Make Their Day Blog

I have written before about how the positive work an organization does in the community reflects positively on employees and provides inherent recognition. Employees who work for companies that do good have pride in where they work. An example is the Haiti relief effort going on in many organizations.

Organizations and employees around the world are stepping up to help in the relief efforts in Haiti, and I asked readers to tell me what is happening in their organizations. These are the stories they shared with me:

The Pacific National Exhibition in British Colombia holds a monthly “Jeans Day” where employees donate a minimum of $5 to wear jeans on the last Friday of the month. A quick thinking program organizer changed the scheduled recipient for January to the Canadian Red Cross’ Haiti relief efforts. The final result: over $300 donated.

The National Marrow Donor Program , based in Minneapolis, lent two satellite phones and paid $4000 in calling minutes to Healing Haiti, an organization that was setting up two orphanages outside Port au Prince.

Kids4Change is sponsoring a letter drive, asking children to write letters and poems, draw pictures, etc to be sent to children in Haiti. If you want to participate send cards and letters to Kids4Change, 609 Piedmont Avenue, Rocky Mount, NC 27803. They will be collecting cards throughout the month of February 2010.

Manhattan Toy sent 1000 puppets to be included in care kits that the Children’s Hospital of Minnesota is sending.

San Diego based Superior Mobile Medics’ 98 employees held a variety of fundraisers (spaghetti lunch, pancake breakfast, ice cream social, book exchange, and more) and raised over $1200 and SMM is matching the funds they raised.

Canadian temporary agency, Hunt Personnel sent out a donation request email to their 85 employees, offering to match any funds raised. They donated $2500.

What is your organization doing? Let me know!

By the way, for the month of February I will donate 100% of the proceeds from group licensing of the webinar Small Budget, Big Payback.

All the best,

Cindy Ventrice

I am often asked, “How do you get managers to use employee recognition programs?” Here is an excerpt from The Secret to Recognition Programs That Work that answers that question:

You need managers to own your recognition programs. They should participate in peer programs, celebrate organizational awards, and actively participate in any manager programs. This requires commitment.

Let’s look at ways you can encourage manager commitment:

• Show the benefits of creating an environment where people feel valued (What’s in it for the organization - improved productivity, safety, customer service, etc and what the manager will gain - staff with better attitudes, more self-directed, looking out for the best interests of the team)
• Provide statistics on how your organization is doing (think scorecard - - it’s motivating to track improvement!)
• Get executives to demonstrate commitment by providing resources and being the face of the program (think of it as trickle down enthusiasm)
• Have senior management set measurable goals for managers (it’s great to see the organization’s scorecard, even better to see your own - staff satisfaction scores are a good choice).
• Get senior management to recognize based on these identified metrics (managers tend to be under-recognized and respond well to positive reinforcement).
• Solicit manager ideas. Address their concerns about design and implementation - but don’t let them make excuses for not participating.
• Have managers share their success stories (these are really energizing and demonstrate viability in your organization).
• Provide training. Managers who develop good habits are more likely to remain committed to ongoing recognition.
• Make it easy to do. (this doesn’t mean do it for them, but don’t create obstacles either!)

One last thought: Send them the weekly tips you receive from your subscription* or encourage them to subscribe. Let me encourage them to take action!

* not subscribed? It is free. Sign up now!

Let me hear from you. What works best in your organization for developing and maintaining manager commitment?

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

An article in HR Magazine (January) looks at taking a recognition program online.  Discovery Communications (Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet) had a recognition program that was introduced in 2006.  For this program managers nominated staff and then were responsible for gathering up to five levels of approval. Each nomination then went to a recognition program administrator who reviewed the nominations to ensure that award sizes were consistent with achievement. Expected turnaround: 30 days.

A program  guaranteed to frustrate managers

Put yourself in the  shoes of a manager who wants to recognize an employee and give them an award under this program.  You complete a nomination. Now you need to walk the nomination form around for six approvals. What goes through your mind? Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I don’t have time for this!
• Is this person exceptional enough to justify the hassle?
• Does HR think I’m incompetent?

Not surprisingly, according to HR Director Leah Coyne,  under this program “Very few awards were granted each year.”

Goals for the new system

Globoforce worked with Discovery to create a new system that

• encouraged rather than discouraged use,
• provided faster turnaround, and
• resulted in more awards to more employees.

These strike me as important goals for improvement.

What they implemented and the results

The new system handles the nominations online, but still requires that 3-4 people review/approve a nomination for award. With less approvals and online administration, they are handled faster than before. The result is a significant increase in the number of employees awarded, from 2 to 20 percent of the workforce. The article doesn’t mention the new turnaround time.

I still wonder about the number of levels of review required. The article never mentions the dollar value of the awards, so I don’t know if this amount  of control seems reasonable. I certainly hope they aren’t putting managers through this in order to give out $25 gift cards.

The results do seem to speak for themselves, in addition to increased usage: “a 2009 survey of award recipients and managers reported having more connection to the company, being more engaged in their work, and feeling more satisfied and appreciated as a result of receiving awards.”

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

An article in the Wall Street Journal online offers three ways to motivate recession-weary staff: ask for input, offer cross-training, and assist with family matters. These are all good ways to communicate staff value, but when you are talking about motivating the weary, there is an important ingredient missing, and that is FUN.

People need to laugh, or at least smile, at work. It reduces stress and increases cooperation. It is good for business.

How can you lighten up?

1) Give out a silly award. Get something cheap: an eight-ball, a wrench, a jar of peanut butter. Endow it with meaning: looking ahead, mistake of the week, smooth handling of a sticky situation. Keep it light-hearted. If you go with something like the mistake of the week, give yourself the first award.

2) Have a crazy contest: office miniature golf tournament, who can build the biggest house of cards in 5 minutes, or the ugliest pet contest.

3) Have a competition that relates to work and make the prizes fun: customer service contest between departments or branches with toy giraffes for the winners (sticking your neck out for great service), or a competition with previous results (production rate, error rate, safety record, increase in sales) and celebrate any win with a pizza party.

4) Add a touch of fun to your meetings: put a bit of humor in your PowerPoint, take a moment to play “something no one here knows about me is,” put toys on the table for people to fiddle with throughout the meeting.

When your routine is beginning to wear on your team, break with routine. Do something out of the ordinary. If your are afraid that people won’t like it, remember, even groans build energy.  Put some squishy stress balls on the table. Tell people that if they don’t like your humor, they can throw the ball at you. You will be surprised by the number of smiles you can generate in just a few minutes.

Now it is your turn. Tell us how you lighten up at work!

Copyright 2010 Cindy Ventrice

We all know it has been a tough year for organizations of all kinds. They have made changes that can significantly affect employees.

So I am wondering, to what extent have changes affected how valued we feel at work? And what changes had the most affect on how valued we feel? To find out we are conducting a short survey.

If you are an employee please participate! The survey will only take about three minutes and the results will be published in this blog as soon as they are available.

Take the survey now

We are wrapping up a really tough year. We have experienced layoffs and budget cuts and are all struggling to do more with less.

Many people were laid off this year. Some are back to work, at least with temporary assignments. Others are still struggling to find work. It can be really demoralizing. If you know someone who has lost their job this first resolution is for you:

1) Stay connected. For those who have been out of work for awhile, it is easy to fall into a funk and withdraw. Help them out. Send an occasional email, take them to lunch, make a LinkedIn introduction, anything that let’s them know you are thinking about them.

For those who are employed, employment generally means a greater workload, less resources, less compensation and/or benefits. In some workplaces the atmosphere has become oppressive while in others, people have come together with a strong ‘can do’ spirit.  The atmosphere all depends on the attitudes and actions of absolutely every person who works there.

We all want to work in a great place. If you don’t, be the catalyst for positive change. Here are two simple workplace resolutions that will help turn your organization around:

1) Say thank you. These two simple words tell your colleagues that you appreciate them. You will soon see how appreciative they are as well.

2) Acknowledge your coworkers. Few of us work in a vacuum. Acknowledge the support and encouragement that others provide. Praise their contributions. Share the credit.

Two workplace resolutions (that work equally as well at home): praise and appreciation. Neither takes much time. You can keep it as simple as you like. Offer both and you will see smiles. People will be more cooperative and positive. Your workplace will be more enjoyable (and probably more productive as well!)

These are resolutions you can keep and you will make someone’s day over and over again. What would you add to the list?

Copyright 2009 Cindy Ventrice

In my little corner of Northern California, it’s common wisdom that “big box” stores represent soul-destroying corporate greed. Few people in our little community would readily admit to shopping in a Costco or a Walmart. They believe that only small locally-owned stores can possibly be good.

I have a different view about where to shop. I will shop anywhere that treats employees well. When employees are treated well they tend treat customers and even vendors well. The theory doesn’t always hold up, but it is pretty reliable.

In 2007 Circuit City chose to lay off their experienced workers for cheaper models. When I read the news I stopped shopping in Circuit City. I never stepped foot in one again. I drove 30 miles or bought online until Best Buy came to town. Best Buy has a reputation of treating employees much better than their now defunct counterpart, so that is where I now shop.

Walmart tends to need to be forced into being a good employer. I have never shopped in one.

Costco is a different story.  I do shop at Costco.The employees of our local Costco tend to stick around for years, some since the store opened in 1994.  From the beginning, I read that they had good benefits and decent pay. I could see that employees were helpful and courteous. The store had quality products, often from local sources. It was clean and well-stocked. I don’t care that they are a big chain. From my perspective, they are a good, local business.

Today I read an article in Fast Company (November 2009 - I’m a little behind) that just confirms my view. Employees at Costco receive an average of $17 per hour ($13 is the national average). Costco pays 90% of insurance costs for both full and part time employees (According to SHRM the average for retail is around 54%).

Costco still seems like a good place to work and I will still continue to shop there.

What do you think?

Focusing on your employees’ strengths engages them, while focusing on their weaknesses disengages them. Are you surprised? Probably not, but now it is confirmed by Gallup, which says managers who focus on:

• Strengths - have 61 percent engagement among employees and 1 percent disengagement.

• Weaknesses - have 45 percent engagement and 22 percent  disengagement.

Even more amazing, managers who ignore their employees have only 2 percent engagement and 40 percent disengagement!  I know managers are busy, but imagine how much more time they would have if an additional 39 percent of employees were engaged.

For more on focusing on strengths see this post and for more on criticism this post.

My question to you is, if focusing on the positive produces the best results, why don’t more managers do this?

In response to the weekly tip Put It In Writing, reader Pam Olson writes:

“I have saved and re-read many notes like [those mentioned in the tip].  The ones that I especially like are the ones where someone thanks you or tells you of their appreciation of the small things you do - often very small things that are just taken for granted by most people.”

Pam makes a good point. Written notes aren’t just for the big wins. When you notice the small details you recognize something that maybe the recipient hasn’t even recognized in themselves.

I remember when I was interviewing employees for Make Their Day. I was asking what makes a great manager. One trait I heard many times was, “My manager sees things in me that I didn’t even see myself.” Often, the were talking about the “small things” that Pam mentions.

Focusing on the small things obviously has the potential to be a very powerful form of recognition. But couldn’t it also seem like the manager is focused on trivia? What do you think? Do you want to be recognized for the small things? Do you have a story to share? Tell us what you think!

A new survey by CareerBuilder, released yesterday, has found that 23 percent of employers believe that morale in their organizations is low.  No surprise here.

Workers stated that low morale was due to heavier workloads and longer hours. Again, no surprise.

The study also found that more employers are turning to employee recognition to help the situation. This could be good news. Great employee recognition can help give a boost to morale, particularly if employers can demonstrate that they really do value employees. Long term though, recognition is built on respect, so when the economic reality changes, if work conditions don’t change with it, recognition programs will no longer work.

There were another part of the study that I found interesting. Thirty-eight percent of workers felt there was favoritism at work. When asked what that favoritism looked like they identified many factors. Here I will focus on just a few.

They believed that favored workers/departments receive:

• More recognition by senior leaders (P/A)
• More flexibility (R)
• Greater career advancement opportunities (O)
• More training and leadership development opportunities (O)

For those that are familiar with PORT and the four elements of recognition, I have attached the corresponding letter to each of these complaints. For those that are unfamiliar, PORT stands for Praise, Opportunity, Respect, and Thanks or appreciation. You can learn a bit more here. PORT — the elements of meaningful recognition that are laid it in detail in Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works and Recognition Strategies That Work. I have attached an R to flexibility because it equates with trust. Many of the items I left off the list would also have an R assigned. In fact fairness, would be tagged with an R. Lack of fairness, overall, is seen as disrespect. And disrespect is the greatest driver of poor morale.

The best way to improve morale is to focus on creating a respectful environment: honest, fair, and concerned with employee well-being. What do you think? Are these impossible goals given the economy?