2011 March Archive - RecognizeThis! Blog

Archive for March, 2011

Every Employee Owns Their Own Business

Recognize This: No one owns “human capital” except the individual human.

Any entrepreneurs out there reading this blog? Any small business owners?

I would argue every employee reading this blog is a small business owner – you own your “human capital assets.” You make the decision every day whether you are bringing all of your talent, skills, efforts, creativity and desire to “do a good job” to the workplace.

However, for the vast majority of workers, we cannot rely on a “workforce of one.” We must work with and for other people to get the job done. Perhaps along the way we can have fun, too.

A couple of months ago Fortune magazine came out with their Best Companies to Work For list. While the list itself is interesting, I was more caught by how the Great Place to Work Institute, the non-profit that compiles list, defines a great place to work:

“A great place to work is one in which you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do, and enjoy the people you work with.”

Since we all choose to bring ourselves to work every day, I think we can all choose the attitude we bring as well. I choose to trust those I work with, take pride in what I do, and enjoy the people I work with. It certainly colors my attitude every day. I like to think it makes it easier for those who work with me to feel the same.

Do you work in a “great place to work” – even if the company didn’t make the “official” list? Tell me the company and why it’s great!

If you can, join me for my last session at the complimentary IHR Rewards & Recognition virtual conference at 11:00 (Eastern) in which I’ll be presenting The Future of Rewards and Recognition.

Fear or Excitement: Employee Attitude Closely Tied to Company Success

Recognize This: Stamping out fear of failure will help your company flourish.

Richard Branson, serial entrepreneur, and head of Virgin Brands, attributes his success to the people on his team. There’s a reason he’s one of the world’s wealthiest people – entirely self-made. Perhaps we should listen to his advice:

“A successful business isn’t the product or service it sells, its supply chain or its corporate culture: It is a group of people bound together by a common purpose and vision.”

What binds the “group of people” in your organization together? A mutual desire to continue getting a pay cheque and (for my American colleagues) health care? Or a mutual belief in the goals of the company and the value of that vision in the marketplace?

Casting the vision all can believe in and work hard to achieve is just the first step. How do you keep people bought in over the long-term? How do ensure people don’t lose sight of that vision? Again, from the master:

“Rather than focusing on mistakes, a leader needs to catch someone doing something right every day. If this culture of fostering employee development through praise and recognition starts at the top, it will go far toward stamping out the employee fear of failure that can stunt a business, particularly in its early days.”

Branson will be first to admit failures in his business ventures. But he will never lay the blame at the feet of his employees.

What’s the atmosphere where you work, especially as we finally begin to move out from under the lingering effects of the recession? Fearful of stepping out on a limb with a new idea or approach? Or excited to offer new ideas that might lead somewhere very intriguing?

There’s still time to join me for the complimentary IHR Rewards & Recognition virtual conference and attend today’s session at 12:30 (Eastern) in which I’ll be presenting with Betsy Walker from Quintiles, a Globoforce customer, on The New R&R: Increasing Retention Using the Power of Recognition.

Why Focusing on Shareholder Value Is Wrong

Recognize This: Shareholder value will never guarantee customer satisfaction or an increase in their purchasing behavior.

Is your company a slave to the quarterly analyst call? Are you focused, before all else, on increasing shareholder value as the best marker of company success?

Even Jack Welch has denounced this as a dumb idea. More voices continue to chime in, most recently Roger Martin, dean of the Roman School of Management at the University of Toronto, Canada, as quoted in TLNT:

“Concentrating primarily on creating shareholder wealth is ultimately a loser’s game. The reason: the only sure way to increase shareholder value is to raise the market’s expectations about the organization’s future results. Unfortunately, executives simply can’t do that indefinitely.… Talented executives can grow market share and sales, increase margins, and use capital more efficiently, but no matter how good they are, they can’t increase shareholder value if expectations get out of line with reality.”

Instead, Towers Watson (authors of the article) suggest:

“Instead of training her gaze directly on shareholder returns, a high performing executive leader should pay attention to the performance of employees and the linkage of employee performance with customer satisfaction and purchase behavior.”

If employees are focused on making customers happy such that they buy more, shareholder value is sure to increase. But there’s no guarantee with the reverse equation of shareholder value first, employees and customers a far-behind also-ran.

In fact, Gallup research found causation between employee engagement and financial success. Guess what? Working for a financially successful company does not necessarily make employees more engaged. But engaged employees do drive financial success.

One way to accomplish this is by including “customer satisfaction” as a reason for recognition in your strategic recognition and rewards program. Doing so reinforces for all employees the value the company places in focusing on the customer, and gives employees an opportunity to acknowledge each others’ efforts in making customers happy.

What does your company focus on at its key marker of success? Shareholder value? Customer satisfaction? Employee retention?

Also, don’t forget to join me for the complimentary IHR Rewards & Recognition virtual conference tomorrow and Thursday, March 30-31, especially for my two sessions:

March 30, 12:30 (Eastern) – Presenting with Betsy Walker from Quintiles, a Globoforce customer, on The New R&R: Increasing Retention Using the Power of Recognition
March 31, 11:00 (Eastern) – Presenting The Future of Rewards and Recognition

How to Stop Talking AT Your Employees

Recognize This: If you want employees to think like “owners,” give them a reason to care about the business like an owner would.

I’ve heard nearly every cliché under the sun for employee:

· Team member

· Partner

· Customer Success Enabler

· Owner (at an ESOP company)

What others have you heard? Why do I bring this up? Because too often such cliché attempts to “get employees to care more about the business” are undertaken as the solution. How ridiculous.

Judah Schiller, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, recently had this to say on Huffington Post:

“Many companies are still missing the boat when it comes to getting their people to show up at work with their hearts, minds and bodies present. Most employees view work only as a means to an end–a way for them to collect a paycheck and receive health benefits. Part of the problem is that companies consistently fail to make a strong connection between their own “big picture” and its relevance to their employees. They continue to talk at rather than with their workers, dictating what’s good for them, rather than making an effort to understand their wants and needs.”

Yes, employees want to understand the big picture. But simply telling them the big picture doesn’t accomplish the goal. You have to make that big picture real in their everyday work. And you can’t do that through a slick communications program, online newsletter or Twitter campaign.

If you want to make your “big picture” matter to your employees in such a way that they are focused on helping you achieve it in their daily work, you need to make it real for them. The best way to do that is through strategic recognition in which you tell employees – frequently, honestly and specifically – how their individual efforts are helping the company succeed. Praise them when they get this right. Make it real in their daily work and connect that to how those efforts are contributing to achieving the company’s strategic objectives.

It takes a bit more effort than announcing all “employees” are now “team members,” but the results are far more effective – and you may have some fun along the way.

Also, don’t forget to tweet your tips for employee appreciation and recognition using hash-tag #appreciationtip to be entered to win a copy of the Winning with a Culture of Recognition eBook or Amazon Kindle pre-loaded with the eBook.

Free Recognition & Rewards Virtual Trade Show * March 30-31, 2011

Do you wish you could attend more events that would contribute to your knowledge and efficacy as an HR professional, but budgets are too tight to allow for it?

Join me for the IHR Rewards & Recognition virtual conference March 30-31. The complimentary conference lets you attend live Virtual Workshop Sessions, which are eligible for HRCI re-certification credits and IHR credits. You’ll also be able to visit virtual exhibitor booths and network online with other HR professionals with the same questions and concerns you have employee recognition and rewards.

I’m excited to be presenting with Betsy Walker from Quintiles, a Globoforce customer on The New R&R: Increasing Retention Using the Power of Recognition on Wednesday, March 30, at 12:30 (Eastern).

Then I’ll be presenting again on The Future of Rewards and Recognition on Thursday, March 31, at 11:00 (Eastern).

You can register now for these sessions and any others you might find interesting. You can also learn more and visit the virtual trade show floor.

Attendees to our sessions will also receive a free excerpt from our book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition, the step-by-step guide to implementing a strategic recognition solution that is guaranteed to increase employee engagement by double digits in less than a year.

Pruning Your Culture Tree

Recognize This: A little careful pruning and nurturing goes a long way in managing your company culture.

I’m thrilled to appear on the cover of the March/April 2011 issue of Engagement Strategies Magazine. In the Q&A-style article, “Authenticity, Tree-Pruning and the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’,” I explain the critical link between employee recognition, employee engagement and managing your company culture.

A couple of excerpts:

ESM: What you see as the link between recognition and engagement? Is a “culture of recognition” really necessary to create an engaging work environment?
Irvine: The link, as I see it, is that recognition is the fastest way to employee engagement. There are many different contributory factors, but I would contend that recognition is one of the fastest and most efficient in the overall armory of tools that people have available to boost employee engagement.

Click through to read the case study example I share of why this is true.

I also comment on the importance of proactively managing your culture:

Companies have to ask themselves: “Are we managing our culture, or is our culture managing us?” There’s a lot of debate out there as to whether culture is manageable or not. But I would say culture is a bit like a bonsai tree. It can be steadfast and strong, but it requires deliberate nurturing in order for it to grow in a particular way. If you aren’t careful about your tree, if you cut it the wrong way or neglect it; you can create a rather ugly looking tree – or culture.

Do you agree? Is culture something that can be directly managed, or only endured? Is recognition the fastest way to engagement?

Limiting Employee Recognition Only Limits Potential Improvement

Recognize This: Putting limits on employee recognition only limits potential impact on employee engagement, productivity, performance and retention.

Adding to my thoughts on appreciation tips that have been tweeted to #appreciationtip (and keep those tips coming) is this one:

“As you sip your morning coffee, remember it’s never too early to thank your employees.”

I like this tip not for the obvious inference of “recognize early and often,” but for the more subtle message of “even new hires can do extraordinary things.”

A recognition policy I’ve never understood is “New hires must be on board 90-days (or some other arbitrary length of time) before they can participate in the appreciation or recognition program.”

Why? Are they not likely to do something extraordinary during those months? Personally, I can think of countless examples of a new hire, with their fresh eyes and clear perspective, seeing a challenge or opportunity long-timers had struggled with and arriving at a simple, elegant solution. Should they not be recognized and appreciated for that, just because “they haven’t been here long enough?”

What do you think? Are there any good reasons for a 90-day (or similar) moratorium on recognition for new hires?

Your Appreciation Tips: Regular Chats = Employee Appreciation

Recognize This: Regular chats with employees are a form of appreciation.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been asking you to tweet your tips for employee appreciation to #appreciationtip. Doing so enters you to win an eBook copy of Winning with a Culture of Recognition or a Kindle preloaded with the eBook.

I’ve received some good tips. Keep them coming!

This tip came in from @Nancy_Carbone: Have regular casual talks w/employees. Chance 2 lrn abt pros, cons & achievements. It’s motivating & shouldn’t be annual.

Nancy is correct, indeed. When the primary interaction on goals, achievements, feedback and areas for improvement is an annual performance review, it’s no wonder employees become disconnected from their managers and disengaged with their work.

Making time in your day and extending the effort to have regular, casual conversations with your employees is itself a powerful form of employee recognition and appreciation.

Is improving employee engagement on your to-do list? If you’re a closed-door, heads-down kind of manager, opening yourself up to your employees frequently and regularly could be a powerful first step in improving relationships and, ultimately, engagement.

Virtual Book Club * Learn How to Bust More Employee Appreciation Myths

I greatly enjoyed our Mythbusters: The Employee Appreciation Edition webinar with David Zinger, founder of the Employee Engagement Network, and Zane Safrit, author of Recognize Your Employees – 52 Weeks, 52 Ways.

The overall theme of the discussion during the webinar came down to the need for employers to pay attention to employee needs. David made the point about “caring made tangible” – the first priority is to notice and truly see what is going on with people around us.

Webinar participants shared their own myths as well, such as: “Certain cultures don’t appreciate recognition.” My bust to that myth is as simple as: “The only qualifying factor for the need for recognition is to be a member of the human race.” Our clients have proven the fallacy of this myth, which I’ve written about in “Overcoming Stereotypes,” my contribution to Chris Ferdinandi’s Do Amazing Things.

The idea of “tangible caring” is at the heart of employee appreciation and engagement. It’s far too easy to overlook the need to engage employees, but vast research on the positive financial and personal boost from recognition proves how critical making the effort is today and in the years ahead. Just one statistic we mentioned in the webinar is that 78% of employees say recognition motivates them in their job.

This boost in motivation is as simple as: “I notice you and your good work. Thank you for it.” What’s our excuse to not give that recognition – every day, to the vast majority of employees?

If you weren’t able to join us, watch the webinar now, then tweet your own tips for employee appreciation and recognition using hash-tag #appreciationtip. If you do, you’ll be entered to be entered to win a copy of the Winning with a Culture of Recognition eBook or Amazon Kindle pre-loaded with the eBook.

Be sure to get your copy of Winning with a Culture of Recognition and then join us for our upcoming Virtual Book Club discussion. We’re planning the virtual book club for early next month. I’ll be sharing more details on how you can participate in the book club as we get closer. I look forward to diving into the book and your thoughts together.

GenY Grows Up * How They Will Manage the Workplace

Recognize This: The “young ones” soon become the leaders. GenY will forever change management – for the better.

GenY and their needs in the marketplace is frequently a topic for bloggers.Usually, the attitude is one of annoyance about GenY’s need for constant praise, recognition and rewards, or their preference for team-oriented work.

But always remember – GenY, like every generation before them – will grow up. That doesn’t mean, however, their work preferences will change. It’s far more likely GenY will forever influence the way work (at least until the next generation comes along).

James Kerr in a recent post on Management Issues put it this way:

“Today’s organizational designs will likely be deemed obsolete. Millennials will demand a shift away from ‘command and control’ reporting lines to more cooperative-based leadership models that provide greater autonomy and freedom of choice in the way work is performed. …

“Clearly, a greater degree of emotional intelligence will be required by senior leaders so that they can proactively guide organizational transformation while continuing to grow and evolve successful enterprises.”

Are you ready for a “cooperative” work style? How does your team function today? What would be your preferred style – either in an individual contributor role as a manager? Do you see these changes happening already?

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