Applause, Thanks, the means to do their job well, what do hospital workers expect as signs of recognition

Recognition at work is one of the essential factors in the quality of life at work. While the literature has highlighted the deterioration of working conditions in hospitals, this article aims to study the relationships between working conditions and the perception of recognition practices at work. We used the four dimensions of recognition (existential, work practice, work investment, work outcomes) defined by Brun and Dugas ( 2005) to identify the dimensions that were the most impacted by the transformation of working conditions. In semi-structured interviews, 16 randomly selected staff and 5 experts were interviewed in a French university hospital centre in 2018. The results show that most categories of staff were unhappy with the lack of material and human resources provided by management for good quality work. This lack of resources was perceived as a lack of recognition by hospital management of the quality of staff work. Due to the shortage of healthcare workers, many staff increased their work investment and, despite everything, managed to provide their patients with quality care; they then felt unhappy with the non-recognition of their investment at work. Only in the least qualified categories did the staff say they wished to receive existential recognition.