How Recognition Builds Culture, and Why Culture Keeps People

Two 911 centers can handle similar call volume, similar stress, and similar operational complexity, yet feel completely different to the people who work there.

In one, leaders consistently recognize good work, reinforce teamwork, and ensure people know their efforts matter. In the other, great work is treated as expected, mistakes get more attention than excellence, and appreciation only shows up when someone is leaving. Over time, those two centers will produce very different results.

That difference is culture.

Over time, I have come to think about this progression through what I call the Recognition–Culture Leadership Framework. It is my way of describing how recognition, understanding, and culture connect over time. Recognition begins the process. Understanding what drives people gives that recognition meaning. And culture is what grows when leaders do both consistently. In the second blog, I described understanding people; in this blog, I discuss what happens when that understanding becomes a consistent leadership practice across the team and the organization.

Across the emergency communications profession, leaders are grappling with the same challenge: recruiting and retaining the next generation of professionals. Staffing shortages, increasing call complexity, and the emotional demands of the work have made workforce stability one of the defining issues facing 911 centers today. Recruitment campaigns, signing incentives, and compensation adjustments are important and necessary responses.

But they only address part of the equation.

The organizations that consistently attract and retain talented professionals almost always share something deeper: a strong, healthy culture. Culture is built through the everyday actions of leaders. It is shaped by what is rewarded, what is tolerated, and what is consistently reinforced over time.

Recognition plays a crucial role because it communicates what the organization truly values. Each time a leader recognizes a professional for their work, they send a signal about what excellence looks like. When recognition highlights teamwork, professionalism, compassion for callers, and calm decision-making under pressure, those behaviors become part of the organization’s identity. They are not just individual strengths; they are how the team works and how the center operates.

When recognition is absent, inconsistent, or reserved only for dramatic, high-profile events, the message becomes unclear. In those environments, people may begin to wonder whether their steady, everyday contributions matter at all.

That matters because appreciation is not a small issue. Seventy-nine percent of employees who leave their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as the reason. In 2022, 65% of North Americans reported receiving no recognition over the previous 12 months. And while 58% of managers say they do a good job recognizing employees, only 29% of employees say their manager shows any recognition for good work. That gap should get every leader’s attention.

In emergency communications, much of the most important work happens quietly. It is the steady voice guiding a caller through CPR instructions at 5 a.m. It is the Public Safety Telecommunicator who manages a chaotic radio channel during a multi-agency response. It is the colleague who checks on a teammate after a particularly difficult call. It is the team that holds together during the hardest moments, even when nobody outside the room sees the strain.

When leaders notice and recognize these moments, they are doing more than saying “thank you.” They are reinforcing the values that sustain the profession and sending a clear message: this is what we stand for.

Over time, those moments of recognition accumulate and become something larger than individual acknowledgments; they become the stories people tell about their organization.

Culture, in many ways, is the collection of stories professionals share about where they work.

When employees describe an organization where leaders notice good work, support their teams, and value contributions, those stories travel. They reach colleagues in neighboring centers, new professionals entering the field, and potential recruits deciding where they want to build their careers. In that sense, every employee becomes an ambassador for the organization’s culture.

Research on employee engagement and retention reinforces this reality. People rarely stay in organizations where they feel invisible or undervalued. They are far more likely to remain committed to organizations where they feel seen, respected, and connected to a meaningful mission. Pay and benefits matter, but culture often determines whether someone chooses to stay when the work gets hard.

Recognition helps create that connection.

When leaders consistently acknowledge their teams' contributions, both formally and informally, they reinforce pride in the profession and a sense of belonging within the organization. That sense of belonging is one of the most powerful drivers of retention. It is also one of the most effective methods of recruitment.

Prospective employees want to join organizations where people feel valued and supported. A strong culture becomes the reputation that attracts the next generation of professionals long before a job posting is published.

Recognition may seem like a small leadership action, but its impact compounds over time. Thoughtful recognition clarifies expectations, strengthens identity, and gives people stories they want to share.

Recognition is where culture begins. When leaders take the time to understand what motivates their people and honor their contributions in ways that are personal and meaningful, they create the kind of culture that attracts great professionals and inspires them to stay.

In a profession as demanding and as important as emergency communications, that kind of culture may be the most valuable asset an organization can build.