WorldatWork * Thank you to our customers for an excellent workshop!

I must admit, I greatly enjoyed my time at WorldatWork’s Total Rewards Conference in Seattle, Washington, last week. WorldatWork put on a very professional, well organized conference with nearly 2,000 attendees. Even the weather was beautiful and sunny the entire time.

I was so proud to be associated with a panel of our customers in our roundtable session on 21st Century Recognition (see the picture at right). Our workshop was standing room only, with many staying behind afterwards for quite awhile to ask more questions and continue the knowledge sharing. We obviously touched a nerve on the need to increase employee engagement, customer loyalty, productivity, and operating income, even during this recession, through strategic recognition that fosters lasting culture change.

In fact, this was a theme of the show. Many of the people I spoke with throughout the conference agreed a main theme was the importance of continuing to invest in recognition, even as other budgets are being cut. Even in our own workshop, the majority of attendees said their primary reason for attending the session was because “my company’s employee recognition program is uninspiring and outdated; I need some new ideas.”

Many thank-yous to our customers and my fellow presenters for an excellent job in sharing the success of their global strategic recognition programs to help session attendees find the inspiration they need.

* Jennifer R Lepird, CBP, Sr Compensation Business Partner, Intuit
* Scott Himelstein, CCP, Director Compensation, Discovery Communications Inc
* Rob Schmitter, former Global R&R Program Leader, Nortel
* Jennifer M Reimert, CCP, Sr Director Global HR Compensation, Symantec Corp
* Lisa Marie Taylor, Sr. Director of Global Compensation, Quintiles