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?

Performance Appraisal Games on Compensation Café

Recognize This: Performance appraisal/salary increase games make everyone losers.

I blog regularly on Compensation Café. Last month, my posts dealt with the games we play with performance appraisals and salary increases.

In my first post, I outline three of the most common games and their hallmarks.

Game 1: Relying on the Appraisal as the Primary Means of Feedback

Game 2: Ranking Performance

Game 3: Differentiating based on Pay Increases

In my follow-up post,  I discussed that although many have advocated just dropping the performance appraisal, in reality these have become so embedded in the people process, removing the annual review entirely is simply not feasible or desirable in most organizations.

The answer to “what should we do instead?” lies in solving the inherent problems with the games we play in the first place:

1)    A general dearth of feedback in the workplace today
2)    A company culture that tolerates head-in-the-sand management
3)    Reliance on too few tools for accurate performance assessment.

Hop over to the Café and read the full posts, then come back and tell me, have you ever played one of these games (unwittingly or otherwise)? What other games do you see being played with employees? How else would you recommend solving the problems we play with performance assessment? What other ways of assessing performance more accurately, fairly and frequently would you recommend?

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.

Differentiating Employees: Why Not Let Them Do It Themselves?

Recognize This: No one knows the contributions and achievements of an employee as well as everyone does.

In Monday’s post, I discussed the problem of differentiation creep in the workforce – how the percentage of exceptional employees is increasing as the percentage of poor performers is decreasing.

What’s the solution to the problem? The Workspan article (“Measuring Employee Performance the Right Way,” January 2011. Membership required.) gets close:

“People need to know how they are doing, and individual performance feedback should come as soon as possible on a direct basis when employees achieve, or fail to achieve, their objectives – project completion, outstanding service, missed targets, goal achievements and so on.”

I agree with that statement 100% -- but it doesn’t go far enough. If you truly want to differentiate employees, let them do it themselves. Let all employees recognize excellent behaviors, actions and results demonstrated or achieved by their colleagues. Require specifics on what was done and why it was important. Now you have a much more complete picture of employee achievement throughout the year – from the wisdom of crowds. 

What are your solutions for differentiation creep?
 

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.

LAST CHANCE * Appreciation Myth Busters Webinar TODAY

This is your last chance to register for today’s Appreciation Myth Busters webinar (Eastern Time).

Join David Zinger, employee engagement expert and founder of the Employee Engagement Network, Zane Safrit, author of Recognize Your Employees - 52 Weeks, 52 Ways, and me as we:

·         Bust the 10 most common myths about employee appreciation and recognition in the workplace today

·         Share proven strategies for addressing low levels of appreciation

·         Ask webinar participants to share their own appreciation myths as well as challenge our panel of experts on how to eradicate these myths from the workplace.

Be sure to register for the free webinar today, and share your appreciation myths (and myth busters) in comments.

And keep tweeting 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.

Differentiation Creep

Recognize This: No one wants to be “the bad guy” in performance reviews and differentiation.

Ever since “Neutron Jack” Welch popularized the “differentiation” approach to performance management in which employees have been segregated by their managers into performance levels of top 10%, middle 80%, and bottom 10%, people managers and HR pros responsible for them have tried to make differentiation work.

The problem for managers is trying to (somewhat) arbitrarily lump employees into these categories in a once-a-year effort to remember an entire 12 months’ worth of performance and achievements. The problem for employees is average and low performers don’t realize their performance is not exceptional.

The result? Differentiation creep. Workspan magazine (“Measuring Employee Performance the Right Way,” January 2011. Membership required.) recently published research showing:

“While high performers are increasing in relative numbers by leaps and bounds, there is also a depletion in the population of low performers.”

Why is this happening? Two reasons:

1)      Managers don’t want to make the hard choices of who appears in the bottom 10%, or they’ve truly hired well and none of their employees are poor performers.

2)      Managers lack enough insight into employee contributions to make correct differentiation decisions.

Are you seeing differentiation creep in your workplace? Before I share solutions on Wednesday, how do you solve differentiation creep? 

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.

Kindness or Meanness * Which Is the Better Management Tactic?

Recognize This: You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

An American colleague of mine used this phrase recently. It came to mind when I happened to read these two article on kindness and meanness in the workplace. While I certainly don’t think of employees as flies, the truth of the aphorism still resonates.

Writing in the New York Times, Bob Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss, said:

“Widespread meanness not only damages people; it also increases costs and undermines performance by driving out good employees at alarming rates. Numerous studies have also shown that people respond to demeaning and disrespectful bosses and co-workers by calling in sick more often, making fewer suggestions, working less hard and doing lower-quality work.”

Quite true. Management by intimidation must end. The evidence is clear that mean management styles, even just by ignoring employees, does no good and great damage.

In counterpoint to meanness is Davia Temin, CEO of Temin and Co., writing in Forbes about kindness: 

“I am here to tell you that it need not be so! I firmly believe that kindness can still infuse winning, tough-minded, smart, highly competitive and driven organizations. In fact, it can fuel them, and make them even better-functioning, even more outstanding. And it can make those extreme hours we spend in the office that much more pleasant, even fulfilling.”

I know which environment I’d rather work in, and indeed, do work in today. What about you? Is your day more filled with meanness or kindness?

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.

REMINDER * Appreciation Myth Busters Webinar * March 15

Don’t forget to register for our Appreciation Myth Busters webinar Tuesday, March 15, at 11:30 (Eastern Time).

David Zinger, employee engagement expert and founder of the Employee Engagement Network, Zane Safrit, author of Recognize Your Employees - 52 Weeks, 52 Ways, and I will be:

·         Busting the 10 most common myths about employee appreciation and recognition in the workplace today

·         Sharing proven strategies for addressing low levels of appreciation

·         Asking webinar participants to share their own appreciation myths as well as challenge our panel of experts on how to eradicate these myths from the workplace.

Be sure to register for the free webinar today, and share your appreciation myths (and myth busters) in comments.

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.

Observations from the 2011 HCI Human Capital Summit

Recognize This: Can recognition help build a great culture?  Dan Pink & Facebook think so!

I’m at the HCI Human Capital Summit this week in Atlanta and have been really taken by two presentations.  First, Dan Pink, whom I love for his passionate exploration into the new truth about what motivates us at work.  He once again set down his manifesto of what’s required for a win-win relationship between corporation and employee. Dan’s agenda of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose is set to create better performance and personal satisfaction in equal measure. He tells how “now that” instead of “if then” rewards and feedback plays a vital role in this, helping to create the culture that sustains these core motivators.

Without any formal overlap, I earlier saw a presentation from Stuart Crabb, Director of Learning and Development at Facebook, and couldn’t help but think about how all of the HR strategies he described where so aligned with Dan’s mantra. He spoke about freedom to choose work, a strengths-based HR philosophy, and of course lots of passion!  A real eye opener about Stuart’s presentation was research he shared about how Facebook finds that their high proportion of GEN X and Y workforce. These groups are in need of constant praise and constant feedback, with GEN Y having a particular preference for co-worker recognition. This is such the case at Facebook that they have actually abolished the annual appraisal and instead rely on a constant feedback and a constant “Thanks” recognition mechanism. 

Not to mix the presenter’s words too much, but it seems like Facebook has really have figured out that constantly recognizing and feeding back on mastery, purpose and autonomy creates a company culture that feeds our true motivators.

Appreciation Myth Busters Webinar * March 15

“A paycheck is thanks enough.” “An annual performance appraisal is suitable feedback.” “Incentives are the best means of motivating all employees.”

Are you as sick of these employee appreciation myths as I am? Join me 

and industry experts David Zinger and Zane Safrit for a webinar on Tuesday, March 15, at 11:30 (Eastern Time), as we bust the 10 most common myths in the workplace today about employee appreciation and recognition.

David, employee engagement expert and founder of the Employee Engagement Network, Zane, author of Recognize Your Employees - 52 Weeks, 52 Ways, and I will also reveal the techniques that truly work. We’ll be looking to webinar participants to share their own appreciation myths as well as challenge our panel of experts on how to eradicate these myths from the workplace.

We’ll also share proven strategies for addressing low levels of appreciation, including strategic recognition and effective engagement principles. Get this right and you’ll see the measurable benefits directly to your bottom line.

Register for the free webinar today, and share your appreciation myths (and myth busters) in comments.

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.

Everyday Appreciation Giveaway * Submit Your Tips to Win!

I’m thrilled that the eBook version of Winning with a Culture of Recognition has arrived! You can get your digital version of the guide to strategic recognition, the fastest and most effective way to improve employee engagement, performance, motivation, and productivity, at more than 60 web properties and digital readers, including the Apple^® iBookstore, Amazon^® Kindle^®, Barnes and Noble^®, and the Sony^® eBookstore^®. 

But for  my blog readers and Twitter followers, I’m also offering a chance to win a copy of the eBook or our weekly prize of an Amazon Kindle pre-loaded with our eBook.

Daily Appreciation Tips: Every business day through April 8, 2011, I, or a Globoforce team member, will share a proven tip for engaging or recognizing employees. Tips will be marked #appreciationtip on Twitter. 

Help me out with tips and be entered to win. Tweet your own employee appreciation tips or retweet mine, being sure to include the #appreciationtip hash-tag. Daily winners will be randomly drawn from all tip submissions. Each week we will draw one winner to receive an Amazon Kindle, preloaded with Winning with a Culture of Recognition.

I’m looking forward to learning from you. I plan on blogging about the best tips I receive, too, with full credit given to the originator. Tweet your tip today!

NOTE: Full contest rules are available.