My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

Employee Recognition is Worth It

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 Recognize employees while sticking to your budget

Employee recognition is one of the keys to improving employee motivation.  But you can’t just build an employee recognition program in a vacuum.  You first need to know what behaviors you want to recognize and reward people for.

Keep in mind that the reason for these programs are not to make everyone feel happy (although it is a nice side-effect), but to encourage certain behaviors that lead to higher employee engagement.

Spending extra money in a down economy for something that doesn’t add value is not smart for anyone.  This is why you need to assess your current organizational climate and implement the employee recognition program that works best for your company.

Where’s the Proof? 

The proof is in the numbers.  A study by Watson Wyatt found that organizations with high levels of employee engagement performed better than organizations with low levels of engagement by 47 percent.

An employee can go from being “highly engaged” in the organization to being “highly disengaged” in only a year and a half.  Since recognition is an important tool for employee engagement, you need to look at ways to recognize your employees from the onset.

Employee Engagement Assessment Tools

In order to gauge where your organization is at in terms of employee engagement, conduct a survey.  Certain survey tool companies charge $100,000 in order to do a full-scale assessment of your workforce by designing and monitor employee engagement surveys, but these are not necessary.

There are cheaper options to consider.  Zoomerang is a company that conducts online surveys for businesses, including employee satisfaction surveys.  The price is as low as $500, depending on how many employees you want to survey.  If you’re fairly in tune with the temperament of your employees and need to just figure out recognition ideas, you can even design your own survey.  The Survey System run by Creative Research Systems  gives you the tools to tailor surveys for your organization and also gives free advice.

Employee Recognition Ideas  

There are many different types of recognition programs that you can put into place.  I’ve given you different options ranging from low-cost (one $) to high-cost (three $) so that you can use whichever one best fits into your budget.

1.  Manager feedback to Employees:

Put a program in place where managers and employees can send out online positive feedback cards to people who want to recognize someone for going above and beyond.  Turn it into a contest.  The person who collects the most cards will win a prize at the end of the month.

You would be surprised by how excited people get about a mention in the company newsletter for their achievements.

2.  Personal Recognition: $

Get creative with the different types of rewards and tailor them to the individual if possible.  It doesn’t have to be an expensive camera or a trip to theBahamas.  Give someone a half day off to spend time with his or her kids or if you know someone’s hobby is making candles, give them a coupon to a candle-making class or a gift card to a store that has candle-making supplies.  Employees will be grateful for the personal touch.

3.  Employee of the Month or Competition: $$

It’s best that you only implement this type of program in cases where competition isn’t going to lead to behavior that is going to hurt your business practices.  In addition to this, you should also give recognition to employees who did reach certain goals instead of just the one person who surpassed everyone.

4.  Outsource Recognition: $$ – $$$

Michael C. Fina has an employee recognition program that ranges from medium cost to high cost, depending on how you tailor it.  They help you set up a program based on the employee behaviors, anniversaries or special accomplishments that you want to recognize and reinforce.  Every behavior is worth points and once the individual collects a certain number of points, he or she can choose a prize from the catalog.  Because Michael C. Fina is a luxury gift retailer, you can guarantee that the prizes are all quality, name-brand products.  http://www.mcfawards.com/

Define Your Purpose

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I had the pleasure of attending the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) 2012 Conference held in Denver, Colorado this past year.  It was a great conference, but one seminar in particular my attention.

In his seminar, The Achievement Addiction, Dr. Jim Loehr, performance psychologist and co-founder of the Human Performance Institute, talked about why there are many people who have a long list of impressive accomplishments yet fail to feel fulfilled.

He used the example of a world-famous tennis star, who was also one of his clients.   From the outside looking in, it looked as if this star had all the fixings of the perfect life.  However, people who knew him noticed that he had become angry, unhappy, and difficult to work with, which is why he needed help.  He had started to actually hate tennis, the sport that had propelled him to be the ultimate sports star who was raking in millions of dollars per year.  The problem was that he hadn’t defined his purpose and was instead putting his energy toward a path different from what he really wanted.

After defining his purpose he decided that he wanted to repurpose tennis to help kids be happier and healthier and started charter schools.  The anger and unhappiness lifted once he started to work toward his purpose.

These days, people are succeeding, setting records, and producing great results.  Now more than ever, stress, depression, and anxiety threaten to take over our lives.  It’s as if achieving has become a goal in itself, which we keep chasing, without ever fully reaching the goal.

By no means are these researchers advocating sitting on our butts and having no ambitions.  They propose that we first define our purpose.  Then we can go after the successes we seek.  Take a truly honest look at yourself and your accomplishments.  Do you know your purpose?  Are your accomplishments aligned with your purpose?  If not, here are some steps that may help you.

  1. Brainstorm talents and skills that you have.  Ask yourself “What do I enjoy doing?  What am I good at doing?  What will people pay me to do?”  Once you have an answer that fits into all 3 questions, pursue it.
  2. Define your mission in life and write it down.  What do you want people to remember you for?
  3. Define your values that you will adhere to while you work toward your mission.
  4. Create short-term and long-term goals that tie to your mission.
  5. Put together a plan and place it where you can see it.
  6. Tell someone about your plan and have that person help hold you accountable.
  7. Take action.