Date Published October 22, 2026 - Last Updated October 22, 2026
In 2022, I won an award in front of hundreds of industry peers. I felt so much pride and joy. It was the first time I realized how being recognized matters.
It was more than a quick “atta-boy” or a passing, “You did your job.”
Consider the analyst who goes above and beyond to serve the customer. Consider the technician who spends that bit of extra time with an employee, so they understand their hardware. The entire team that embodies what it means to be customer first. The support team manager who serves his team selflessly. The team lead who lives somewhere between analyst and manager yet is the glue that builds the knowledge, takes the hardest tickets or complex work so your Tier 1 can keep the incoming issues resolved quickly. Or the improvement project that required the entire team to implement and has since transformed how you serve your customers.
These all share a common thread: behind them are people. People who are doing the work that enables the entire organization to serve the promises they have made to their customers.
Those people deserve to be recognized.
Recognition isn't accidental. It requires intention. The good news is it doesn't require a large budget or even a robust formal program. Every IT support leader can act in simple, yet incredibly meaningful ways to recognize their team. Here’s how:
1. Nominate your people and teams for an award
This is one of the easiest way to highlight the analyst that never ceases to amaze, the technician who always finds a way to make the trip to the customer’s desk more than a break/fix experience or the team lead who is making everyone around them better.
Whether it’s the individual, the experience you offer your customers or the culture of the support team itself, knowing your efforts are recognized fuels the work you are doing. It demonstrates “I am seen.”
Yes, winning is an incredible feeling. But even knowing someone cared enough to recognize that effort can fuel the work you do next.
Industry awards are one way to do this, but the larger responsibility is to make recognition visible. Nominate your people for internal awards, industry awards, conference recognition and other opportunities that tell them their contribution matters. PS: Start with the HDI Service and Support Award.
2. Recognize more than metrics
So often we can get stuck in the metrics trap. How low is my handle time? How high is my QA? What is my first-call fix? These are not bad things to care about, but when our behavior indicates they are all that matters, we miss an opportunity.
Metrics don’t capture the efforts of the analyst who walked through an issue with a customer longer than the “handle time” target so that customer felt comfortable.
A great QA score doesn’t fully capture the sentiment communicated in a comment like, “I LOVED Suzy! She was so kind and patient with me! IT is the best.”
Metrics don’t reveal the tenured technician who sat with an analyst and helped them think through a hardware challenge that could actually be solved remotely.
The forum in which we recognize individual impact will look different across teams. But IT support leaders must choose to see beyond the metrics and celebrate the impact their people make.
3. Talk about the impact behind the ticket
IT support teams are not simply answering calls and resetting passwords. They are not just resolving tickets. They are enabling the organization to function without missing a beat.
IT support must ask themselves, “Does my team realize the difference they are making?”
Recognizing the team effort, like the individual, should go beyond metrics. Which parts of the organization are more productive, more efficient, or better able to serve customers because of the work IT support is doing?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer for IT support teams. Figuring this out means IT leaders must understand the business of the organization. No IT support leaders will have identical answers to the question.
If you want to recognize the effort the IT support team is giving, there is nothing more impactful than tying their effort directly back to a tangible “why.” This cannot be a one-time message delivered during new-hire orientation.
It must be regularly communicated and the more specific the better.
Most people know what they do. Fewer people understand why it matters. Knowing how the work you do matters — that is recognition worth more than all the perfect metrics combined.
Why does recognition matter?
The saying goes, “What gets rewarded gets repeated.” If you want to fuel performance, impact, and meaning in the work of your IT support team, take the time to recognize it.
Recognition is not simply a reward for impact. Recognition multiplies it.