recognition was introduced as part of a broader culture renewal.
Leaders and team members received training in how to identify key character behaviors in daily interactions — especially in roles where individual contributions are less visible, such as operations, QA, and customer support.
Over the following six months:
- eNPS in these teams rose by 18 points,
- voluntary turnover dropped in critical support roles,
- and managers reported fewer cross-functional tensions, citing “higher baseline trust.”
Notably, these results were achieved without increasing budget — only by shifting what was being observed, valued, and reinforced.
Why It Matters for DEI and Psychological Safety
Character-based recognition plays a vital role in inclusion.
Traditional systems often favor extroverted personalities or outputs linked to individual achievement.
In contrast, recognizing integrity, empathy, and team-first behavior broadens who is seen — and valued.
This creates psychological safety not only in words but in daily feedback loops. It also aligns with DEI efforts: people feel recognized not despite being different, but because their unique ways of contributing are acknowledged.
Where to Start: From Concept to Practice
If you’re reviewing recognition practices, begin by asking:
- Who gets recognized most often — and for what?
- Do those signals align with your cultural and DEI goals?
- Is the current system rewarding individual output — or team-strengthening behavior?
Start small. Audit one team’s recent recognition data. Run a short dialogue with managers around observed (vs. stated) values. The goal is not to add complexity — but to increase alignment between what’s rewarded and what builds long-term trust.
In Closing
Organizations rethinking recognition today aren’t just adjusting HR systems — they’re deciding what kind of culture will scale tomorrow.
If Total Rewards gave us structure, Total Recognition gives us depth.
And when recognition reflects character, culture becomes not just what we say — but what we consistently do.
References:
- Diagnosing and Strategically Implementing a Character-Based Culture – Mary Crossan, Bill Furlong, Corey Crossan
- Make Character Count in Hiring and Promoting – Mary Crossan
