Make Their Day

If you have any doubt that younger workers love recognition, check out this blog post and the comments:

http://brownamazon.vox.com/library/post/extrordinaree-acheevment-i-haz-it.html?_c=feed-atom

WorldatWork has released a new recognition study. 

From my perspective there was only one surprise. Their research shows that recognition programs account for 2.7 percent of payroll. With U.S. payroll costing around 3 trillion (2006 - source census.gov), that translates to $81 billion spent on recognition! This is significantly higher than my estimate of $18 billion reported in Make Their Day.

Read the report. If you see something interesting, leave your comments here.

Each year Salary.com does a Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey. My thanks to reader Sue S. for pointing out the results of the 2007/2008 are now available online at: http://www.salary.com/docs/resources/JobSatSurvey_08.pdf

A few highlights:

•  42 percent of employees have updated their resumes, while 27 percent have posted or emailed it. People are very actively exploring their options!
• The top two reasons employees leave is money and advancement (not much an individual manager can do, other than help employees set reasonable expectations).
• The third highest scoring reason for leaving is insufficient recognition. This is where managers can shine!

If you are looking for more on recognition, continue reading past blog posts. You can make a difference with employee retention!

It seems that disengagement affects organizations at all levels.

According to research by BlessingWhite (State of Engagement 2008), 50 percent of senior executives have “less than ideal emotional connection and alignment” to their organization.

Read a report on the presentation of BlessingWhite’s findings.

Why do you think executives are less than fully engaged?

Statistics would show that they are not under-compensated, proving once again that money can’t buy engagement.

Do executives feel underappreciated? Maybe this research presents a case for more recognition up the ranks.

What do you think?

A reader asks:

We are in the process of re-vamping our recognition program.  We have a nomination process for work that is above and beyond the employee’s normal job duties.  There are five different levels of awards brochures presented to the employee by the nominator – different levels given at the discretion of the nominator and the manager of the employee being nominated. 

We have surveyed a random sampling of employees and have found that employees feel there is too much subjectivity in the levels and who receives the recognition award. 

We have now decided to move in a different direction with our program.  We  want to still use a nomination process, but want to move to verbal recognition from a higher level in the organization, eliminating the award brochures. 

How do we go about moving from a program where we gave out “awards” to now going to a verbal recognition?  How do we come up with specific guidelines for what qualifies as above and beyond performance?

Here are my thoughts:

Awards, as this reader knows, aren’t meaningful recognition. At best they are reminders. They also serve to amplify any perceived unfairness.  With that said, simply removing the award from the program will be seen as unfair. It may also be unnecessary. Employees have asked for guidelines to remove subjectivity. Providing great guidelines could be all it takes to turn this into a great program.

If the awards are going to be eliminated, my preference would be to completely drop the existing program as soon as possible. Communicate that you have listened to feedback and acknowledge that the program isn’t working appropriately. Let employees know that you are working on new programs that will be better suited to the organization. Then begin to work on your new program, with far more explicit guidelines. When you roll it out, roll it out as new rather than improved.

 As for guidelines, above and beyond is tricky. Employees will have a better sense of what is expected if you target an award to a specific area of performance: cost-savings, customer experience, product innovation, etc. Don’t be afraid to have multiple awards categories. Make sure you have enough options that everyone can, potentially, be successful.  Also, provide specific examples of what is award worthy. Corporate legends can be very helpful in illustrating what is expected.

A final thought: if you ask people to describe what the person has done as part of the nomination process you will have a better sense of whether the person being awarded is actually meeting performance standards. It will also become a source of future stories!

What do you think reader? What would you do if you were revamping this program?

Jane Metivier, a  Service & Sales Supervisor for Wells Fargo, shares this tip:

“I have mailed a Thank You note to their home address when they go above and beyond. We have cards given to us to hand out, but I found a bigger impact when they get them with their family.”

Jane is a supervisor who has learned to gauge reaction when deciding the best way to recognize! 

It is easy to see why a note of praise sent to the home may have a bigger effect than one delivered at work — if you remember that employee recognition is about visibility and validity. People want to been seen, and they want their work to be valued. 

So many families really don’t understand what their loved ones do at work all day. Send notes of recognition to their homes and you can help them show that what they do is important

Do you have an employee recognition tip to offer? Tell me about it!

Cindy Ventrice

Most of the time when I talk about recognition, it is from the perspective of the manager.

In How About Thank You?  by Nan Russell you’ll read about appreciation in the workplace from a different perspective.

So.. how have you shown your appreciation for your boss lately?

How About Thank You?
http://www.success.bz/articles/1937/how_about_thank_you

Thank you.

These are two simple words that are becoming rarer every day.

If you don’t believe me try this experiment:

For the next week, every time you make a purchase (in person) pay attention to what the clerk says at the end of the transaction. I have been doing this for a while and have found that there is a very good chance the response will be “have a nice day” or “here you go.”

Warms your heart doesn’t it?

I find myself saying thank you at the end of a transaction far more often than the clerks do. 

Yes, I do believe these two words are getting rarer.

We could get into a discussion of why this is happening, but to my point today…

If the thank you is becoming rarer, it is even more important that you remember to thank the people we work with. Expressing appreciation is a critical element of recognition that works.

Copyright 2008 Cindy Ventrice

Here is a recent essay from the millennial perspective: Bridging the Gap on Work-Life Balance.

The author presents an insiders look into changes being made in the accounting profession to attract and retain millennials whose work ethic is different than the boomer partners in the firm.

If this topic is of interest, check out these Make Their Day blog posts:

Millennials Inc. - A new book with excellent insights.

The Millennials Are Coming - A 60 Minutes piece that paints a rather negative picture of the emerging workforce.

And a study that found Younger Workers Expect More from the Workplace.

Wednesday I presented at the HRStar conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center. It was an excellent conference with presenters on everything from Appreciative Inquiry to Compliance Law. My session was on Designing and Implementing a Recognition Program That Works. I will be repeating this session when HRStar comes to San Francisco in July.

Attending my session in L.A. was Carry Metkowski of Charthouse Learning. The folks at Charthouse Learning are the people behind the Fish! philosophy videos, training, and coaching.

Anyway, after chatting on the phone a few times, Carry flew out from Minneapolis so that we could meet and she could see me present.

As sometimes happens when traveling, things didn’t go exactly as planned for Carry. She ended up at a hotel quite a drive from the convention center with no way to get to the conference (spring break - not a rental car to be found).

Eventually, after many hours, using the airport shuttle to take her from her hotel to the airport and then from the airport to the convention center she finally made it, just in time for my presentation.

Knowing the difficulty she had in getting to the convention center (she had called me earlier to say it didn’t look like she would be able to make it), I was happy to see that she was as positive and energetic as she had been in our earlier phone conversations.

She certainly seemed to live the Fish! philosophy, especially Choose Your Attitude. The proof, though, came after the conference when our shuttle arrived to take us back to the airport. The driver turned out to be the same person who had brought her to the conference just a few hours earlier.

The driver was absolutely beaming when he saw her. 

His reaction struck me as extraordinary because it meant that during this frustrating adventure, she seemed to have kept her positive demeanor throughout. Not only had she NOT taken out her frustration on the driver, she seemed to have Made His Day with her positive outlook.

Don’t we all have those moments at work, home, or wherever where we would just love to show our frustration, to Ick all over whoever is present? And if we indulge what happens? Our mood infects everyone around us.

All I can say is it was wonderful to see Choose Your Attitude and Make Their Day in action!