Forgettable Employee Recognition

Gift cards have become an extremely popular spot award for employee recognition programs. In my latest study, employees chose gift cards as a one of the most preferred employee recognition spot awards (final study results out next month).

Gift cards are popular but are they memorable?

Kiplinger Magazine’s September 2008 issue reports that 40 percent of gift cards are not cashed within the first year!

Previous research has shown that while employees say they like cash best, they quickly forget receiving it.  Cash just isn’t memorable. It seems the same is probably true of gift cards. They are forgettable.

What do you think?

Do you have a gift card tucked away somewhere that you never used?

If you received a gift card as recognition and it has gone unused , was the recognition still meaningful? Why or why not?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Courage Goes Work

I speak and write about many issues that affect the workplace, all related to helping employees feel valued.  I hope you see many of the ideas or issues that I raise as a call to action. Sometimes the actions I ask you take are easy to implement, sometimes they take a little effort, other times what I ask you to do might require that you take a stance that makes you uncomfortable. 

Ask yourself, how comfortable do you feel doing the following?

• Trust your employees to do the right thing.
• Say “No” to the CEO who wants you to implement a recognition program to remedy bad management.
• Allow occasional work from home days, even when it is against policy.
• Be that one supervisor who recognizes his or her team, even when other supervisors have said there is no time.

Sometimes treating people respectfully takes courage. There are easier things to do than stand up or stand out.

It can take courage to offer encouragement.

There is a new book coming out on the topic of courage. I had the privilege of previewing and endorsing Courage Goes to Work by Bill Treasurer.

If you are looking to be more courageous at work, or would like to encourage your employees to be more courageous, check this book out. Berrett-Koehler is offering a substantial discount for pre-release orders (the book comes out in November). Just enter the promo code “courage.”

Meanwhile, I would love to hear your stories about courage in the workplace.

All the best,

Cindy

Global Collaboration

Every week I send out around 3000 weekly tips on employee recognition and related topics. 

Every week dozens of people respond with their comments and ideas. Often I incorporate these ideas into my programs and articles. Sometimes I add them to the reader’s stories section of the web site. Other times, like this, the ideas seem best suited for this blog.

Before we get to the idea, let me share with you the weekly tip that inspired Dave Densley of Media Perfection:

Weekly Tip - Global Team Building

As many of our organizations go global it gets more difficult to build cohesive, responsive teams. Difficult, but not impossible. Here are a few strategies that others have used:

• Schedule regular conference calls (audio is fine, video is better) for strategy sessions, best practices, brainstorming and even fun and games. Schedule them at different times of the day to share the inconvenience of disparate time zones.
• Set up a closed Intranet for your team. Include a place to post kudos, requests, and notes of appreciation. Think of it as a virtual bulletin board. Also include profiles of each member. You can post a brief bio, areas of expertise, hobbies, current projects, etc.
• Create an Instant Messenger group for your team. This way you will know when your colleagues around the world are online and available for a quick chat.There is no replacement for face time, but virtual time helps break down barriers.

Now onto Dave’s idea! He writes:

Hi Cindy,
My team has been working for several years trying to find the best technologies to help us connect regularly for conferencing.  Here are some of the best tools we’ve found.

BaseCamp
http://www.basecamphq.com/index
Project Management Collaboration Tool.  Simplicity.  It is a clean, simple easy to use product that is useful for all involved.

Ichat
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ichat.html
Mac Video chat. Ease of use.  I’ve been involved in online conferencing over the last 5 years. Most have been a huge pain for both parties trying to use it.  Ichat just works and is not difficult to use or install.

Thanks Dave!

Employee Satisfaction Surveys

Since so many organizations use employee surveys, it seems important to talk a bit about analyzing the results of those surveys

Employee surveys can be very helpful. 

• When you know what is working, you can build upon your successes.
• When you discover where problems exist, you will be able to take corrective action.
• Keep in mind that, often, instead of providing answers, surveys just create more questions. Ask yourself what the results mean. For instance, if only 25 percent of employees believe they get appropriate recognition, why is that true? Did respondents understand the statement as it was intended? Can they tell you what would make recognition more appropriate? To find the answers, follow up with one-on-one interviews.

Never make assumptions about what the survey results mean.
Follow up until you have a complete understanding
of why respondents answered the way they did.
Otherwise, you’re likely to misinterpret the results.

Case Study
Consider one consulting firm’s satisfaction survey that included these three statements related to recognition.

(1) Teams are recognized for their contributions to improving how we work. Eighty-two percent responded favorably to this state­ment, a good response.

(2) Individuals are recognized for their contributions to improving how we work. Seventy-six percent responded favorably, still a pretty good rating.

(3) How satisfied are you with the recognition you get?  Only 56 percent responded favorably to this state­ment. This low response rate should have been a red flag for the firm.

The burning question should have been why are only 56 percent of respondents satisfied with the recognition they get? The people analyzing the consult­ing firm’s results assumed this question scored low because of a compensation and benefits issue. Their assumption may have been true, but because most employees don’t consider compensation and benefits to be recognition, it’s very likely that the firm’s assumption was wrong. Without follow-up conversations or a new survey to separate recognition from compensation and benefits, they will never know for sure.

Forty-four percent of their employees expected to be recognized more effectively. Unless this firm finds out why these employees are dissatisfied, they aren’t likely to improve the rating. If anything, people will become more dissatisfied because the survey raised their expectation for change and then change didn’t occur.

Remember, that surveys rarely provide answers. They create more questions, questions that require further exploration.

Millennial Generation Article

Want to learn more about the latest generation of workers? Claire Raines, author of Generations at Work and Connecting Generations offers an excerpt from Connecting Generations that offers help in Managing Millennials. Her perspective is reinforced by the research I am currently doing on Generational Preferences (participate here). Read Managing Millennials here.

Google

A recent article in India’s Economic Times about Google’s Bangalore offices has caused me to wonder  just how different we are from country to country when it comes to perk and rewards.

Here are a few of the perks at Google India:

• Chair massages
• Food no more than 100 feet away
• Gourmet meals
• Foosball tables
• Winter holiday and summer parties
• Google Idol competition

Sounds pretty similar to Google U.S. to me. Any employees who have worked at both, want to comment on how the perks and rewards vary between the two countries?

All the best,

Cindy Ventrice

Put a Little Fun In Your Thank You - Recognition Idea

scream

 

[I gave] an inflatable figure of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. I think I got it for about $5 and it was about 12 - 15″ high.

It became a weekly badge of honor awarded to the team member who successfully handled a particularly crazy and challenging week. It started out coming from the management team and eventually became a peer initiated “award”.

Free Teleseminar

I received a notice yesterday that Patricia Wheeler, of Marshall Goldsmith’s organization, will be interviewing Warren Bennis in this upcoming free teleseminar.  If you are unfamiliar with Marshall Goldsmith or Warren Bennis, both are top business thought leaders and authors. Details below:

July TeleForum features world renowned leadership expert and author Dr. Warren Bennis on “Leading For A Lifetime” moderated by Executive Coach Patricia Wheeler.

 

There is no charge for this TeleForum, which will be held on Tuesday July 29th at 10 AM Pacific/ noon Central/1 PM Eastern time.

Please click here 

 

 to register. 

A Scenario for Your Consideration

Here is a scenario for you to think about and comment on:

The Employee Perspective. Veronica is a 23 year old registration clerk in a large university. She has worked there for five years and has always received top performance reviews. Veronica is organized, efficient, friendly and well-liked by her peers. She always goes out of her way to help others solve problems. She has had great ideas for improving the department. She knows that her manager likes her ideas because he has implemented several.

While she enjoys the work she does, particularly her interactions with the students, she dreams of moving into management.

The Manager’s Perspective. Omar has managed Veronica for the past four years. He has had frequent conversations with her about the quality of her work (excellent) and always recommends her for the maximum merit increases.

Omar is frustrated because, in spite of all his positive feedback, it seems like the only thing Veronica can think about is her goal of becoming a manager. Omar avoids the subject with Veronica because, frankly, it is rare for supervisor level position to open at the University. Theirs is a very flat organization. In their group there is only one management position, Omar’s. He is afraid that if he talks about the lack of promotion opportunity, Veronica will begin looking for another job.

The Recognition. Omar presents Veronica with a five-year service award at a team meeting. He talks about all of her strengths and accomplishments in front of her peers. After Veronica receives the award, her work seems to suffer. Her attitude, while not exactly poor, certainly isn’t anywhere near as enthusiastic as it once was.

She does her job but doesn’t go beyond what is expected of her.

Your Analysis

1) Assuming the award triggered Veronica’s attitude change, why do you think that happened?

2) What role do you think Veronica’s age plays in the problem?

3) Which of the four elements of recognition is most lacking for Veronica?

4) What could Omar do to offer the recognition that Veronica most craves?

Post your thoughts and I will comment as well.

Copyright Cindy Ventrice 2008

Recognition/Culture Mismatch

Have you ever received an award (employee recognition) that just didn’t seem to be well-thought out?

I would love to hear all your stories. Particularly I am interested in examples of awards that didn’t seem to match the culture of your organization or your team.

Here are a few examples of the mismatches I have come across in my work:

Construction company - Happy face pins

Traveling sales people – Certificate for dinner out

Recent Asian immigrants working in a manufacturing facility – employee of the month picture in lobby

In each case, the award illustrated that the organization didn’t understand their own culture.

So what about you? Do you have a story to tell?