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LeadershipLivecast April 24th: Doing Still More with Less

2013 8 Apr

Recognize This! – We are all in a position of needing to do more with less. Learn from more than 40 industry experts on how to get high performance while avoiding burnout.

Are budgets still tight for you? Are you struggling to still do more with less?

In many ways, I think we all are. Organizations have settled into the patterns and expectations set after reductions and belt-tightening from the 2009 recession. We asked remaining employees (including ourselves) to do more, sometimes doing the work of two or three people, and we are still doing so today.

Leadership is quite happy with these productivity increases and likely sees them as sustainable over the long term. Those of us in HR closely tied to how employees are doing in terms of engagement know better.

If you’re in the position of trying to still do more with less, then I encourage you to join me and 40 other experts for a LeadershipLivecast from The Ken Blanchard Companies on Wednesday, 24th April, 12:00-2:30 Eastern (9:00-11:30 Pacific; 5:00-7:30 GMT). What’s this all about?

“Many of us in the workplace are stressed, overworked, and overextended. Yet our organizations seem to be asking still more of us. How do we learn to do more with less? And then still more with less again?

“Join us on April 24, 2013, as we explore ways to drive and maintain high performance without burnout. Learn from experienced managers, senior coaches, and leadership experts on how to avoid the deal-breaking moment when your top talent declares, “No more doing more with less.”

“Register Now to hear some of leaderships best known thought leaders share their insight on how they have managed to accomplish more with less. Featuring: Elliott Masie, Steve Roesler, Charlene Li, James Maas, Lee Cockerell, Fons Trompenaars and many more. Plus live commentary from Ken Blanchard and Scott Blanchard!”

I’ll be sharing specifically on how to do more with less recognition and rewards budget. I hope you can join the livecast.

A Lot Done, But Way More to Do!

2013 19 Mar

Recognize This! – We as HR Pros have accomplished a lot, but our work is not nearly finished.

I was in Berlin last week, chairing day one of a HR conference on employee engagement.   The quality of presentations were truly exceptional, with a wide variety of insights as HR peers shared their projects on various engagement fronts.

We heard lots of ambitions, including:

  • Adidas – project to improve engagement scores
  • BP – embedding a new set of corporate values
  • Kimberly Clarke – aiming to move further up the Best Places to Work List
  • Electrolux – becoming a Social Enterprise (online collaboration and all)
  • Best Places To Work Institute themselves on how engagement will just be an “employment norm” by 2020

What struck me the most, though, was not the ambitions themselves, but some of the “walls” (suitable given we were in Berlin) HR see in the workplace.  And it seems one of the biggest walls of all is managers and the nature of relationship they establish.  Yes, even in 2013, I heard:

  • “How do we make managers accept relationships is a key management task?”  
  • “How do we ensure they take the time to have more conversations with employees?”

Speaker after speaker spoke about the role employee recognition played in one project or another.   But, here’s my soap box – We’ve done a lot, but we have way more to do!

Everyone gets that employees love the positive feedback of recognition; everyone gets that good recognition is a quality conversation. They get, too, that recognition can be telling the corporate strategy in a positive way, that we all need encouragement along the way, and that we need to celebrate the “how” just as much as the “what.”

But where is the mass mobilization of recognition in their organizations?  Employee of the month or spot awards to just the 5-10% top performers isn’t going to cut it!

Here’s the statistics (from Mood Tracker Spring 2012):  78% of employees would work harder IF they felt their efforts would be recognized. But, only 15% got any recognition in the past month. 

Recognition is one of the most powerful tools HR has in its toolkit.  Social Recognition – done right – has the power to make all these ambitions real, and break down the walls, too.  Boost engagement, drive social behaviors, embed new values, encourage many quality conversations, reward the “how”, and just generally help employees feel really glad they came to work today!

What are your big ambitions?

 

Learn Intuit's Secret to Recognition Success: Webinar August 2, 1:00pm (EDT)

2012 24 Jul

Recognize This! – Learning from others’ success makes our own path to success that much straighter.

Intuit has been a trusted partner of ours for, oh, many years now. I’ve had the opportunity to share Intuit’s incredibly strong results thanks to strategic recognition over the years, including double digit increases in employee engagement sustained over many years.

Even more importantly, I’ve had the opportunity to share the stage in various HR industry forums with Jennifer Lepird, senior compensation business partner at Intuit. Now, we’re bringing that insight to you in my webinar with Intuit next week, August 2, 1:00 (Eastern).

Register for the webinar and learn how Intuit used strategic recognition to increase employee engagement and unify its workforce around the world. Jennifer will also share:

  • How Intuit unified its global workforce through recognition
  • The significant business impact of strategic recognition
  • How recognition serves as an ongoing performance management tool

For background on the power and role of strategic recognition at Intuit, you may be interested in these earlier posts:

My DriveThruHR Debut: Everything You Need to Know about Employee Recognition in 30 Minutes

2012 25 Jun

Recognize This! – You can learn a lot about recognition done right in just 30 minutes.

Well, it’s not everything you need to know, but I’m impressed with how much ground we were able to cover thanks to William and Byran’s expert guidance. Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to join Bryan Wempen and William Tincup on their DriveThru HR program to discuss employee recognition and rewards. I greatly enjoyed my time with them in what was, indeed, the “fastest 30 minutes in HR” as William describes it.

I’ve embedded the enter episode below and encourage you to listen to for the highlights I feature after the jump.

Listen to internet radio with Wempen and Tincup on Blog Talk Radio

The top 3 themes I hear from our clients today, from companies in the Fortune 500 to companies with 500 employees. I talk about how strategic, social recognition is the key to unlock these three common themes of performance management, employee engagement, and company culture management.

I also discuss how every company has a culture, but it’s hard to change or grow that culture through the traditional vertical communications approach from the top down. Instead, we advocate a horizontal approach to culture change in which, much like the social world, you make all employees the eyes and ears for noticing and celebrating the desired behaviors and outcomes the executive team has identified as critical to organization success.

Other topics I cover include:

  • There is no generational bias for recognition. A survey we did with SHRM proved absolute equality among the generations for their need for recognition.
  • Top talent do, indeed, want to be celebrated, and they are  much more through social recognition messages in which they get a regular beat of recognition from their colleagues and managers alike.
  • How to bring the “water” of frequent, timely, strategic recognition to what is often a recognition desert in today’s workplaces.
  • The tremendous importance of data and how recognition finally brings big data to performance and talent management.
  • The difference between incentives and recognition.

3 Steps to Accelerating Engagement: The LSI Success Story Webinar

2012 20 Jun

Recognize This! – Strategic recognition can move your culture (and engagement) faster than any other lever.

I’m excited to be leading a webinar tomorrow, Thursday, June 21 (3:00pm Eastern) with Katie Scott, director of compensation at LSI. Based out of Silicon Valley, LSI designs semiconductors and software that accelerate storage and networking in datacenters and mobile networks.

In this case study webinar, Katie will share with attendees how they increased engagement and began to transform their culture by focusing strategic, social employee recognition around what is of strategic importance to them.

Storage. Networking. Accelerated. That’s LSI Corporation’s three-step tagline, and it’s not only at the core of their semiconductor and software product offering, but also the foundation of their business philosophy.

When the company’s own acceleration was being slowed by a sluggish corporate culture, LSI put together a team to tackle the problem head on, and used those three principles to drive success:

  • Storage: They did a corporate inventory, built consensus, and found the internal resources to support change.
  • Networking: They gathered data, built a team, researched and defined their solution, then reached out to find the right partner to help realize it.
  • Accelerated: They implemented a recognition program that quickly energized and engaged their global workforce – with 900+ awards in the first 30 days!

Join us for the webinar and hear Katie tell her own story of how LSI created its Catch the Spark program, migrating in just three steps to a truly strategic recognition program that would nearly double its reach and effectiveness—and how they found the one partner who could deliver the complete global solution they envisioned.

Join Me Today on DriveThru HR, 1:00pm (Eastern)

2012 5 Jun

Join me today on DriveThru HR (1:00pm Eastern Time) where I’ll visit with Bryan Wempen and William Tincup about HR, how to manage your company culture, and how to integrate recognition and performance management for much deeper and broader insight into your talent.

DriveThruHR more than not talks about Human Resources with HR professionals every day at lunch time for 30 minutes. Give us a listen at (347) 996-5600 and share your thoughts on twitter using #dthr or @drivethruhr. We talk HR along with lots of clever bantor and thoughts every day at 12 Noon Central time at “DTHR”.

Be sure to call in and join the conversation!

 

 

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Employee Loyalty Is Not Dead, It’s Just Changed Hands

2012 15 May

Recognize This! – Join me for a webinar discussion of the latest Globoforce Mood Tracker Survey results.

Employee loyalty is one of those topics that can divide a room. Well, at least room full of HR Pros who live and breathe recruiting, retention and productivity. Some argue loyalty is long dead, thanks to corporate actions begun in the 1970s and 80s. Others believe loyalty is alive and well, but to fellow colleagues and managers, not to the organization per se.

Regardless of your position, employee loyalty can have a profound impact on organization culture and business results, not to mention individual employee engagement, performance and productivity.

This report out of Knowledge@Wharton is one of the best I’ve seen for hashing through the great majority of arguments around employee loyalty. In the article, James Harter, chief scientist, workplace management and well-being, for Gallup takes this position:

“Human nature, Harter adds, ‘doesn’t change when the economy changes. It might take on a different dynamic’ during a recession, but what remains constant is ‘the need to be connected — to a manager, a co-worker and/or a purpose, and also the need to be recognized… There is something about having a mentor, or someone in your life who helps you see the future in the midst of chaos, that can make a difference.’”

It’s that interpersonal connection that matters. And it’s that interpersonal connection that’s in jeopardy.

According to the Spring 2012 Globoforce Mood Tracker™ survey, recognition programs are on the rise. Yet, more than 50% would still leave their jobs for a company that clearly recognized employees for their efforts.

I’ll be leading an interactive webinar about the results of the latest Mood Tracker survey, including a discussion about why a strategic, frequent approach to recognition is essential to a more productive, motivated, and engaged workforce.

Along with my colleague, Thad Peterson, we’ll reveal survey findings, including the top three benefits of recognition done right:

  • Higher retention: 89%
  • Higher motivation levels: 82%
  • Higher job satisfaction: 81%

Why does getting this right matter? As the Knowledge@Wharton report reference above points out:

“Perhaps the most compelling argument for trying to retain good workers is that replacing managerial and professional employees can cost approximately 150% of their annual salary, according to various estimates. Harter suggests that for frontline, lower end workers, it costs about half of their salaries, while for high-level IT professionals, the figure could be as high as 200%.”

Register now for the webinar to learn more about emerging workforce trends in retention, loyalty and motivation, and how you can reap the benefits of strategic employee recognition.

Join Me to Create Your Winning Culture of Recognition

2012 11 Apr

Recognize This! –Creating a winning culture of recognition requires a strategy, clear goals and measurements of success. Join me to find out how to create your custom strategy.

Last Fall, my colleague Traci Pesch and I conducted several workshops around the U.S. based on our book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition. These were very successful half-day workshops built around the tactics presented in the framework for strategic recognition. Participants left each session with a detailed workbook and a custom one-page strategy for building their own cultures of recognition.

Participants noted these sessions were particularly valuable for the opportunity to network and discuss with like-minded colleagues from various industries on how to successfully create a culture of recognition.

I’m pleased to announce we’re continuing these sessions this year – in the U.S. and Europe. Our first session is next month in Dallas, Texas, and I hope to see you there. Upcoming dates and locations are:

  • Dallas, Texas – May 10, 2012 – Hilton Dallas Lincoln Center (registration open)
  • Greater Boston, Mass. – June 14, 2012 – Westin Waltham

All sessions start with breakfast at 7:30, then kicking off the workshop at 8:00. We’ll end at noon with a box lunch so those who need to rush back to work can do so. But those who have time to stay and chat with us and their fellow participants further are more than welcome to do so over lunch.

Planned locations, dates TBD:

  • Philadelphia, Penn.
  • London, UK

In the session you’ll learn how to:

  • Use best practices to build a culture of recognition that delivers measurable results.
  • Align recognition with company values and objectives to drive significant engagement increases.
  • Build a successful business case for implementing best-in-class strategic employee recognition.

We’re also planning at least two more workshops, likely in Q4. Tell me – what city would like us to schedule a workshop?

Readers of my blog also get a 50% discount on the registration price. Just be sure to use code: RECOGNIZETHIS when registering.

 

HR Happy Hour: Culture v Strategy – Jan 19, 8:00pm ET

2012 18 Jan

Recognize This! – Culture trumps strategy every time. Join the discussion on HR Happy Hour, 19 January, 8:00pm ET.

You know how passionate I am about the importance of company culture – in driving employee engagement, retention, productivity, and ultimately bottom-line results. Over the years, I’ve written several posts on the topic, dissecting research and reports on the critical role of company culture. (And it’s the topic of our book Winning with a Culture of Recognition.)

Tomorrow night I’m honored to join HR Happy Hour (guest hosted by Paul Hebert of i2i) for “Culture vs. Strategy” to discuss how culture impacts organizational performance.

  • Thursday January 19, 2012 – 8:00 PM ET
    Call in 646-378-1086
    Follow the backchannel on Twitter – hashtag #HRHappyHour

Culture and culture management have gained increased attention in the last few years as an important driver of employee engagement and company performance. Paul and I will take a closer look at culture and discuss topics around:

  • What is company culture?
  • Can company culture be defined and managed?
  • What is proactive culture management?
  • Does culture really ‘beat’ strategy as we often hear?
  • What companies really understand this and are doing a great job with culture management?

I hope you can join the discussion and share your passion for the value and importance of company culture.

 

 

PROVEN: Recognition Increases Employee Accuracy and Productivity

2011 14 Nov

Recognize This! – Improving productivity is pointless unless those increased results are also accurate.

Today I am leading my second to last workshop on how to “Build Your Winning Culture of Recognition” in Chicago. I’m excited to again be working with HR Pros to design the business case for recognition that works best for their own organizations.

Why does this matter so much to me? Aside from my belief that all organization leaders are responsible for creating a powerful, positive culture in which employees can engage and thrive, creating such a work environment also helps employees be more productive. Recent research reported in Open Forum shows:

“Alice Isen of Cornell University’s Johnson School has demonstrated how tiny events triggering positive feelings can achieve these effects. One of her studies revealed that physicians who were given some positive reinforcement were more likely to make an accurate diagnosis than those who weren’t. … [Doctors receiving positive reinforcement] considered a broader range of treatment options, and patients reported better doctor-patient relationships. Decoding the dynamics went something like this: the small token gift evoked the positive emotion of gratitude in the recipient, who not only then felt good, but also had the urge to repay the act and continue an upward spiral of increasing reciprocity, either directly or by ‘paying it forward’ to others.”

I have one final workshop on Thursday, 17th November, in San Francisco. I hope if you’re local to that area you’ll be able to come. It’s not too late to register. Be sure to use code RECOGNIZETHIS for half-off the registration price.

For those unable to attend my workshop, I highly recommend a webinar tomorrow, 15th November (3:00 Eastern) with Analyst Stacia Garr of Bersin and Associates and Globoforce VP of Product, Grant Beckett. Stacia and Grant will be discussing “Social Recognition’s Role in Driving the Culture Your Organization Wants.”

In this webcast, you will learn:

  • The role of social recognition in moving toward ongoing performance management
  • The elements of a High-Impact Learning Culture and how social recognition can be used to reinforce them
  • Examples of how companies are effectively leveraging social recognition

What kind of culture do you have in your organization today? Does it foster highly engaged, productive employees or just the opposite? What kind of culture do you wish you had?