Rewarding Diverse Groups of Employees

Incentive Magazine recently asked experts from various award companies for their tips on motivating diverse groups of participants.  These companies plan incentive programs for employees with a wide range of backgrounds, interests, roles and, of course, award preferences. While there are obvious differences in employee backgrounds, communication strategies and award delivery preferences, motivating this diversity is more common across these lines than you might think. 

The following list of tips that offers good insight into the things you need to keep in mind when planning your award programs.  Some are more along the common sense side, but others may give you some good food for thought. 

 Understand Your Audience

Survey your employees to find out what is meaningful to them. You will already know much of what they say, but could also come up with some good ideas to put in the program. 

You can take surveys to the extremes with audience persona development, segmentation and generational components, etc., but that type of employee research would not really be necessary for most programs

Effectively Launch the Program

Most companies don’t put as much emphasis on this phase of the reward program as they should. They assume that just the mention of the programs and “what’s in it for me is sufficient to gain excitement at the beginning.  But better launch preparation will provide dividends and actually allow you to spend less on the ongoing communications phase throughout. The importance that your participants put on your program will be in direct proportion the effort and importance you give the launch. 

Clear and Consistent Communications

Communications doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective.  But you do need to take it out of your normal communications efforts and do it as often as appropriate for your organization. Communications about what employees can earn in rewards will be read and retained. If unsure how much and how often to communicate, err on the side of more and more frequently. In addition make sure your messaging is custom and speaks directly to the individual such as program standings, percentage towards qualification, and status updates etc.

Don’t Just Use Digital Communications

It’s natural to use digital as your first option, but old-fashioned printed pieces, posters etc are still very effective and enjoyed by most.  They are also often retained and shared with the family. 

Have a User-Friendly IT Platform

The award industry is loaded with the “best mouse traps” incentive software.  Our advice has always been “Don’t go hunting squirrels with a bear rifle.”  We estimate that UP TO 90% of the features in current software are either not or underutilized. It also needs to be easy to use. 

Recognize and Reward Teams

The incentive industry has known for years that you can get tremendous success by incorporating team awards in your program. Take advantage of it wherever possible, but use it in combination with individual awards.

If Using Travel, Tailor it to Your Employees 

If you using travel as the prominent award make sure you plan it with the participant in mind. Sun and fun can be highly motivation to the younger set, but not so much for older generations who may enjoy sightseeing and new experiences. And, don’t let your C-suite determine your destination based on where the executive wants to go. 

Don't Forget Gift Cards
When it comes to an award that appeals to everyone, gift cards offer the largest choice of any award in the industry. They have become by far the leading option for non-travel awards.

Make Sure It's Measurable 

This tip should actually be number one and not the last.  Without measurement you won’t have much motivation. Not having measurement is like bowling with a curtain in front the pins.  Make sure your objectives are measurable and communicate individual and team performance at the beginning, often in the middle and the end.

What Makes Work Meaningful — Or Meaningless?

Meaningful work is something we all want. The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl famously described how the innate human quest for meaning is so strong that, even in the direst circumstances, people seek out their purpose in life.

 A recent study by MIT Sloan Management Review showed:

 Meaningfulness was more important to employees than any other aspect of work, including pay and rewards, opportunities for promotion, or working conditions. Meaningful work can be highly motivational, leading to improved performance, commitment, and satisfaction.

 Researchers anticipated that the data would show that the meaningfulness experienced by employees in relation to their work was clearly associated with actions taken by managers. Instead, the research showed that quality of leadership received virtually no mention when people described meaningful moments at work, but poor management was the top destroyer of meaningfulness.

 The research aimed to uncover how and why people find their work meaningful. The study showed that meaningfulness was often associated with a sense of pride and achievement at a job well done, whether they were professionals or manual workers.

 “Those who could see that they had fulfilled their potential, or who found their work creative, absorbing, and interesting, tended to perceive their work as more meaningful than others. Accordingly, receiving praise, recognition, or acknowledgment from others mattered a great deal.”

The Five Qualities of Meaningful Work

The study also revealed five unexpected features of meaningful work; in these features might explain the fragile and intangible nature of meaningfulness.

 1. Self-Transcendent

 Individuals tended to experience their work as meaningful when it mattered to others more than just to themselves. Their work was meaningful when it showed the impact and relevance of their work on the individuals, the group or the community. 

 2. Poignant

 The experience of meaningful work can be poignant rather than purely euphoric. The experience of coping with challenging conditions led to a sense of meaningfulness far greater than they would have experienced dealing with straightforward, everyday situations.

 3. Episodic

A sense of meaningfulness arose in an episodic rather than a sustained way. It seemed that no one could find their work consistently meaningful, but rather that an awareness that work was meaningful arose at peak times that were generative of strong experiences.

 4. Reflective

 Meaningfulness was rarely experienced in the moment, but rather in retrospect and on reflection when people were able to see their completed work and make connections between their achievements and a wider sense of life meaning.

 5. Personal

 Other feelings about work, such as engagement or satisfaction, tend to be just that: feelings about work. Work that is meaningful, on the other hand, is often understood by people not just in the context of their work but also in the wider context of their personal life experiences. 

Corporate Gifts Remain Popular Rewards

 

For the balance of 2021 and probably into 2022 as well, Incentive Magazine’s Gift Survey reveals that reward planners will continue to offer merchandise in lieu of group travel to motivate performance. According to the Incentive Research Foundation, the use of gifts as a motivational reward skyrocketed by 68 percent in 2020, and that trend is expected to continue. 

There is a lingering uncertainty about the pandemic's effect on travel and some incentive travel programs are still being booked, but many companies have preferred to use gifts instead.

 What are the most common problems when using merchandise gifts?

• merchandise was not always available when needed according to more than 75 percent of respondents 
• more than half of those polled cited frustrating reward delivery delays to recipients.

 These problems can be expected to continue, as manufacturing delays remain a global issue.

 Which gifts are most commonly given?

• 61% of respondents favored using apparel, the vast majority of which was shirts with company identified logos.  Past surveys have indicated that while employees enjoy logoed apparel items, many would prefer a choice of awards
• 59% utilize gift cards or gift card systems that allow the winner to order any of the most popular gift cards in the country, and thus use them to get what they really want, not what someone thinks they want.
• 51% use electronics and food-and-beverage items were used by 44 %.
• Luggage and leather items, sporting goods, outdoor equipment and watches were among other prizes preferred by more than 20 percent of respondents.

 How are rewards being used?

• More than two-thirds of incentive professionals use rewards to recognize employees.
• 55% give awards to thank employees for their performance
• 50% use rewards to thank loyal customers
• 50% use them to build morale and increase job satisfaction
• 43% use them as award to motivate increased sales.

 It is always difficult to pick just the right award, and some would suggest that it can’t be done.  There are too many variables and too much diversity of recipients to get it right.  Many planners voiced frustration about the dearth of new gift ideas.  When you offer a gift each year, it's hard to come up with something new!

 One planner summed up why gifts make great rewards. "Choosing the right gift leaves long-lasting positive impressions and memories — and it generates great PR buzz long after it's given!"

While that is as true as true can be, no one can really tell you how to choose that right gift that leaves all those long-lasting memories.  There is a lot of justification to have a system where the recipients can choose for themselves.

Why Does Employee Recognition Matter?

 Rewarding and recognizing employees for performance has been in the business world since the beginning of the 20^th century.  With the unprecedented changes to our workforce due to the pandemic, recognizing employees and thanking them for their efforts has never been more important. 

A review of employee research and studies done over the last few years gives us a wonderful perspective of the many of the reasons that employee recognition does matter.  It is a significant strategy to employ especially at times like this when getting the right employees on the job and then motivating them to perform in the manner to achieve our objective.  There is no better time to make sure you use recognition to attract and engage your employees. 

Some reasons to remember why employee recognition does matter are: 

Recognition helps to relieve this workload stress. Due to the pandemic, many U.S. companies took cost-cutting actions that involved some sort of reduction in force, oftentimes increasing the workloads of existing employees, freezing salary increases, and reducing bonuses.

 Recognition helps to foster engagement. Gallup did a study that showed engaged employees are more productive, profitable and more customer-service-focused and more likely to stay on the job.  

Recognition drives higher return to shareholders.  A Watson Wyatt study showed that companies with effective recognition programs realized a median return to shareholders about double what companies without recognition programs achieved. 

Employee recognition can reduce turnover.  A Robert Half study, showed that 17 percent of good employees who quit their jobs did so because of lack of recognition.

Recognition builds confident employees.  According to Barbara Mitchell, a respected HR consultant, ”recognition shows confidence in employees, and confident employees are more productive.” 

Recognition encourages innovation. It encourages employees to come up with better ways to do a task resulting in higher productivity, lower costs or both. 

Recognition provides purpose for your employees.  Recognition is powerful because it answers a fundamental human need, the need to feel valued in what we do. 

Recognition increases productivity. In their book “12: The Elements of Great Managing,” Wagner and Harter drawing on ten million workplace interviews noted that variations in recognition and praise account for ten to twenty percent differences in productivity and revenue, as well as customer engagement. 

Recognition motivates repeat performance.  Robert Cialdini, in his classic book 'Influence’ noted that the principle of consistency means that when you show recognition of particular behaviors, you are encouraging more of the same in the future. So be sure to recognize what you want to encourage. An added bonus of focusing this way is that, due to the Law of Attraction, you are likely to find more behavior worthy of recognition.

 

66% of Recognition Programs Canceled?

 

A “Pulse Survey at the end of 2020 by Incentive Research Foundation found that only 34% of incentive and recognition programs continue to operate with minimal change.  As the pandemic lessens, that figure has grown, but it is important to look into some of the reasons why this happened. 

Essentially, in these uncertain times, executives will always look to reduce or delete budget items that are not considered essential to the growth of the business. Unfortunately, some incentives and recognition programs are always in that group.  The 34% of the programs that have remained are those that have are more likely to be considered critical to the organization. About 12% of respondents say their programs are viewed as even more important because of the pandemic.  

Frankly this has been a flaw in incentive and recognition planning for years.  The vast majority of programs implemented did not do a good job of developing, implementing and then measuring and researching the program objectives.  That is still very much the case within generic employee recognition programs where it is a given that these programs produced results.  Some respondents even noted that program growth goals were reduced in order to maintain a “employee motivations.”  

We cannot emphasize enough that proper goal setting accompanied by using a program design with the focus on the goals and then the measurement and reporting of the results is what will keep your program in place.  Not tying your program to overall corporate success can easily put it on the “cancellation list.”

These Blunders Will Damage Employee Recognition Programs

We’ve researched hundreds of employee recognition and incentive programs over the years.   We often have prospective clients who say they have used employee recognition programs in the past and the programs just don’t seem to work for them.  They say they get relatively little return for their investment and these programs are often the first budgets to be cut when economic times are bad.  Frankly, in most cases executives are completely in the right to discontinue these programs.  

When recognition programs don’t produce desired results for your company the reasons why will typically fall into one of these categories. 

Track Your Performance

Lack of measurement is without a doubt the biggest mistake companies make when they implement an employee recognition effort.  Set the expectations of what you want them to do and then give honest measurement of how you are performing.  Not all recognition will have objective measurement, but surely the collective actions of employees against a set of values can be seen.  You can virtually follow the line between what was recognized and what happened because of that action.  It does take some effort, but the results of that measurement will be readily available when your executives ask you what you’re receiving for the time and money spent.  Anyone who sat in a budget meeting to retain or increase a recognition budget knows the importance of this.

Let Your Employees Choose What They Want

Don’t use awards that you think your employees want, or what appeal to you, or your executives or what your award vendor says they want.   Within reason, let your employees choose.  People are far more receptive when the award is what fits their own needs and wants, and that want can change constantly. 

Keep Everyone Informed

Good communications is the heart and soul of any great employee recognition/incentive effort. Showing what individual employees are doing to receive recognition makes it easier to motivate more employees to do the same. 

Involve Upper Management

We are constantly perplexed when company executives are not as involved in these efforts as much as possible.  If it wasn’t for the heartfelt work of the human resource professionals, many programs would wither and die. Executives stand to benefit the most from proud, enthusiastic engaged employees.  Get your executives to be your cheerleaders and provide ongoing involvement and enthusiastic support.  If you have any kind of spot awards, make sure they do some of it.  

How the Four Drive Theory Works Within an Incentive Program

“Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices” published in 2002 by Professor Lawrence and Dean Nohria of Harvard Business School discusses how 4 biological drives can effect employee behavior on the job.  Here we take a look at how these drives might be incorporated into incentive programs to drive performance.

The Drive to Acquire Stuff & Status
 

Incentive programs typically use a variety of non-cash awards that employees can earn for achieving certain objectives.  The well designed program will allow the winners to accumulate awards from the initial phases thru completion.  The employees are acquiring personal and luxury items they wouldn’t typically buy for themselves, including trips, deluxe merchandise, gift cards to special places etc. 

The Drive to Bond

Often they are on teams working together and aspiring to reach a higher status. As the program goes on you can see employees discovering all sorts of ways to enjoy the fruits of their labors together. By sharing rewards with family and friends, they are increasing their status in the eyes of their peers.

The Drive to Create

Programs can be anchored with a focus on connecting achievement with individual passions and pursuits. People desire to creatively contribute to something bigger than themselves and can satisfy the desire for purpose and meaning.

The Drive to Defend

The program is standardized, making it a fair and equitable motivator influencing human behavior. The earning rules are clear, and employees are willing to cooperate with one another to achieve results and foster teamwork.

On the Spot Employee Recognition

On the spot recognition for non-sales employees has been all the rage within HR over the last few years.  But it’s not a new recognition concept.  It has been used by the sales profession for decades! They used to call them spiffs, and they were often done with cash.  They were prevalent in the retail world for selling all kinds of hard goods.

Of all the elaborate schemes to reward and recognize superior employee performance, this might be the easiest and most effective way to do it. All you have to do is be aware of exceptional performance and on the spot say something and/or give the employee something in thanks of that performance.

As it can be difficult to use cash in this type of program, the award most often used in these on the spot programs are gift cards.   They are easy to source, you can have them at your fingertips with instant online awards available, and you don’t have to purchase the cards upfront or carry an expensive inventory of cards that just sit in a drawer waiting for you to use them. 

All employees thrive on recognition from any level of management.  Many companies even allow peers to do the recognizing.  The more you do it, the more you’re apt to see their performance continue to rise.  And when you reward them with something they can take home and immediately include the family in the recognition you have another winner.  Recognition when it comes from peers, department supervisors or executives that is taken home to the family is a powerful combination.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Do Your Employees Feel Respected?

“Respect is like air. As long as it’s present, nobody thinks about it. But if you take it away, it’s all that people can think about.”

                                                            “Crucial Conversations” by Ron McMillan

In research of nearly 20,000 employees worldwide conducted by Christine Porath, respondents ranked respect as the most important leadership behavior.  Yet many surveys also report that over half of employees claim that they don’t regularly get respect.  What’s the disconnect?  One answer may be that leaders may simply be unaware of the problem.  While those employees who aren’t shown respect are keenly aware of its absence, others, especially those in managerial or other high-status jobs don’t think about it very much. But there are other issues to consider.

Respect and Recognition Go hand-in-hand

Do leaders have a good understanding of what constitutes workplace respect?  If not, even well-meaning efforts to provide a respectful workplace may fall short.  With the ‘PC” nature of today’s culture, it’s hard to imagine a workplace where respect isn’t accorded equally to all members of a work group or the organization; it meets the universal need to make them all feel included. It should be standard practice.  We have no doubt that management consistently affirms that respect is owed to all personnel.  But when employees display valued qualities or behaviors that exceed expectations they are not just owed standard respect they have earned the respect that should be confirmed with recognition, and at times formal recognition. 

In fact some research by Arizona State shows…

“When the standard owed respect and earned respect is not in balance it can create frustration for workers. Workplaces with lots of owed respect but little earned respect can make individual achievement a low priority for employees, because they perceive that everyone will be treated the same regardless of performance. By contrast, workplaces with low owed respect but high earned respect can encourage excessive competition among employees…possibly good for some environments (sales force) but can hinder people from sharing critical knowledge about their successes and failures, and it often promotes cutthroat, zero-sum behavior”

Respect in any organization is important because it is a great feedback mechanism and provides the building blocks for growth.  So too, recognizing the respect earned through achievement helps to solidify that respect in the organization. This will bring tremendous benefits to the company.  It is no secret that employees who say they feel respected are more satisfied with their jobs and more grateful for—and loyal to—their companies.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Reinforce Performance to Shape Behavior

From the Aubrey Daniels Institute comes the following information on “Shaping” that we found particularly interesting when considering behavior change within employee recognition.  The information comes from previous commentary by Dr. Andy Lattal, the Centennial Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University

While we don’t often hear the terminology, shaping is when a person who has a target response he wants, proceeds to reinforce the “shapee” with approximations of that response in order to change behavior. In this context, “shaping” is one of the most ubiquitous of all behavioral phenomena. An example from Lattal:

“Consider, for example a child who has a skill deficit in, say, making a certain sound. The shaper knows what the sound should sound like, and provides reinforcement for close and closer approximations to the sound until the child eventually produces the sound as it should sound. This is an accurate description of what happens, but it omits an important element in many instances of shaping that involve people in everyday situations: the behavior of the shaper is not immune to the consequences of his or her attempts to shape the behavior of the shapee.”

Shaping relies on positive reinforcement as the results get closer and closer to the target.  When you use a “positive reinforcer” that a person desires, the behaviors will more likely result in a positive outcome.

While we are rarely cognizant of this phenomena, the behavior of the managers in providing recognition is essential to the employee to improve performance.  In addition, the manager is also positively affected by the positive performance of the employee.  They are more likely to provide the recognition when the employee is engaged in the target response. As a result, there is a reciprocal relation for reinforcement for both, a sort of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” arrangement.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

The Recognition Program Puzzle: Diversity – Inclusion – Intrinsic – Extrinsic?

With all these buzzwords floating around the employee engagement world how do you put them all together to come up with a great employee recognition program?

When in the process of designing or re-designing your recognition program, it will be easier if you keep the four important buzzwords, diversity, inclusion, intrinsic and extrinsic in mind.  Diversity can be loosely defined as the range of differences between races, ethnicities, ages and numerous other personal traits. Inclusion is the involvement and empowerment between each of them. 

Recognition is perceived differently by different cultures so it’s important to include several options of how managers can actually recognize the employees.  Based on recent survey’s it is important that your employees perceive that the program rules are fair and all inclusive.   Be sure to link employee goals to business goals, give your managers training for the coaching necessary to make sure you are rewarding the correct standout performance for some while also managing convergent performance for others. 

Your program should also include both intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the behavior driven by positive internal feelings, as opposed to extrinsic motivation, which is driven by external things – praise, pizza, merchandise, gift cards and so on.  Be careful of the debate over which is better, or more motivational, they both have their place and the best results can be found in the strategic mix of both types.  And for organizations dealing with expanding workplace diversity, balancing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is more important than ever when it comes to inclusion and motivation.

According to Christina Zurek, Solution Manager, ITA Group…

“People naturally gravitate toward what motivates them, whether that’s pizza, competitions, joining a running club or volunteering at a homeless shelter. The choices people make represent who they are, and when businesses help employees make choices they’re proud of, they build businesses they’re proud to stand behind. After all, the ability to be yourself and share your passions is precisely what diversity and inclusion are all about.”

What awards to use?  We’ll leave that up to the legions of award companies you can choose from to decide. Regardless of what you use, make sure to include a choice from a very wide array of gift cards.  They still provide the best value at the best price of any extrinsic award in the industry. And are the most used of any award ever.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

The Thank You Chain - Start Small, End Big

I heard an allegory a while back about a man who wanted to develop a more generous approach to life.  He asked an Indian swami man how to proceed.  The swami’s advice was simple:

“Take $100 and give it away. Not all at once but, slowly, $1 a day for 100 days.

Look for someone who could use a $1 and give it away.”

At the end of 100 days, the man’s heart had changed. His awareness of those in need became sharper. He saw the need around him. He fulfilled it. His giving heart became bigger. $1 became $5 as he saw more need and sorted out how much more the gift did than it accomplished in his pocket. $100 over 100 days created a generous heart forever changed.

While this could be a story about generosity, it isn’t. It’s a story about developing any virtue you want. Healthier life styles? Fitness? Smoking cessation? Money anagement?

You name it. Start small. Do it again tomorrow, and the day after that and you’ll be amazed at the change.

I’ve never met a person in HR who wasn’t interested in employee recognition.  Hundreds of books are written on the subject, and billions of dollars spent on research, software, training, communications and rewards to make it a part of your organization. 

What if you applied the principle of the story above?  What if you got one person to say thank you to a fellow employee for their performance, and then two, and the two thanked two more and so forth?  And they did it again tomorrow and the day after that.  You would be amazed at the Thank You Chain that permeates your workplace…and it didn’t cost you a dime!

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For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Why Is Employee Recognition So Scarce?

Time is an often-stated reason why employee recognition is scarce and admittedly, employee recognition does take time. But is that really an excuse?

Even with the best of intentions for a successful program, employee recognition can fail for a variety of reasons and a combination of several factors.  Among them are:

• Managers don't know how to provide employee recognition effectively, so when they have bad experiences they are reluctant to do it again. 
• Managers assume that one size recognition fits all but it doesn’t, and it can often backfire if not understood and implemented properly.
• Managers think too narrowly about what people will find rewarding.
• Not all managers are comfortable in saying Thank You to their employees.
• Some programs are designed with too much complexity and managers don’t want to be bothered with all the rules and regulations.  A random “good job” or “well done” is usually better than no recognition at all.
• Some managers still don’t see recognition and engagement as a strategic tool but rather as a process and they fail to put the long term importance on it that it deserves. 

When the span of control in an organization is too great, there may not be enough time to recognize performance as often as desired.  In those cases be sure to put some of that recognition into the hands of peers.  They often know who are the most deserving anyway.

Employee recognition training is rarely offered to managers.  The ones who don’t understand it rarely use it and then only for the very few in the top of their work unit.  Many of the most deserving never get the recognition they should. 

Here’s an interesting quote from Dr. Paul Marciano, a leading authority on employee engagement and retention:

“I know of no other strategy in all of management that yields a higher return on investment. In my estimate, the ROI is 1:100. In other words, for every minute spent on reinforcing behavior you can expect a hundred minutes of initiative in return,”

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Kick Up Your Employee Recognition a Notch

Employee recognition is now a cornerstone of successful companies. Tons of books have been written about it, major events are created for it, and executives have embraced it like never before. In the last thirty years or so, formal employee recognition using non-cash rewards has taken on a completely new understanding within human resources.  The days of the simple gold watch have been replaced by some very elaborate systems.

But employee recognition is not a new found business tool; it’s been around for a while.  Here’s an interesting quote about it:

“In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall 

to those who show their good qualities in action”

…  circa 350 BC…Aristotle

But like so many other things in business, recognition can get a little tired and worn and lose some of its punch.  Unfortunately it can also be limited in some organizations where employees can complain about the lack of recognition on a regular basis and managers say “why should I recognize or thank someone, they’re just doing their job.”

Those of us who prioritize employee recognition understand the power of recognition.  We know it’s not just a nice to have, it is a must have.  It reinforces the most important outcomes you want for your business.

If your recognition is becoming worn and tired, consider kicking it up a notch and try some of the following today:

• Plan to thank at least one person a day
• Take a small working group for a cup of coffee or lunch
• Handwrite a simple thank you note and give it to a worthy employee
• Ask and executive to stop by a person’s or department work space and thank them
• Accompany the verbal recognition with a small gift or gift card
• Present the recognition publicly if appropriate (be careful as some employees can feel uncomfortable with this type of recognition)
• Make your recognition random so that it provides an element of surprise

And remember what Dale Carnegie said:

"People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards."

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

What Do Successful Recognition Programs Accomplish?

If your recognition initiatives hit these FIVE "E's," you're on your way to a successful and sustainable program with increased employee engagement and improved morale!

ENGAGE .  First, you must capture the attention of the participants - and this means ALL participants, leadership on down.  This engagement will create a CULTURE OF RECOGNITION rather than "just another program."

EDUCATE.  Everyone must understand the rules of engagement and they must be simple and attainable for the entire population.  Everyone must have an equal opportunity to participate and be recognized.  Nothing will kill a program faster than the perception that only a few chosen employees will ever be eligible.

EXCITE.  Once the rules of engagement have been established and communicated, you

must REINFORCE the communication so you are able to generate ongoing excitement.  This is the "water cooler effect" - the office "buzz" around the program that has participants enthusiastic and eager to play.  This is often the most difficult element to achieve as it must be sustained.  You must stay creative, keep changing things up, and continuously solicit your employees for feedback.

ENCOURAGE.  Once the program is up and running, KPI's are in place, and you have selected the

award component, you must continuously ENCOURAGE.  Your program should be established with large and small behaviors that are both achievable and aspirational to everyone. Frequency, frequency, frequency and lots of public recognition.

EVALUATE.  Finally, you must have a measurement tool in place to evaluate program success.  Engagement is an amorphous thing - it's hard to get your arms around   Engagement is a Practice, not a Goal.  Don't let it just be a "vanity metric."  Decide what spells success for your organization and do regular assessments and evaluations of results.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Why You Can’t Afford NOT to Offer a Recognition Program

What is the number one reason that employees give for leaving their jobs?  A LACK OF APPRECIATION AND PRAISE!

A few quick statistics that may or may not surprise you:

• A study conducted by Towers Watson revealed that only 30% of the current workforce is ENGAGED. By the simplest definition, this means that engaged individuals exhibit a level of enthusiasm and dedication towards their jobs.  These people actually CARE about their work as well as the performance of the company and they sincerely feel that their efforts make a difference.  Engaged employees are in it for more than just the paycheck.
•  But now for the bad news.  This study also revealed that 54% of employees are NOT engaged; and that 16% are actively DISENGAGED. That’s a lot of ambivalence and negativity walking around every day!
• And even more disappointing is that 60% of new hires – who came in all bright- eyed and bushy-tailed with big dreams of making a difference – fall into the Not Engaged category after just 6 months on the job.

So if you subscribe to the belief that low engagement equals low performance, you’ll certainly understand the importance of keeping your employees excited and sustaining their belief that they are valued and appreciated.

And remember, losing an employee that you’ve spent time to hire, train, and onboard is significant.  The cost of replacing an employee who leaves is at least 30% of that employee’s annual salary.  To put that in perspective, with a $150M annual payroll, just a 20% turnover cost would cost that company $9M a year.

Recognition is not just a “nice to have” – it’s a MUST HAVE.  

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services or other white papers please contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Just Say Thanks

We are constantly amazed at how far the employee recognition industry has come from the early days of presenting someone with crystal bowl for 25 years of continuous service.

And we at Ultimate Choice are happy it has; we have been able to build a multi-million dollar enterprise because of it.  But it also amazes us of how complex  the entire employee recognition industry has become.  When HR professionals embark on building an engaged employee culture with reward and recognition as a component, they can be bombarded with more award ideas and systems than they can be expected to consider.  Does the research, the training, the in depth communications strategies, the sophisticated feedback methods all combine to make employee recognition more multifaceted than it really needs to be? 

When you get right down to it, shouldn’t it just be as easy as saying Thank You? 

• Do you thank at least one employee a day on average?
• When was the last time your manager said thanks to you?
• When was the last time senior management said thanks to anyone, not in an email?
• When was the last time you wrote a quick hand-written note to someone for doing a good job?
• When is the last time you received one?
• When you recognize someone do you also tell their supervisor?
• Do you look forward to thanking someone, or do you consider it a chore? 

When you foster a culture of gratitude, it can be a game changer for sustainably better performance. 

Organizations aren’t necessary stingy with saying thanks, the problem is that employees do something all the time and no one knows about it.  All you need to do is create a simple process for any individual in any location to feed a suggestion for recognition of a peer up the management chain, and then have a quick and easy process to make it happen

Many organizations over-engineer their recognition programs.  Making a genuine connection with someone who has done something you appreciate is a powerful management tool.  Don’t neglect it…

Just Say Thanks!

And remember...

"the more personal the thank you is, the more value it has."

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