Recognition Management Institute

We've Moved!!

2010-08-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

It's true...we've moved to a new URL location. You can now visit us at: http://rideau.com/blogs/roy-saunderson

We hope to be able to provide you with even more access to resources and tools to help you get recognition right.

Look forward to seeing you visit us at our new home.

Regards,

Roy

Wasted Time on the Job

2010-07-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

My friend Michael Ballard sent me an interesting set of statistics compiled by On-Line Schools, about wasting time on the job. It is a great graphical layout of the stats so I highly recommend you click on and visit the link.

It seems the average American worker wastes 1.7 hours per work day. Please note that is not per week but per day!

What do these employees spend their time doing? The answers may or may not surprise you.

44.7% Distracted by the Internet
23.4% Socialized
6.8% Handled personal business
3.9% Spaced out (and they actually admitted this!!)
1.3% Applying for other jobs
19.9% Other

Employers in the U.S. end up paying out $759 Billion dollars per year for work that isn’t actually performed.

Remember there are only seven reasons why people don’t do what you want them to:

1. No Expectations
2. No Feedback
3. No Training
4. No Resources
5. Reward Wrong
6. Punish Right
7. Ignore Either

No Expectations: If you don’t spell out what you want people to do and why they lose focus and of course get distracted. Tell them what’s expected of them and then get out of their way.

No Feedback: OK. So you told them what you expected of them. Now, how are they doing? People want to know how their performance stacks up against others. If they are on track tell them. If they need a simple course correction, coach them along.

No Training: How can we expect people to know all the skills, competencies and abilities to do the job perfectly? We may need to provide education and training, job shadowing and mentoring. Show them what to do.

No Resources: Nothing is worse than being told to do a job and you’re not given the proper tools or equipment to do it right. Make sure you provide people with the software, the hardware and the knowhow to do what you need them to.

Reward Wrong: Looks like many companies are rewarding employees with the opportunity to waste almost 2 hours a day at company expense. The leadership, management and systems in place are allowing this negative behavior to be rewarded – and in cash too!

Punish Right: Someone might try to speak up against wasting time and be shot down by peers with lines like, “well everybody does it!”, “Trying to be a goody-goody?” We need to create an environment where employees can bring up concerns and issues without retribution.

Ignore Either: Occasionally negative behaviors are totally ignored. They are neither directly rewarded nor purposely punished. Managers simply ignore what’s going on and when the cat’s away the mice do play.

Let’s be careful with allowing wasted time to eat away at productivity. We must ensure employees have a clear purpose in their work and that it’s meaningful for them. We must ensure their actions and results are valued and they can see how they are making a contribution.

Now stop reading this blog entry and quickly get back to work!!

Don't Forget Volunteer Appreciation

2010-07-20T07:36:00.000-07:00

Just got back from vacation where my wife and I volunteered for 11 days at one of our church’s historical sites. We fast learned the value of seeing volunteer appreciation and recognition in action both from our volunteer coordinators as well as with our fellow volunteer couples.

Here are some things we saw and learned:

* Provide both a general and a specific orientation session to review duties and responsibilities. This gets you at ease with all you will be doing and irons out the unasked questions or chance to ask those not addressed.

* Provide an orientation booklet with a list of all contact information of coordinators, volunteer schedule, and their assigned responsibilities. Sometimes you forget things so having this resource to refer to is so helpful.

* Hold a pre-shift meeting each day and each time thank volunteers for what they have done previously and what they will be doing that day. The faces may change but what a great way to connect each day you’re on shift.

* Assign volunteers to participate in pre-shift meeting in some way if only to give an inspirational or motivational thought for the day. For newly assigned volunteers to be involved in some way when everyone is together is just a nice way to feel important.

* Give any kind of report to show progress whether number of visitors or individuals assisted based on the services provided. Knowing how volunteers are making a difference by whatever metric available is important.

* Have some snacks and drinks available in the volunteer break room and invite volunteers to add goodies as they can. We noted the gamut from healthy fruit to sweet tooth homemade and bought candies and cookies.

* Take photographs of individuals during service and where possible arrange to take some group shots as a keepsake. Life can get busy as volunteers so stopping to capture these photos is a great memory maker.

* Go the extra mile and get a photo album and not only include the individual and group photos but take some of the site locations so they won’t forget their experience. These days we tend to send things electronically to one another so the tangible album with compiled photos was a great WOW ! moment.

* Include a photo guide to show the names of each individual. Some people’s names are easier to remember than others so having a coordinator make time to create a legend was a wonderful gesture.

* With permission include the contact information of all volunteers so people can stay in touch with one another. Friendships are made very quickly with other volunteers so having each other’s contact information is lovely to stay connected.

* Provide a small gift to thank volunteers that will be a memorable reminder of their experience together. When you volunteer it is choice, so receiving a thank you gift for service given is far from expected but graciously appreciated.

* Have a small celebration with all volunteers at the conclusion of the term of volunteering. One never knows when one will be back together with the same people you served with so take some time out to say farewell and give hugs and handshakes together.

Integrating Recognition

2010-06-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

Recognition is too often viewed as an isolated act by way of practice – or a point of transaction through an administered program.

In reality, recognition needs to be integrated into everything we do on a daily basis for it to be perceived as being REAL and part of an organization’s culture.

Take time to look at your day and how you can integrate recognition giving into everything you do on a moment-to-moment basis.

Imagine:

* Holding the door open for someone
* Smiling at people as they pass by
* Greeting people and saying their name when known
* Starting off meetings with acknowledging achievements
* Wording your emails so there is gratitude expressed
* Providing either instant or soon-thereafter feedback for work well done
* Thanking people by looking them in the eye when routine tasks are done for you
* Even as a senior leader sitting down to lunch with any group of employees in the cafeteria
* Taking time to be specific with the wording for emailed or written notes or appreciation
* Ensuring awards are presented as a celebration experience and not just a presentation
* Spontaneous stop bys on people just to find out how they are doing
* Make letters communicating a promotion are a chance to acknowledge a person’s contributions
* Taking time out as a small group to celebrate a project completion or new client acquisition
* Praising people either privately or publicly according to a person’s preference
* Sending a note perhaps with a gift or flowers to a spouse to thank them for supporting an employee
* Meeting with an employee before sending them to training to indicate they are going because of their exemplary performance
* Taking time to highlight the behind the scenes work of those often missed through high performance programs
* Leaving a simple note with a favourite treat at the end of the day for a challenged employee
* Leaving a voice mail message after an employee has left to commend them for what they did that day

Meaningful Recognition

2010-06-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

When was the last time you received “meaningful” recognition?

Meaningfulness occurs when people experience an activity that resonates with their chosen values, or when it connects them with people they like, raises their sense of competence, or gives them an ah-ha moment of insight.

I think meaningful recognition occurs when an individual’s contributions are properly acknowledged and appreciated in such a way that the person feels honored, valued and respected.

This is why I state that “Real Recognition” happens when the giver and the recipient BOTH feel recognized. Meaningful recognition is a two way street between the recognizer and recognizee.

Share your meaningful recognition experiences with us, explain what made it meaningful and we’ll publish the results.

Nick's Pizza & Pub: It's NOT About the Pizza

2010-05-27T12:13:00.001-07:00

Max Brown and I conducted a great radio show interview today with the founder of Nick's Pizza and Pub, Nick Sarillo, and one of his many great employees, Joe De Luca.

Nick is quoted as saying "It's not about the pizza". When we asked Nick about that he came right back at us with the company's purpose statement. Read this carefully, because it says a lot about this wonderful pizza restaurant.

Our Purpose: “The Nick’s Experience” Our dedicated family provides this community an unforgettable place, to connect with your family and friends, to have fun and to feel at home!

Joe, who is a GEN Y Millennial said that when he comes to work he is simply going to hang out with friends, work hard, and have fun because "we're family".

Nick said probably 40% of their workforce is Millennials. He admires the great work ethic of this generation because they want to understand "why" they have to do certain tasks and work. At Nick's Pizza & Pub they have a purpose statement and values that are constantly reinforced right from hiring to two days of orientation JUST on the purpose, values and communications before anyone even touches any pizza ingredients. With this great purpose these young employees are making a great experience for Nick's customers.

Is this focus on culture and purpose making a difference?

Nick Sarillo reports less that 30 percent turnover in an industry typically averaging 150 percent turnover level. He is outperforming the industry earning averages and even sustained performance and sales during the down economy.

Nick has learned how to create and keep corporate culture one slice at a time.

Nick's Pizza & Pub

2010-05-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Only 50% Completely Satisfied with Recognition

2010-05-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

In August 2009 Gallup conducted their annual survey of Worker Satisfaction with 13 Aspects of their Current Job. It seems some media channels picked up on the apparent negativity of only 50% of surveyed employees being “completely satisfied” with the recognition they received at work for their work accomplishments.

Truth be told, having only half of the folks at work feeling valued and appreciated for what they are doing is not exactly thrilling.

However, what is often missed in telling the story of facts and numbers is the comparison. Seems if you examined the 2008 survey results the level of complete satisfaction for being recognized on the job was lower than 2009 – in fact it was only 45%.

So even amidst a crazy financial meltdown, layoffs and cutbacks, somehow a small percentage of employees felt more appreciated during a very tough year.

To those managers and supervisors who had the courage and gumption to make a difference to these Gallup surveyed employees – THANK YOU! Please continue the trend and regularly express appreciation to those you work with. Let’s ensure this coming August, when these same people are asked again, there will be even more people who feel valued and respected for what they do each and every day.

I know you can do it.

Global Employee Recognition Survey

2010-05-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

I am delighted to be able to introduce you to a colleague and friend, Christophe Laval, President of VPHR, based in Paris, France. He is conducting a global survey on employee recognition practices and learning the commonalities and differences across cultures.

Christophe’s survey will examine perceptions, types of recognition practices and the barriers that get in the way of giving meaningful recognition in the workplace.

I invite you to take this survey. If you have colleagues across the world who could participate and help widen the diversity of input that would be HUGE. It’ll be accessible until the 30th of May 2010 and is completely anonymous. Click here for the survey.

Christophe will then be sharing the results of the survey at the 13th World Human Resources Congress in Montreal this September.

Values: The Important Rewards

2010-05-18T13:43:00.000-07:00

Peter Buffet, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett has learned a powerful lesson from his father. His wisdom to pass on to other parents is shared in his latest book "Life is What You Make it: Finding Your Own Path to Fulfillment".
His message to other money-rich parents comes straight from his own father, Warren Buffet: teach your children values and do not give them everything they want.

There is a tendency to give children all the things we may not have received from the generation before us. However, “things” may have become too much of the focus of today’s generation.

If we are to instill true motivation we must work from the inside out. And that is where instilling and living intrinsic values counts most.

"Economic prosperity may come and go; that's just how it is," Peter Buffet writes in his book. "But values are the steady currency that earns us the all-important rewards."

ROI and Recognition

2010-05-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

After attending a two day program of Dr. Jack Phillips’ “ROI Methodology”TM course it is easy to see how we have done a great disservice to the many clients utilizing recognition and reward programs.

The process developed by Dr. Phillips is “a balanced approach to measurement and includes a technique to isolate the effects of the program, project or solution”. What this process allows recognition practitioners to do is isolate the real effects and impact of recognition practices and programs on performance or upon other HR metrics and indicators.

Using the term “ROI” can be construed to mean one can always create a return on investment percentage. However, the “methodology” piece of the equation highlights a numerical and measured outcome can always be generated even for the intangible benefits so typically associated with recognition.

I am concerned we focus too much on recognition outputs with web-based delivered recognition programs. It is only when we focus on the effectiveness and perception of recognition in the eyes of the recipient as well as the business impact recognition makes that recognition programs and practices will be taken seriously.

Real Recognition

2010-04-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

Click on the video below, to meet me, Roy Saunderson, and learn a little bit about Real Recognition along the way.

Performance or People Engagement

2010-04-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

Academic and business financed research tends to focus more on performance engagement than on people engagement. What academia and business can forget is it is people which produce results. Perhaps more attention should be paid to “people engagement”.

That’s probably why I liked the recent findings I came across from the Kenexa Research Institute through People Matters. They’ve certainly found that rewards and recognition are important drivers of engagement over the last few years. However, a pattern has emerged which clearly differentiates the impact made between rewards and recognition.

On their survey Rewards are measured by questions like:

* “I am paid fairly for the work I do;”
* “If I left my current job, I would be able to find another job that paid me similarly or better than what I earn now;”
* “Overall I am satisfied with my pay.”

Recognition was addressed by questions such as:

* “I regularly receive the recognition I deserve;”
* “My Manager provides me with regular recognition for my work;”
* “Where I work, employees are recognized for delivering outstanding customer service.”

Note from the following table that since 2008 Rewards no longer appear in the Top 10 Engagement Driver list, whereas Recognition has maintained a strong foothold.

Rewards vs. Recognition

Year	Rewards	Recognition
2007	Top 10 Engagement Driver	Top 10 Engagement Driver
2008	Not on Top 10 List	Top 10 Engagement Driver
2009	Not on Top 10 List	Top 10 Engagement Driver

This could be a result of the economic downturn where rewards were unstable or completely unavailable. I am hopeful this is also a demonstration of the permanency of the power of Recognition even during tough times.

It only reinforces the fact that recognition practices need to be enhanced in the skill sets of our leaders and managers. When recognition programs are utilized they must be designed far more strategically and with a strong Recognition focus versus simply a Reward paradigm.

If you need assistance with a Recognition Discovery and creating a Recognition Roadmap, simply call us at 877-336-9601. We'd love to help you make Recognition a Top 10 Engagement Driver for you.

Defining Moments - Employee Engagement

2010-04-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

Melcrum, the communications company for corporate communicators, recently conducted a poll to gauge people’s definition of what employee engagement really is.

They provided 5 definitions of employee engagement to choose from and asked participants which one they most agreed with. They had over 100 people respond and here are the results by highest ranked percentage of responses:

* "Intellectual understanding and emotional commitment" - 34%
* "Getting employees' hearts and minds orientated to the business" - 33%
* "Employees who say, stay and strive" - 13%
* "Employees who think and act as business people" - 9%
* "Employees who create a lasting difference to the customer" - 8%
* “Other” - 3%

This continues to support the Recognition Management Institute’s perspective with employee recognition as well – that recognition is an emotional and feeling experience as well as performance based.

Our definition of Real Recognition is simply, “any thought word or deed towards making someone feel appreciated for who they are and recognized for what they do.”

The variables for giving meaningful, effective, and “real” recognition is both performance focused and feelings driven.

Let’s ensure we get emotional commitment from our people by engaging their hearts and minds and by honoring them with Real Recognition.

Michael Lee Stallard & Connection Cultures

2010-04-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

Michael Lee Stallard joined us today on the Real Recognition Radio to share his whole concept of the Connection Culture that came out of his book Fired Up or Burned Out. You can re-listen to the show as soon as it is archived on the site.

We were excited to learn from Michael’s research his identification of 6 universal needs consisting of Meaning, Respect, Recognition, Belonging, Autonomy, and Personal Growth. Naturally, we were pleased to see respect and recognition within this Character - Connection - Thrive model.

Michael stated employee engagement is like having a battery on the back of each employee which they can’t personally charge. Michael said recognition is what is needed to charge those employee batteries and it can only be done by other people.

Michael also discusses the need for organizations to establish “relationship excellence” which I think is foundational for making recognition valued and perceived as being “real”. We need to connect with people on a human level to have recognition act as a powerful tool for elevating performance.

What are you doing to charge the batteries of those you work with?

If you would like Michael's free eBook on Connection Culture he offered it to all of our listeners and subscribers. Just Click Here to link and download.

A Better Workplace Conversation

2010-03-18T17:29:00.000-07:00

You meet some very interesting people along the way while working.

Two such people that Max Brown and I had the privilege of meeting via our internet Real Recognition Radio show are Sonia Di Maulo and Tanveer Naseer both based in Montreal, Canada.

This past Tuesday they appeared as guests on our show to share in A Better Workplace Conversation” which was very stimulating discussion.

Sonia will always keep you focused on giving positive feedback as a tool for better performance using techniques like the 3 + 1 model. She always asks are you ready to feedback? Yes, you will have to listen to the show to learn about her model.

Tanveer will guide you in creating a positive workplace even during our tough economy right now. He provides ideas on how serving makes us better leaders. Yes, he will share ways to get out of the tough state many of us are in and into a more positive state.

So if you want to build trust, encourage a more positive and engaging workplace, gain greater productivity AND give better praise and recognition at work...well you can find the solutions all on Real Recognition Radio.

Listen in!

Rewarding Failure

2010-03-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Ron Ashkenas, co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization recently blogged about the trouble we create in business and government by rewarding failure.

This mirrors the “seven reasons why people don’t do what we want them to”.

1. No Expectations
When we fail to set expectations of what we want someone to do, how can we complain when a person doesn’t do it right? No expectations lead to failure. So set clear and specific expectations and we will eliminate the degree of failure.

2. No Feedback
When we fail to give feedback to an individual after setting the expectations we are doing them a disservice but not letting them know how they are doing. Have they met, exceeded or not reached the expectations set. Give people feedback – positive and constructive -.and you’ll see progress happen right away.

3. No Training
If we don’t educate and train our people on the knowledge and skills needed to do the job properly then we must take responsibility for any failure. Education changes from within and training changes from without and both lead to success.

4. No Resources
Without the tools, the equipment, the monies, and the right people to make things happen nothing really can happen. If the only tool in town is a hammer everything begins to look like a nail. Give people the resources and they’ll perform miracles.

5. Reward Wrong
Like Ron Ashkenas shared on the financial crisis, sometimes we reward the wrong things by not holding people accountable for results and rewarding behaviors we don’t want. Define the right behaviors and results and reward them.

6. Punish Right
Sometimes we punish people when they do the right things simply by minimizing what they do or making light of high performers so they look bad in front of others. Set the right expectations and recognize people who reach them so they become role models for success.

7. Ignore Either
Unfortunately, we most often ignore the great and not so great things going on in the workplace. Never lose out on the opportunity to recognize what people are doing well and coach people who just may be off track to get back on board.

Let’s focus on our strengths and manage our weaknesses the right way and not by rewarding failure.

Happy Employee Appreciation Day

2010-03-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, today, the first Friday in March, is Employee Appreciation Day.

So have you thanked a colleague, fellow employee, or boss today for truly making a difference to you at your work?

One survey by Adecco USA found 75 percent of employees reported they gave enough "thanks" to their coworkers. Meanwhile the same respondents believe they do not get enough appreciation for their own efforts. Perhaps this mirrors the human tendency to self-report ourselves doing better on behaviors than those around us, but still perceptions are real in the eyes of the beholder.

Survey participants also reported 65 percent of employees would like to receive more "thanks" at their jobs, even though 52 percent said their boss does a good job of thanking them. Seems half of the bosses out there might need to pull up their socks in this area.

And don’t worry about generational differences. Expressing appreciation even makes an impact across the generations. Over 75 percent of Generation Y (those aged 18-29) said more thanks would bring more motivation to do a better job, compared to just 36 percent of the Silent Generation (ages 62 and above).

So bosses and co-workers, PLEASE get out there and express THANKS to one more person today.

Employee Appreciation Day - EXPANSION!

2010-03-02T13:28:00.000-08:00

When you flip the calendar or your online version this Friday, the first one in March, it should show up stating it is Employee Appreciation Day.

For trivia buffs, this day first appeared on the calendars back in 1995. Bob Nelson, then one of Recognition Professionals International’s (formerly National Association for Employee Recognition) founding Board members, apparently created Employee Appreciation Day as a way of focusing the attention of all employers in all industries to employee recognition. It is always the first Friday in March.

It’s a good reminder.

Now consider this reality.

Nearly nine in 10 organizations reported having recognition programs in place according to a WorldatWork study. Sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it?

What? I know what you are thinking. You’re not feeling very recognized are you? Neither were 65 percent of 4 million workers surveyed once by the Gallup Organization. These folks said they received no recognition on the job the previous year.

No wonder we need an Employee Appreciation Day!! Over 2.5 million people in the U.S. reported not ONE act of acknowledgement, praise, appreciation, recognition, award or reward the year they were asked about recognition.

I think it is time we expand the awareness from one day, don't you?

Let’s be audacious, bold, and daring. Let’s mark down on every single day on our calendar – 365 days of the year (366 on Leap Years!) – Employee Appreciation Day. Remind yourself each and every day to stop and recognize at LEAST one employee or co-worker, for their example and contributions. Even thank your boss!

Here are some Top 10 Idea Provokers for Employee Appreciation Day for you to practice.

Full Capacity

2010-02-26T13:40:00.000-08:00

My colleague, Max Brown, and I had the delight of interviewing Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge today for our Real Recognition Radio show.

As I came away from this insightful sharing from Jim on the simplicity and awesome power and responsibility of leadership as a driving force for “encouraging the heart” I realized many leaders are not operating on full “leadership” capacity.

Jim reminds all of us that the job of a leader is to improve performance, not to diminish or leave performance where it currently is. If those in leadership position cannot fulfill the role of being able to encourage and help people do more and be more they should get out of leadership.

Leaders must daily fill up their leadership gas tanks to be on full when they reach the company and interact with their people.

Jim told us leaders must develop their capacity to encourage the hearts of others. They must turn introspectively on their own lives and reflect and recall the emotional connection of their own meaningful recognition experience. By tapping into this emotional well of human reality they will find the meaning and reason for acknowledging the worth and contributions of those around them.

Never drive to work on empty.

RMI hits the airwaves

2010-02-17T11:54:00.000-08:00

Beginning on February 23rd, I will be co-hosting along with S. Max Brown, RMI’s VP of Organizational Learning, Voice of America’s newest weekly radio show: Real Recognition Radio.

Real Recognition Radio is going to go back to what recognition is really all about. We’re going to help make better people and create more positive relationships. We’ll look at what’s new and exciting in the field of employee rewards, recognition and incentives. We’ll also talk to people who have lived successes and failures to help us learn what works and what doesn’t.

The show’s first installment will be featuring Brenna Garratt as our first guest. Brenna Garratt is a member of Rideau Recognition Solutions’ board of directors and CEO of The Delve Group, Inc. Brenna has been instrumental in working with Senior Executives to reshape and reposition existing brands, as well as invent, position and promote new ones so they are correctly understood internally and externally in their respective marketplaces.

Having been active in both the recognition field and marketing, Brenna’ll be discussing the importance of marketing and communication within your recognition program so your program touches your employees and achieves the goals you intended it to.

Real Recognition Radio will show you how to get real results in the workplace through meaningful recognition solutions.

The show premiers February 23rd, and will air every Tuesday at 1 PM ET on the VoiceAmerica Business Channel. Click here for more info!

Stop Recognition Leaks

2010-02-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

Recently, a company operational manager told me their survey results and performance management systems revealed managers were doing very well with recognition giving.

Unfortunately, employees did not share the same perception. Numbers from employee survey results did not mesh with their managers.

He commented how they needed to stop this “leak”.

That word “leak” really hit me.

Consider, consultants typically use the word “gap”, depicting a break or opening between one surface and another, to mean the problem between a current and desired state. The visual connotation is to simply “bridge” the gap. Not too serious – the gap is readily apparent. You just need some engineer corps to come in and figuratively drop a bridge across.

But what about this fellow’s recognition leak?

Most definitions for a “leak” imply a hole, crack, or some means for a liquid, gas or light to escape through. In most references it is referred to as being “unintended” – or accidental, unplanned, and unwanted.

A gap can be bridged or jumped. A leak can sink a ship. It can also sink productivity, morale, profits, even a company.

Leaks must be found right away. They must be stopped – sealed up, prevented, no more accidents. Disengaged people, lack of commitment, poor morale, absenteeism, presenteeism, turnover, reduced outputs – all escaped energy from people. All unintended but allowed.

Let’s do whatever it takes to seek, find and stop recognition leaks.

Action:

* Ask employees and leaders/ managers in separate, respective groups for candid explanation for why and where the recognition leaks exist within the organization.

* Bring the same groups back together in their separate groups, share the findings from the other group and brainstorm realistic and meaningful solutions.

* Reduce these suggestions to a minimal number (say 3 to 5) and apply them with individual and collective commitment along with a reporting back process every 90-days to senior leadership on results achieved.

Kept and Re-read Thank You's

2010-01-26T10:18:00.000-08:00

You probably have them too.

Thank you cards and notes from people in drawers, on bulletin boards or special places. You just can’t make yourself chuck them or recycle them, can you? And have you also noticed if you’ve kept a card you are likely to re-read it at different points of your life.

Why is that?

We conducted research to answer this question and discovered the highest ranked reason recipients gave for re-reading cards was simply to recall the feelings they had when they were first acknowledged.

We thought we should dig deeper and ask what factors contributed to a thank you card actually being kept.

We gave them a bunch of factors to choose from. Let’s see how these factors stacked up against your first impressions. Here are the top 5 items given:

1. Top of the list with 84 percent of respondents was the sender writing the card versus having their assistant or someone else writing it.
2. Second, was ensuring the card or note was handwritten and not typed.
3. Next, was the specific wording used in the content of the card.
4. Obviously the relationship between the writer and the recipient was important.
5. And finally the timeliness of the card being received after the action or event being acknowledged.

Now go write a keeper!

ACTION: Share your reasons for why you keep certain thank you cards or notes and toss out others.

Giving Recognition - An Inside Job

2010-01-19T05:50:00.000-08:00

Okay. So I understand Gallup research stated 65 percent of employees hadn’t received a smidgen of recognition the previous year to being surveyed.

That’s a lot of people. Hopefully you were in the 35 percent crowd!!

Consultants and trainers then race to the rescue and teach managers and supervisors all the tricks and techniques of the trade for making things better and training how to give more meaningful and effective recognition to these poor employees.

Suggestions like saying, writing and giving:

· More specific feedback
· Giving recognition in a timely manner
· Respecting preferences for private versus public acknowledgment
· Making it positive...and so forth.

The problem is we are mostly focused on the deprived and overdue recipients of recognition – and we attempt Band-Aid® solutions of quick and easy recognition training to “fix” the managers.

But what about these givers of recognition (and that probably includes you and I)?

People give lots of reasons for not giving recognition:

* No time
* Don’t know how
* Not received any recognition themselves
* Concern for what others will think, etc.

In reality, many of these reasons are surface in nature. We rarely address the real needs of the givers.

Reasons like:

* Never was shown love and respect at home
* Have a hard time listening and taking another person’s point of view
* Did not excel at school as a kid and still struggle with low self-esteem and self-concept
* Have difficulty knowing what and when to say the right things to people

This kind of inner development goes beyond tricks and techniques. It goes right to the heart of a person. We have to concentrate on the inside of a person.

Being able to give real recognition requires becoming and being real oneself. It means going deeper with recognition. Learning what motivates us as givers and dealing with the fears and anxieties that prevent us from being long-term givers of Real Recognition.

Real change on recognition giving requires working on the inside of the givers. As I have always said, recognition giving improves when people improve giving recognition.

It's an inside job.

Naughty or Nice?

2009-12-24T08:05:00.000-08:00

Here’s an interesting capture from a recent USA Today article (December 15, 2009) about cyberbullying being regarded as the right to free speech.

“Some parents and free-speech advocates are challenging cyberbullying cases, saying kids have a First Amendment right to be mean in cyberspace, the Los Angeles Times (latimes.com) reported.”

Even the courts agreed that free-speech rights had been violated and stated, “The court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech because...teenagers are emotionally fragile and may fight over hurtful comments,” wrote Judge Stephen Wilson.

And a UCLA law professor told the newspaper, “If all teasing led to suicide, the human race would be extinct.”

Contrast this reaction and support for being disrespectful with some more adult and scientific perspective that counters the supposed non-effect of cyberbullying.

Highlighted in the Harvard Business Review (March 2008) on “Rudeness and its Noxious Effects”, research by Christine Porath of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and Amir Erez of the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida shows even the thought of receiving verbal abuse affects people’s ability to perform complex tasks that require creativity, flexibility and memory recall.

They referred to these negative and abusive words simply as “rudeness”. Whether the source was direct, professor giving harsh words to a university student participant; indirect, a professor not a part of the study but who gave cutting remarks when interrupted; or imagined, where students were told of the previous experiences and told to imagine if they had been the recipients of the abuse.

When students then performed problem solving tasks such as anagrams and suggesting uses for a brick no matter what type of rudeness they received – direct, indirect, or imagined – all three forms of exposure generated impaired performance.

Why is their performance affected? Findings suggest that after any degree of exposure to rudeness, people think hard about the incident—whether just ruminating or formulating a response—and those thought processes take cognitive resources away from other tasks. From their study Porath and Emirez show abuse or rudeness can affect innocent bystanders as well.

So to the law professor – not all teasing will lead to suicide, agreed. But all teasing, abuse and rudeness will lead to impaired thinking and performance.

Now imagine what praise, respect and appreciation can do!! Let’s all plan to be nice today and everyday.

Learn from your Grandchildren

2009-12-01T07:23:00.000-08:00

As told by my married daughter of 4 children:

You know how you spend day after day, moment after moment teaching, pleading, and praying that your children will grow into wonderful, kind and serving individuals? Oftentimes the fighting, the teasing and the whining drown out those wonderful moments and often make that lofty mothering goal seem obsolete and impossible. And then, there are the moments. You've all had them. When your child, without prompting, shares with a sibling, when your own offspring is undeniably kind to another child, or perhaps you have watched them love and serve an elderly neighbor. These moments are worth noticing, they are worth recording. But often, they are unnoticed and unreported, and we, the mothers, don't know how wonderful our children really are.

We had one such moment. Miss J brought home a thank you note the other day, it reads:

"Katie told us that you came to her aid when she was being teased at school. What you did to help her took courage and strength and was the right thing to do. We THANK YOU very much for helping her! What you did was very sweet and really cool ~ so we wanted you to have something sweet and cool too! Your parents should be very PROUD of YOU! Please tell them we said THANK YOU too! -Katie's Mom and Dad"

Enclosed was a gift card to Cold Stone Creamery. I was near tears when I read this. Mostly because Miss J, who tells me incessant details about her days at school, had never mentioned the event for which she was being thanked. To her, it was no big deal. It was just who she is. After reading the note, I asked for the details and received them. She said that Katie is someone who has a much harder time doing even the simplest things, and that she needs a lot of help. She said a bunch of kids were calling her horrible names and Miss J saw how hurt she was and automatically went to her side and defended and comforted her. She said she wishes she sat next to her in class because she could really help her to learn and be loved.

We do not have to seek recognition. We will simply feel good inside for what we have done or a grateful person will express it in the best way they can.

Well done Miss J.! Love from your Granddad

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

2009-11-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

My colleague and friend, Max Brown, gave a great presentation to members of the Human Capital Institute last week called, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” When he first shared the idea with me I told him he had been listening to too much Tina Turner.

While he did play on that association in his presentation, his points were sound and solid on the need for love being a powerful principle in leadership and caring for people.

Max clearly stated you can’t just introduce recognition programs to counteract negative, fear driven leadership and management practices.

He outlined principles for putting “love” into recognition through the following steps:

1. Define your Purpose.
2. Articulate the Strategy
3. Consider their Perspective

Now I don’t want to give the farm away, but I highly recommend you investing an hour of your time to both listen and view this reflective webinar. Just click here to view.

My take is that love has a LOT to do with it. Well done, Max.

Enjoy.

Face Off on Recognition

2009-11-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

Intuitively, I have observed and known, you have to be able to appreciate your own worth and abilities first in order to recognize and appreciate someone else. So this means what motivates you will affect how you motivate others.

Recent research in the Human Motivation & Affective Neuroscience (HuMAN) Lab indicates that implicit motives enhance individual’s ability to recognize facial expressions of emotions in others. This skill is viewed as a critical component of emotional intelligence.

So how good are you at recognizing emotions in others? If you’re good at it you will likely be a great giver of recognition to others.

The psychologists and researchers at the HuMAN Lab out of Friedrich-Alexander University in Germany took a scientific angle on facial expressions and examined whether a person’s implicit motivational needs or style (what motivates them internally) actually influences their perceptions of the reward or punishment value of facial expressions of emotion, known by the acronym of FEEs (e.g., joy, anger, or surprise)?

How you feel about yourself affects how you view the non-verbal communications shown towards you.

Apparently, these FEEs tend to parallel a person’s implicit motives. We are born with the ability and can also learn to recognize these facial expressions. These non-verbal signals can communicate a sender's superiority (e.g., anger, smiling) or powerlessness (e.g., fear, surprise) in relation to a perceiver or another person.

It seems the type of facial expression displayed triggers a more prominent reaction depending on your internal motivation – power-motivated or affiliation-motivated.

This might explain why some senior leaders (possibly who are power-motivated) have a harder time in expressing positive feedback to employees (some of whom will be affiliation-motivated).

It’s all in the face and how you look at people!

Solving the Pain

2009-10-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

I had a headache yesterday.

It didn’t help that I had a client with a problem too. My Rideau colleague, Gord Green, asked if we were addressing their “pain”.

I knew what mine was. What was theirs?

Recognition has to be strategically aligned with key business objectives to work. Goals can be financial, performance or people related actions that are a pain right now. Some metric isn’t being met.

Meanwhile I took a couple of Advil®. But how does Advil® work?

It seems the active ingredient, ibuprofin, is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug which reduces inflammation and relieves pain. It is best taken with milk or food to prevent an upset stomach. Amazing! This nifty little pain reliever has been around since the 1960s.

Finding out the business pain can be a harder task. Business leaders must stop denying there is a pain problem until it’s too late and amputation is required! Diagnosing the problem assists with knowing what recognition pill to take and then zero in and relieves the pain.

So, where does it hurt? = Determine the pain problem. Define the actions and behaviors which could solve the business problem for you. If innovative problem solving would help get your lead product out the door quicker, then reward people who produce successful solutions and guarantee measureable results.

How much does it hurt? = Measure the frequency, occurrence, and quality of target behaviors. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being low and 10 being high, how painful is this problem? Once you know the behaviors and actions required for solving a problem determine the best way to measure them. Don’t use a yardstick when you need a thermometer.

Take two Advil on a full stomach = Determine the right rewards and/or recognition. Put strategic, tactical recognition actions in place that best fits reinforcing and recognizing target behaviors. A points-based incentive program could reward incremental behaviors towards a major business goal; a nominated awards program could help improve living of corporate values; or simply managers having more one-on-one positive feedback opportunities to improve engagement levels.

By the end of the afternoon my headache was gone. The Advil® had worked. My pain was gone.

The client? Well they’re not sure where it hurts. They just know they have a pain in their business. So I am not sure whether to prescribe Advil®, Tylenol®... or a shotgun!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2009-10-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

How do we get managers and employees to be exemplary recognition giving people?

Let’s examine some research carried out on how to instil ethical behaviours in a corporation, which are obviously way harder than trying to practice recognition giving behaviours, and see what we can learn.

According to Drs. Avshalom M. Adam and Dalia Rachman-Moore in the 2004 Journal of Business Ethics their study concluded the example managers set has the greatest influence on employees’ behavior, even more so than what managers say and what is written in the company code of ethics. Hence my play on the title with “monkey see, monkey do”.

In trying to implement an ethical code of conduct many business utilize formal methods such as training, courses, and various rules and procedures that provide enforcement through self-regulation. The formal stuff.

The authors measured the perceived effectiveness of the process deemed most influential by analyzing impact on employee attitudes (namely, personal ethical commitment and employees'' commitment to organizational values ). Their results indicated informal methods such as manager sets an example or social norms of the organization , are likely to yield greater commitment with respect to both employee attitudes than the formal methods of training and courses on the subject of ethics .

From the learning field, it is also management involvement before going to training programs that has the greatest impact on transfer of learning back to the workplace

So from this research one can imply that senior leader example could impact middle managers and middle managers could influence employees. Imagine the difference this could make on employee recognition practices and programs.

Turning Soft Stuff into Hard Results

2009-10-13T07:11:00.000-07:00

Employee recognition is often called “soft stuff”. Recognition rarely stacks up against the more financial performance metrics regularly at the forefront of business meetings.

What can we do to give employee recognition the justice it deserves?

Make the “Soft Stuff” much more tangible
The first key in making recognition have more tangible value is to determine the organizational impact recognition has. Do employees feel more connected and thus become more engaged? Are certain performance outcomes driven higher by an effective incentive program? Has one department or business division exceeded target results and attributed it to a recognition program they have established?

Whatever it is you find that you know has recognition as a strong contributing tool then you must highlight the level of importance of recognition to leaders. They must learn the strategic importance and driver of performance that recognition can play.

You also have to determine how trackable the criteria are so you can create solid metrics that correlate the value of recognition in producing results.

Monetize what is easy to put a dollar sign to
Determine what the critical elements are that need to be measured – is it turnover rates; productivity levels; quality control percentages; safety levels, etc. Some of these numbers are far easier to turn into corollary currency figures.

Be aware of objectives continually on the radar screen from your senior executives. When bottom-line figures are the issue how can you make recognition an ally in the cause. If retention is a problem, how can recognition assist HR in helping managers better retain the real assets – our employees. These numbers need to be simply turned into dollar signs so conditions without recognition and those with can be compared and shown to make a difference.

We all have to become better business analysts. Ask questions of those who do perform business analysis to understand the financial implications of measures that impact business strategy. Find out how the objectives with more people strategy initiatives are being achieved and how they are viewed from a financial return perspective.

Allow some non-monetary elements to stay that way
I have gained a great deal from Jack Philips from the ROI Institute on how to turn intangibles into tangible measures. In his book Show Me the Money, I learned it is important to question the best use of our financial and human resources and ease of conversion, as to whether it is worth turning certain soft numbers into dollar signs.

Some numbers speak volumes just as they are. One organization had such low recognition scores on their employee engagement surveys that senior management automatically requested reports on how to address the issue. No dollar signs were needed there.

One also has to be careful not to squeeze the wrong numbers. Tangible rewards and bonuses do not necessarily equate with feeling recognized. Most financial rewards are really only compensation and transactional in nature. Intangible and more personal recognition is not only transforming it actually transcends a pure monetary viewpoint of work.

We need to work hard to turn soft stuff into hard results but it’s worth it.

Please share what you are doing to monetize or give stronger hard result focus to employee recognition initiatives you are carrying out.

Employee Recognition: Getting from Expense to Investment

2009-10-06T12:14:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing when asking participants in a training session how many organizations continue to view employee recognition initiatives as an expense versus an investment. Let me give you 6 quick points moving recognition directly onto the investment column.

1. Align Employee Recognition with the Corporate Strategy
In interviewing a manager from one corporation today, it was easy to see that they are the ones left in charge of recognition and to make it “work”. The power of an effective recognition strategy is when it helps leaders and managers in achieving the business objectives and help reinforce the culture and values of an organization.

2. Determine existing measurable indicators
Whether it was Peter Drucker or W. Edwards Deming they are often attributed in having said “if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it.” Find out any all numbers available – number of programs running and what type; number of nominations, points or card recipients; how effective are the programs in employees’ eyes, etc. Capture quantitative as well as qualitative data.

3. Establish clear quantifiable business objectives
Reward and recognition programs often get dumped upon for being “soft” stuff. But when you use recognition for acknowledging people for reaching incremental targets, demonstrating great customer service attributes, and then rewarding people when targets were reached, then recognition and rewards can be a powerful player in the performance arena.

4. Apply recognition processes to improve performance and behaviors
So when you know the goals you’re shooting for you need to spell out exactly what behaviours you want to recognize or reward. For example, in one situation a company was rewarding business division managers with gift cards for completed and good safety reports. When asked if employees were being recognized for demonstrating safe workplace practices there was no affirmative answer. Always make sure you recognize the right behaviours – report writing or safe actions.

5. Measure performance and behavioral outcomes of business objectives
This goes back to the last point. Once you know what you really want to have happen – safe carrying and emptying of environmental waste into appropriate storage container, you can then define what looks like and create appropriate observable measures to validate it. Some things can be weighed objectively and others subjectively. Determined the yardstick you will use ahead of time. If you measure up then recognition or rewards are due.

6. Calculate the rate of return for your recognition processes
You simply have to calculate the net benefits from a project and divide that amount by the program costs to generate a Benefits/Cost Ratio. If it equals “1” then Benefits = Costs. If the number came out as “2” for example, it would be written as a ratio as 2:1, and means for every $1 dollar you spent on the recognition program you had a return on investment, or benefit, of $2.
To actually come up with the ROI percentage, simply subtract “1” from the Benefit/Cost Ratio and multiply by a hundred and you have your Return on Investment.

Hope this helps begin a greater focus on making your recognition programs and practices a more meaningful and valuable business tool.

Employee Recognition Community

2009-09-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

Social media is certainly becoming a powerful factor in today’s world and in individual lives. The current social networking phenomenon is more than just a trend... it's a revolution!!!

So a few of us thought we should get on the social media revolution movement and proposed the creation of an employee recognition community. We discussed some guidelines around how we saw it functioning.

Here’s what we drafted:

* Create an authentic recognition community.
* Provide a source for member to member service and active contribution.
* Provide a nonpartisan free recognition community.
* Enhance and improve employee recognition

We knew once it was up an out there it would take a life of its own. After all, social media is all about connecting, contributing, and reaching out to other like minded people.

Will you become a part of this new community? Will you share what you know? Will you ask questions so we can all help?

If you are as passionate about recognition as I am, pop on over to the Employee Recognition Community and join right now!

Development of Trust for Authentic Recognition

2009-09-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

How do we really create authentic and "real" recognition? Managers and employees alike are concerned what "others" think when they attempt to give positive feedback to a fellow worker.

The secret behind giving Real Recognition is building trust first so that giving of recognition is perceived and received correctly.

How do you do that, you ask?

Development of Trust can be formulaically shown using the following attributes as:

Consistency : Credibility : Trust : Relationship

Let’s look at each of these attributes.

Consistency

You need to prove to people you mean what you say and you do what you say you will do. This will require the following types of behaviours:

Behaviours
Prioritizes relationships (BlackBerry, Outlook, planner; Post-It Note(R) reminders); Self-discipline and self-management; demonstrate in speaking, writing and actions respect and recognition; values driven;

Credibility

By being consistent in your actions and words to people you work with displays a level of credibility in everyone’s eyes. It means you can be counted upon. To develop greater credibility means living the following behaviours:

Behaviours
Purpose driven; principle based; respect and common courtesy; valuing people for who they are and what they do; being transparent; being available; appreciative; calculated risk-taker;

Trust

Once you have demonstrated consistent actions proving yourself to be a credible person, you are likely to be a strong candidate of someone who can be trusted. Further characteristics necessary for being trust-worthy may include:

Behaviours
Confident; caring; right intentions; ethical decisions; admitting when wrong; immediate corrections or restitution of wrongs; logical and emotional; right results; right reasons; belief in others and self;

Relationship

All of these attributes and behaviours lead to the formation of positive relationships with those around us – those at work as well as at home. We display all of the above behaviours and many others, as well as these relationship focused skills as well, i.e.:

Behaviours
People focused: caring, concern, authentic, listening, action oriented, sincere and specific, kind acts, genuine positive feedback, encouraging, affirming, meaningful giving.

Consistency : Credibility : Trust : Relationship

These four attributes and some of the correlating behaviours shown above, are foundational qualities and skills needed to be able to give authentic recognition that can be positively felt.

Real Recognition is about Emotions

2009-09-16T10:46:00.000-07:00

Real Recognition is an emotional response – it’s all about feelings.

Consider these facts from brain science research: First off, emotional data or stimuli, receives the second highest priority for processing in short term memory. This means that emotions can actually take over the rational processing of the brain. They tend to impact upon the conscious memory.

Recognition Significance: Powerful and meaningful expressions of praise and appreciation touch the “heart” of a person more than the rational and logical side of our mind. Is it any wonder that 59 percent of people we surveyed re-read Thank You cards they’ve received simply because they want to recall the feelings of being acknowledged?

Now, building upon this emotional connection, look at the execution of recognition giving, how you give it or how events are planned and perceived by the awardees. Brain research shows that events associated with strong emotions, whether good or bad, are usually more easily recalled.
So how you give the award, the staging, the music being played, etc. can all trigger emotional memories – positive or negative.

Recognition Significance: Plan out very carefully how you will present your recognition. Personalize the delivery and orchestrate the atmosphere of the recognition event with attention to detail that will make this memorable for the recipient. These emotional memories tend to be compared in the unconscious memory of past experiences.

So be very mindful that in giving recognition to those we work with and those at home, we are creating trigger points of experiential memory.

Let’s all outweigh any negatives from the past by creating a positive emotional response by giving those around us Real Recognition the right way.

Perceive to Receive

2009-09-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

Why the act of recognizing Jane and her correlating positive reaction does does not yield the same results with John is a fascinating study of cognitive perception.

Our brains have greater impact upon successful recognition than we think.

Note, the act of giving recognition is a new stimulus, or set of information, for the brain to process. In fact, the brain goes through a minimum of four steps to process such information.

Register and Compare
So Bob approaches John and thanks him for getting a monthly report completed within three days after the end of the month. The first thing our brain does is looks back within the memory bank to compare this information of being “thanked”. Novel experiences are hard to process as there is nothing to compare to it to. Similar experiences from the past can actually be ignored and become status quo. This is especially the case when we give the generalized statements like “Thanks for getting this report in on time,” or simply “Great job!”

Calculate Causation
Our brain then goes into detective mode and tries to observe and perceive this data of “recognition received” to figure out the “why” – “what does Bob really want?”, “He never thanked me before, why now?”, “Why is he always so trite?” And based upon whatever past experiences we have had we actually formulate a theory for the cause for this novel or oft repeated expression of acknowledgement.

Predicting Outcome
Based on our formulation of a theory we predict what will be the outcome from the expressed thanks. “I knew it! – Bob just wants me to get another report done for him”. Or it might end up being, “Wow! Bob is becoming pretty genuine with everyone around the office. Looks like he has changed!” When we generate a correct hypothesis our brain can resume a more placid state and ignore such interactions. When we can’t seem to put things together, then something else happens.

Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the process of dealing with discomfort of two contradictory ideas at the same time. “How come Bob is being nice to me all of a sudden?” So we end up having a motivation drive to put some order to our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. We do this by either changing or justifying our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours. So the ideas we hold in our brain about people, places and things are pretty locked in until proven otherwise.

So as you can see it takes our brain quite a bit of processing to perceive recognition actions or words as actually recognition. We had better make our attempts at recognition giving more “brain friendly” by doing some things like the following:

1. Always be specific with expressing what the person did and how that made a difference.

2. Strive to be consistent with your recognition giving behaviours so it cannot be misinterpreted.

3. Understand where other people’s brains are at and prepare to address people’s (their brains!) concerns.

How Many Languages of Recognition?

2009-08-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

Besides my love for reading business and psychological based non-fiction books , I also love reading books about developing oneself and improving one's marriage.

Some of you are probably familiar with Gary Chapman's acclaimed work and book The Five Love Languages which is just an excellent marriage book.

The premise of his book is that each of us has a primary "love language" and that we may be speaking the wrong language to our spouse. The five types of languages he has discovered are:

* Words of Affirmation
* Quality Time
* Receiving Gifts
* Acts of Service
* Physical Touch

I believe similar principles cross over into the field of employee recognition in that an act of recognition for one person is not meaningful to another.

My findings speak to four aspects of recognition versus actual languages, namely:

* "Appreciative Listening" - listening with intent and care
* "Recognition Talking" - speaking meaningful and specific words of acknowledgement
* "Praiseworthy Actions" - demonstrating kind actions and caring concern
* "Rewarding Giving" - taking time to give people the right things

While research continues to show people's differing recognition preferences, I wonder if we actually speak a different recognition language?

What do you think? Do we speak different recognition languages?

Prospect Theory and Recognition

2009-08-18T13:20:00.000-07:00

Listened to Dr. John Oesch, from the Rotman School of Management, speak on Five Unusual Ideas About Change at the Strategic Capabilities Network in Toronto today. His observations were a stimulating introduction on how to improve the management of change in our organizations.

Part of his presentation showed the classic Prospect Theory developed by Dr. Daniel Kahneman from Princeton University. Oesch related this theory to change and how we can apply it. But my mind saw the theory’s impact upon employee recognition and better understanding people’s evaluative processes.

Originally built on from empirical findings, the Prospect Theory describes how individuals evaluate potential losses and gains with the original experiments having the prospect as a lottery.

In principle the Prospect Theory suggests an interesting relationship between objective (quantifiable) value and subjective (qualitative) value. Accordingly, losses have a more emotional impact than an equivalent amount of gains.

Perhaps this explains the reason why people leave organizations where there is a lack of or no recognition because they will do more to avoid the pain or loss. At the same time in organizations where recognition appears to be well delivered, after receiving multiple and ongoing recognition actions, the degree of benefit perceived, the subjective value, actually lessens over time. In fact, it would take a lot more recognition to fill the equivalent amount of perceived loss or lack of recognition.

Prospect Theory could imply that losses or lack of recognition are weighted greater or more heavily than an equivalent amount of recognition.

I haven’t found any equivalent studies on rewards and recognition, but that’s where my mind was heading after Dr. Oesch’s presentation.

Stop Thinking and Find Out

2009-08-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

Many companies use surveys to find out the latest status on their service topic and also create some media buzz.

Earlier this year Salary.com released their 2008 Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey results. What I picked up on were the top reasons given for leaving a job remained the same from the previous year's survey results, namely:

* Inadequate Compensation
* Inadequate Development Opportunities
* and, Insufficient Recognition

Now when you dig deeper into the survey results you discover employers were not in synch with employee perceptions. For example, employers had a good sense of overall satisfaction levels they just tended to overestimate the degree of extremely satisfied by nearly 2 to 1.

Let’s take a look at our area of interest – employee recognition.

When asked to rank the reasons why employees leave, insufficient recognition was the third highest behind compensation and career development. What’s more interesting is only 29 percent of employers thought a lack of recognition was a factor. Employees told a different story with 39 percent of them saying insufficient recognition was a key reason. Not knowing what 10 percent of your workforce is feeling about being under recognized is significant.

Managers and business owners must never assume they know the perceptions and degree of impact their employees perceive of retention factors. In other words stop thinking and find out directly. If you want to know the most valuable solution on how employees want to be recognized...ask!

Don't Recognize

2009-08-06T13:51:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine, David Zinger, introduced me to Improvisational Theatre and drama teacher, Keith Johnstone’s work. I hadn’t heard of him before but became intrigued.

In the late 1950s, as a play-reader, director and drama teacher at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England, Johnstone reversed many of the things his teachers had taught him in order to develop more spontaneity in acting. Instruction could include making faces at each other and being playfully nasty to each other. He would tell his students, "Don't concentrate," "Don't think," "Be obvious," and "Don't be clever!" This unorthodox approach and his unique techniques opened his students' minds up to being more imaginative and spontaneous.

In my work with coaching and educating people on being more “real” and effective with their verbal expression of recognition to others, I often find myself providing structure on thinking through various steps of what to say and how to give recognition.

For those of us who have used more structured approaches of being specific, timely, etc., maybe we can begin to learn to be more spontaneous with our recognition giving.

So let’s apply some of Johnstone’s techniques towards positive verbal recognition:

“Don’t be structured”

“Be natural”

“Be yourself”

“Don’t recognize”

What if this turned into a conversation instead of an acknowledgement? Choose to get excited in doing a genuine kind act instead of giving something. Allow yourself to think what you should do next rather than planning everything out. Don’t single someone out just honor them.

Taking recognition to a more spontaneous level will stretch even those of us more comfortable and proficient in giving appreciation. It will allow us to be ourselves and make recognition giving more authentic.

My Social Media Savvy CEO

2009-07-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

I think I just took for granted his example and so followed the lead of my CEO, Peter Hart, when it came to blogging and getting on to the social media scene. Peter has a great recognition perspective blog that you can read about here.

However, recent research from UberCEO.com indicates that CEO’s from the 2009 Fortune’s top 100 CEO’s list found they were mostly absent from the growing social media community.

The study found only two CEOs had Twitter accounts and 81 percent of CEOs did not have a personal Facebook page.

Only 13 CEOs had profiles on the professional networking site LinkedIn. Three CEOs stood out with more than 80 connections but they were all from technology companies — Michael Dell from computer maker Dell, Gregory Spierkel from technology products distributor Ingram Micro, and John Chambers from Cisco Systems Ltd.

Three quarters of the CEOs did have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those had limited or outdated information such as incorrect titles, or lacked sources.

Not one Fortune 100 CEO had a blog.

As I mentioned, Rideau’s CEO, Peter Hart has a blog, has Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as being connected on LinkedIn. So I guess I have a pretty social media savvy CEO.

How well connected with the social media is your CEO?

We've Got Barbara!

2009-07-28T12:49:00.000-07:00

Don’t mind me if I break into singing a number from the musical movie “Annie” but changing it to “We’ve got Barbara!”

I am so happy to share with you that Barbara Ruddy, CRP, has joined the Recognition Management Institute as Senior Consultant and Trainer.

Those of you who are members of the Recognition Professionals International (RPI) should be very familiar with Barbara Ruddy, CRP. Barbara teaches all of RPI’s Certified Recognition Professional certification courses and has done a remarkable job of chairing the Recognition Champion Award program in honor of her friend and colleague, the late Pamela Sabin.

Barbara's wealth of recognition experience will greatly benefit our RMI clients as we expand our services to reach a wider audience and show leaders how to give strategic employee recognition with our focus on Real Recognition TM for Real Results.

If there is one thing Barbara and I have in common – it is our passion for employees receiving the positive and meaningful recognition they deserve.

We’re thrilled Barbara has joined our team. Welcome aboard, Barbara!

Connecting the Dots, Connecting People

2009-07-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

Remember those join-the-dot picture or coloring books? Once you had drawn the lines between all the consecutive numbered dots...voila! There appeared the picture that was otherwise hidden from view.

Recognition can do exactly the same thing.

When you acknowledge people the right way you help connect the dots. That’s why it is critical to not just tell people specifically what they did. It is almost more important that you tell the person how and why what they did actually made a difference. This is the Two-Part Specificity Rule in action – the what and the why.

Whether an employee’s actions helped you get some performance numbers in on time for your report to look good for a meeting presentation; or a hotel registration clerk sent up some water and cookies to your room because they heard you had a headache; or perhaps an employee got a shipment out that night for a special order request for a customer - TELL them how this benefited you, the customer, and/or the company.

Connect the dots!

Recognition also allows us to connect better with people.

By giving sincere, positive and timely feedback to people and by using the Two-Part Specificity Rule – the feedback and praise given will come across as being genuine, authentic and thereby REAL!

And it will be “felt”.

Giving meaningful recognition allows you to connect with people because it is all about relationships. Check out the positive friendships you have with those at work, your neighbourhood, and other networks, how did you form those connections?

Simply, you were consistent in your greetings and giving of time to that person and they reciprocated in kind. Your consistency in actions led to credibility you could be counted on as a friend to do anything they might need. And this credibility led to a high balance of trust. Relationships are built upon this trust.

So there you have it. Recognition not only helps you see the big picture of what your company’s really doing – the connecting the dots – it also helps you reinforce wonderful relationships – connecting people.

What is recognition?

2009-07-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

One of the dilemmas we have in the recognition industry is our use of the word “recognition”. It is no wonder our clients are confused if we the educators, consultants and providers of recognition services and products don’t even agree on what we mean by the term.

A case in point became very evident to me when I assessed a particular company wanting to improve their recognition specific engagement scores. After looking at the formal quantifiable data I requested to interview a sampling of both managers and employees to gain an insight on the human perceptions.

Like many companies this one had focused on delivery of cash based awards through an on-line approval based system. Recognition practices, however, were inconsistent in occurrence and were typically associated with stronger interpersonal skilled leaders versus technical skilled managers.

So I asked a simple question of each manager and employee I met with, “Does your company give and focus more on “rewards” or on “recognition”?” Besides coming out with an overwhelming consensus that their company followed a rewards paradigm, there was one employee I could not even shift in his thinking that “recognition” and “rewards” were two separate things. Scary isn’t it?

This is my take on defining the two terms:

Recognition: is a tangible or intangible expression of acknowledging an individual’s contribution, achievements or observed behaviours.

You’ll find recognition works on the intrinsic motivation of a person
Because recognition affects the self-esteem of an individual it positively influences future performance
Recognition impacts long-term focus of a person and retains them and keeps them engaged

Rewards: are something given or done in return for meeting pre-determined goals, or as merits for some service or achievement and can often be financial in nature.

Rewards are an extrinsic motivation tool so are externally focused
Rewards are contractual in nature – you do this and you get that. It has little or no effect on self-esteem
They are always short-term focused so they don’t last long in their effect and have far less retention or engagement value.

So before you begin to give recognition, make sure you know what it is you’re really giving.

What is “recognition” to you?

In-Room Breakfast – On Time or the Best Banana?

2009-07-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

While attending the Society for Human Resource Management conference where I am presenting on “Recognition ROI 3: Measuring Employee Recognition for Maximum Results”, I have been staying at the Marriott New Orleans at the Convention Center just across the road from the Morial Convention Center.

To speed things along each morning I have done the door hanger ordering of breakfast for the last two days.

Ashley has been my server each day and yesterday arrived bang on the initial time of the 15 minute range you tick off for arrival time. She even suggested I use the same door hanger again if I was ordering the same option. No one has ever suggested that before but for us creatures of habit it was a Green idea that I liked.

Today she arrived right in the middle at 7:07 a.m.

Ashley apologized for not being there on time – which for her the standard was the first time on the tick off box. Then she explained she had waited till they had some better bananas in the kitchen (I had ordered one) because what they had were small and not as nice.

I enjoyed that banana very much this morning. It was not picked fresh of the tree today. Instead, it was picked by a very caring server who thought more about the end result in the eyes of the customer that being absolutely on time.

After all she still had 7 minutes to go before it would have been considered late! Thank you, Ashley!!

Are we instilling similar initiative into our employees for them to think what would the customer really want? This can be the same for either internal or external customers. And when they take that extra special caring action why not share with the customer exactly what they did. Ashley’s actions made me thank her a little more enthusiastically than I normally do. She also made me think about what I do to give my clients “a better banana” with the service I provide.

Imagine starting your day with this experience as I did. It has left an impact and made a blog entry. Now go check the quality of your bananas before you give them to a customer.

Two Factors for Winning Over Cultural Differences

2009-06-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

Are there differences with giving meaningful recognition by people from different countries? The simple answer is, “yes”. Some countries are better at it than others.

The solution is very interesting.

After an 8 country tour of Europe while conducting training sessions there, I started to observe some patterns of behaviour. In fact, by the presence or lack of these behaviours one could predict the level of proficiency in giving effective employee recognition from one country to another.

Now while I cannot generalize from the representatives from one client to the citizens of a country as whole, there is still much that can learned from these two variables.

Are you ready for them?

By the degree of courtesy demonstrated and the quality of leadership displayed one could create a strong correlation as to who had high versus low recognition specific scores from their engagement survey.

Low courtesy and weaker leadership = low recognition scores.

High courtesy and strong leadership = high recognition scores.

These factors did not reside in just one person. They were manifest by the first person met whether at the reception or on the elevator. It seems either everyone reflected these qualities or just a small subset did. The more universal courtesy and leadership were in an office this impacted the kind of scores an office achieved.

So how courteous are your people to those who visit your company? Does everyone display leadership qualities in doing the right thing without having to ask someone?

Two simple ideas for overcoming potential cultural limitations in giving recognition in the workplace.

Oh ...you’re very welcome!!

CNN Effect for Communicating Recognition to Senior Leaders

2009-06-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

In order to get senior leader buy-in to strategize, align and use recognition effectively you may have to use the CNN Method to communicate the power and benefit of recognition practices and programs.

My travel across Europe and staying in hotels causes me to turn on the English version of CNN to catch up on the news. You can use the CNN methods of news reporting to inform, inspire and reinforce recognition with your senior leader team.

Let’s examine closely and apply the CNN Method of communication

Developing Story
Often you will hear and see the broad headline category of a Developing Story on CNN. Keep your leaders informed of any new developments with recognition practices or programs. Never let them hear about some new recognition initiative through the grapevine. They must hear directly and where possible hear it first.

Breaking News
Negative news always travels faster than positive with some research stating 10 times faster. Provide your leaders with any recognition faux pas in presentations or missed recognition opportunities with employees so they can be addressed quickly and apologetically. At the same time make sure they hear about exemplary actions and behaviours of people that might provide your leader with a chance to shine by sending some personal acknowledgement to an employee in the company.

Scroll-bar Updates
You’ve seen them while watching a CNN report. Underneath the camera shot or news report you find succinct news updates highlighted in short text scrolling to the left underneath. This is similar with providing short email reports to a leader on what’s happening. Or it’s taking advantage of hallway or elevator encounters to give a headline version report to them.

Special Report
Then on a predetermined frequency you need to provide your leaders with Special Reports. These are the accountability reviews that should be held at least quarterly with an annual end of year review ahead of annual planning for the following year.

So take advantage of one of the media's leading news sources in communicating your recognition messages...use the CNN Effect.

Make Eye Contact

2009-06-15T07:02:00.001-07:00

Flying over to Europe yesterday (and today!!) to conduct some recognition training for a client, I realized that I am making some extra effort to make better eye contact with those I thank.

Check out what happens for you when you thank someone. Do you take the time, as I had to, to look up, focus clearly on the person's eyes, and THEN say thank you?

Often it is easy to make a tertiary glance towards someone but with eyes never meeting one another.

For me, the response was almost consistently to receive a smile back and, I believe, a more enthusiastic intonation in the verbal response back.

Take time today, and everyday, to assess your experience and make better eye contact with those you acknowledge face-to-face.

Survivor's Strategy

2009-06-04T12:38:00.000-07:00

You’ve heard the numbers. As of April 2009, the U.S. national unemployment rate was 8.9%, which constitutes 13.7 million workers out of work which is up from the prior month. These figures strike fear in employees and leaders alike but what turns fear into terror? Seeing it happen right before your eyes.

Watching fellow worker’s positions eliminated is extremely stressful for the workers left behind. Those remaining are made to feel they are the lucky ones. But these workers may not be feeling all that lucky. Eight-hour shifts now stretch into ten-hours or more. These employees have taken on the additional tasks and duties of those recently let go.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Brun in a study at the University of Laval in Quebec, showed the second highest cause of workplace stress was a lack of recognition. No recognition came only one place behind being overworked.

To help reduce employee stress leaders must improve the quality of recognition being delivered and create greater connection with each other.

Action Items

1. Allow your employees to connect with those around them. Increase the social aspect to break the intense level of pressure employees are feeling through lunches together or sports activities, etc. Don’t forget to connect yourself with employees by getting out on the floor and listening one on one and providing feedback.

2. Express appreciation every chance you can. Employees need to know you understand their feelings. Acknowledge the stress and pressure they are going through.