How to Build and Sustain High Performing Teams with Recognition

HR leaders wear a lot of hats: hiring, developing talent, driving performance and keeping people engaged, all while navigating limited resources and rising expectations. When you’re asked to deliver more with less, finding strategies that actually impact results becomes critical.

One of the most effective ways to drive business outcomes? Building high performing teams. These teams move with purpose, solve problems together and deliver consistently strong results.

But high performance doesn’t happen on its own. It’s built through clear expectations, trust, feedback and a recognition strategy that reinforces the behaviors that matter most.

This blog reveals what makes a high performing team and why employee recognition may be your most underrated tool for driving high performance.

What Is a High Performing Team?

A high performing team is a group of people who are aligned on a shared goal, trust each other, communicate openly and consistently deliver strong results. They know what success looks like, stay focused under pressure and hold themselves — and each other — accountable.

The Characteristics and Qualities of High Performing Teams

There are a few qualities that are often considered essential to high performing teams — things like trust, open communication, accountability and a shared sense of purpose. These traits help teams collaborate effectively and stay focused under pressure. 

But while they’re necessary, they don’t always explain why some teams consistently outperform others or how to replicate that success across an organization. 

To dig deeper, Gallup conducted research to uncover what truly drives high performance. Over the past three decades, they’ve surveyed more than 183,000 teams to better understand the link between team performance and organizational outcomes. Their findings revealed seven traits that consistently show up in the world’s top-performing teams:

1. Manager talent
2. Playing to people’s strengths
3. Meaningful coaching conversations
4. Frequent recognition
5. Leadership development
6. Motivational goal setting
7. Ongoing development

What’s notable about this list is that none of these traits focus solely on pure output. Instead, they’re centered around alignment, support and setting people up to succeed.

Gallup’s findings reinforce what many HR leaders already know: performance is about more than just hiring great talent. What matters just as much is what happens after the hire. Are employees being supported, developed, empowered and motivated once they’re on the team? High performance is the result of setting employees up for success and empowering them to do their best work every day.

And none of that is possible without reinforcement. That’s where recognition comes in. It’s the thread that ties it all together. Let’s take a closer look at how recognition supports high performing teams.

Why Employee Recognition Leads to High Performance

Compensation might attract talent, but recognition and purpose are what keeps them engaged and committed. Employees want to know their work matters. They want to feel seen, valued and connected to something bigger than a task list. When people give their best at work, they need to know it’s noticed.

That’s why recognizing employees, especially those who consistently go above and beyond, is so important.  If you want employees to keep delivering exceptional results, you must acknowledge the behaviors (and hard work!) it takes to drive those outcomes.

In fact, when done well, employee recognition can have a significant impact on performance:

• It reinforces behaviors that drive results
• It builds confidence and momentum
• It keeps teams aligned on the right priorities
• It validates the effort behind great work

And research backs this up. According to Deloitte, recognition improves employee engagement, productivity and performance by 14%. Gallup found that when recognition is done well, employees are 5x more likely to feel connected to company culture and 4x more likely to be engaged in their work.

Employee recognition isn’t about handing out empty praise or creating feel-good moments for the sake of it. It’s about highlighting the values, behaviors and outcomes that make a difference every day at work — and making sure the people behind them feel truly seen and appreciated.

How to Build a High Performing Team with Recognition

Laying the foundation for high performance is important, but what keeps it going is consistent reinforcement. And few tools are more effective at reinforcing great work than recognition. 

So, how do you make recognition a consistent habit? And how can it actively drive team performance? Here are five ways you can use employee recognition to build and sustain high-performing teams.

1. Involve Leaders at Every Level

Employee recognition needs to be championed from the top. When leaders recognize team members consistently and authentically it sends a strong signal that great work doesn’t go unnoticed — and that recognizing peers is important.

Manager involvement is especially critical. According to Gallup, manager-driven recognition is one of the most memorable forms of recognition and an effective way to increase engagement and performance. When it’s baked into regular one-on-ones, team meetings and even goal-setting conversations, recognition becomes part of how leaders lead. Plus, when leaders walk the talk, others will follow suit.

2. Reinforce Core Values and the Right Behaviors

The best recognition programs aren’t random. They’re built to reinforce your company’s core values through everyday actions and behaviors that fuel high performance. Recognition gives you a real-time way to call out what great work looks like and celebrate it in the moment.

When leaders and peers recognize behaviors that reflect company values and drive results, those actions are more likely to be repeated. In fact, 92% of employees are likely to repeat a specific action if given recognition for it. When someone is recognized for “living the values” it helps bring those words off the wall and into daily behaviors.

So, what does this look like in practice? Take, for example, the Inspirus Connects platform. With Inspirus Connects, each peer-to-peer recognition message can be tied to a specific core value. So, when someone recognizes a colleague for going above and beyond, they can also highlight the value that behavior reflects.

Another great example is hosting quarterly or annual employee awards. These awards are a great way to spotlight individuals who consistently embody core values and/or make a real impact. Publicly celebrating their contributions — and rewarding them with meaningful gifts and perks — reinforces how important those values and behaviors are to your organization.

3. Empower a Bottom-Up Culture of Recognition

Recognition from leadership matters, but it shouldn’t stop there. To truly shape culture and drive performance, recognition needs to happen at every level of the organization. That means making it easy for anyone, in any role, to recognize their colleagues.

When recognition becomes a part of everyday work, it encourages people to celebrate wins as they happen. This bottom-up approach builds trust, boosts morale and creates a more connected, inclusive environment. It also helps surface high performance that might otherwise fly under the radar.

You can use a peer-to-peer recognition platform to help streamline this by giving employees a central space to share appreciation and reinforce what’s working across the organization.

4. Incentivize With Points-Based Rewards

Recognition becomes an even more powerful driver of engagement when employees are empowered to give it — and when it’s backed by real, tangible value. Points-based recognition systems make this possible by assigning monetary value to recognition, allowing employees to reward their peers for great work in a meaningful way.

Here’s how it works: employees receive a set number of points each month or year to award to peers who go above and beyond. For example, Inspirus Connects Plus offers a monthly points allowance, which makes it easy for eligible employees to consistently recognize great work across their team and organization.

The best part? Employees can redeem points they’ve received for rewards that are meaningful to them, whether that’s a gift card, merchandise, tickets to an event or even a donation to a charity. It’s flexible, personal and far more engaging than a one-size-fits-all reward approach.

Want to see what this looks like? Get a behind-the-scenes look at a points-based system.

5. Make Recognition Timely, Visible and Ongoing

Recognition has the greatest impact when it happens in real time — and where others can see it. A delayed shoutout weeks (or months) after the fact doesn’t land the same way. That’s why visibility and consistency matter. When recognition is happening regularly and openly across the organization, they’re more likely to join in. 

The key is to make it easy for employees to recognize each other in the moment. That might be through your intranet, a collaboration tool or an employee recognition platform. Many recognition platforms now integrate directly with tools your teams may use like Slack or Microsoft Teams, making it easy for them celebrate wins and great work without interrupting the flow of work.

Real-World Examples of Recognition Improving Engagement

It’s one thing to talk about recognition, but it’s another to see the real impact it can have. The following examples show how organizations have used strategic recognition strategies to improve employee engagement, connect employees and drive real results.

White Castle: Incentivizing High Performance Through Recognition

White Castle, a renowned fast-food chain, needed a recognition program that could measure and reward team member performance across different divisions. 

With the help of Inspirus, they launched the R.O.C.K. (Royal Order of Crave Keepers) program, a fun, performance-driven contest designed to strengthen culture and motivate employees. The program evaluated team members across eleven performance categories, awarding points based on their achievements in each.

The result? Employee engagement improved by 78%, participation increased by 75% and they achieved 100% quality scores. By tying recognition to tangible performance metrics, White Castle was able to create a powerful system that celebrated excellence and drove results.

University Hospitals: Building a Culture of Recognition Across Locations

University Hospitals (UH) faced a different challenge. After a series of mergers, they needed a way to bring employees together under one culture. They launched My UH Appreciates, a centralized recognition platform that replaced several disconnected programs. The system made it easy to celebrate everything from service milestones to birthdays, new babies and peer shoutouts. 

The new centralized platform led to a 25% increase in recognition participation and a 246% surge in e-cards sent. By making recognition easier and more visible, UH was able to unify its workforce, strengthen team connections and rebuild a culture of appreciation across locations.

Want to see how they made this possible? Watch this webinar to see how UH overcame five major recognition and engagement challenges and built a program that celebrates all the moments that matter, both professionally and personally.

Inspirus’ Takeaway

Having the right skills and talent on a team is essential but it’s only half the equation. What separates good teams from great ones is what happens after the hire.

Without consistent reinforcement, even the most capable teams can lose focus, motivation or alignment. Recognition fills that gap. It shines a light on what matters most, keeps teams connected to their purpose and turns high-potential into high performance. Talent sets the floor. Recognition raises the ceiling.

Final Thoughts: The Link Between Recognition and Performance

If you want high performing teams, it’s not enough to hire great people and hope they click. You have to create the conditions where they thrive — and that starts with consistent recognition.

When recognition is consistent and tied to performance, it drives deeper engagement and encourages people to bring their best to work every single day. It reinforces what success looks like, builds accountability and turns effort into momentum.

Ready to build a high-performance team through recognition? Connect with an Inspirus recognition specialist today to see how we can help you drive results, reinforce what matters and keep your teams engaged.