Values * The Glue Keeping Us Together during Change (Insights from HR Directors Business Summit)

I enjoyed dinner last night with several leaders of HR in various businesses. A common concern to all them seems to be the whirlwind of change currently blowing through these organizations. The forces of change I described in my post/report yesterday are real and seem only to be getting faster. The resulting question on everyone’s mind was: How do we keep everyone with us during all this change?

I started today hearing more of the same - from both the President and the Chief People Officer for McDonalds UK & Northern Europe. They painted a candid and thorough picture of the challenges McDonalds has faced over the years and how they have evolved their people management model to react.

Particularly striking to me was how Chief People Officer David Fairhurst shared the many changes occurring in the workplace and society in general, making the case that "we need a glue that will hold everything together with all these changes happening." That glue he identified as company values. "Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do" - a quotation from that other HR luminary - Elvis Presley!

I couldn’t agree more - values can be the glue holding employee needs and company success requirements together. As employees face so much change – at a pace that is historically the most rapid we've ever taken a workforce through – we need our employees to be resilient and have a clear line of sight for how we want to succeed together. Values can give this line of sight, and of course a values driven, strategic recognition program, is a proven robust approach to make these values come alive and be lived everyday in the corporation.

Values too was on CEO & President Jill McDonald's agenda when she highlighted as one of her top three priorities the need to break down silos and embed corporate values to create what she called a "connected organization". Her other two priorities included employee engagement for trust, and developing future talent.

Let me ask you, how do you plan on keeping everyone during all this change? What’s your “glue” to hold everyone together? What are your top three priorities for 2011?

Learnings from HR Directors Business Summit

I’m greatly enjoying my participation this week at the HR Directors Business Summit in Birmingham, UK. I’ve already learned a tremendous amount and am looking forward to some interesting sessions on Gen Y tomorrow.

Today, Professor Lynda Gratton from London Business School led us in a great start, sharing shared research on the "Future of Work." She described the five forces at work, which are creating the future: Globalization, Technology, Demography, Low Carbon and Society Changes. Key insights she offered for coping in this new world are:

1) Encourage collaboration, especially online between teams and the generations
2) Encourage open innovation
3) Build strong cultures & values
4) Invest in your own ability to have specialist skills
5) Realize the days of the generalist are ending fast

Professor Paddy Miller from IESE Business School really captured my attention with his definition of employee engagement. Contrary to the many finely crafted definitions we've all seen, his was that engagement is a Puzzle! Each puzzle has similar parts, but each company needs to figure their own puzzle solution. I couldn’t agree more. There is no cookie-cutter solution to employee engagement. Each company must (to borrow from Professor Gratton) build on their own values to create strong cultures in which engagement can thrive.

I presented myself today on strategic recognition and how it varies from other more traditional employee recognition. I was delighted to share the platform with our client Ingrid Waterfield, UK Head of Rewards at KPMG. She took the audience through the case study of their journey at KPMG as she shared the dramatic increases in levels of participation in their recognition program, even as budget costs were reduced! If you’d like to hear more about this, watch the webinar KPMG recently presented.

More tomorrow from the HR Directors Business Summit. In the meantime, do you see any additional forces at work that are creating the future of how (and why) we work? What’s your definition of engagement? Do you think it’s a puzzle, unique to each company, or more universal to most?

Free Webinar: Recognition the KPMG Way: Driving Employee Engagement and Success

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Do you need to unify your culture? If you want to hear tips and strategies for doing just that from a peer, join me and Sara Turner, the head of employee benefits and wellbeing for KPMG UK, Tuesday next week, November 30, 8:00am PT/11:00am ET/4:00pm GMT.

During this live, interactive webinar, Sara will be sharing how she led the implementation of a strategic recognition program that helped KPMG reduce costs while providing employees with a proven tool to recognize the positive work around the company.

Key topics we'll be sure to cover include:
• How KPMG increased recognition without increasing their recognition budget
• Why KPMG selected strategic recognition to help foster stronger employee engagement and performance
• How KPMG generated internal excitement and increased employee participation

Register for the webinar today! Feel free to send me your questions early, if you like.

Stop Creating Second-Class Corporate Citizens

On Monday this week, I wrote about Symantec’s incredible success with peer-to-peer recognition programs that span departments and teams. But the only reason Symantec is able to allow employees from any department to recognize each other is because they launched their employee recognition program globally – to all employees – on the same day. They didn’t do a “staged roll-out” to the employees in the US first, as so many solutions usually are – which leaves employees outside the US feeling like second-class citizens.

But the benefits of going global don’t stop at peer-to-peer recognition capabilities. The cost savings and program governance abilities are greatly enhanced, too, as Bill McCullough, senior compensation analyst at Symantec explained in this recent Workforce Management article:

Companies with operations scattered around the world believe centralized reward plans reach more people and their value can be assessed more easily. Multinationals also reap financial benefits from a global approach.

“Our employees love it,” says Bill McCullough, senior compensation analyst. “Now, approximately 65 percent of employees are touched by the program, and it has impacted our employee satisfaction scores.”

Now, with its centralized program, Symantec says it can track the return on investment in employee recognition, as well as use job performance metrics to ensure that outstanding workers receive the appropriate kudos.

As discussed in more depth in our upcoming book, Winning with a Culture of Recognition, these results strongly reflect Symantec’s ambition for their recognition program, including: “One global strategic recognition solution” and “Local impact and relevance for all employees globally.”

What’s your employee recognition strategy say about your company and what you really think of your employees?

Part 5: Catalog Providers Hate Gift Cards because Your Employees Love Them!

In my final look at why employees love gift cards in a reward program, we saw how, with the introduction of gift cards into an old catalog selection – within weeks 90-99% of employees will select the gift cards! That’s exactly why catalog providers hate them, because your employees love them!

Let’s look at one more of the reasons employees play back to us as to why they love gift cards. Employees tell us…

“I love that gift cards are GREEN and SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE, too.”

Yes, you read that right – employees do play back to us they like that gift cards have an environmental and socially responsible dimension, too. How is that?

Consider this. A merchandise catalog company – Incentive Boulevard, Inc – is based in the heart of the US with another office in the UK. As a rewarded employee in, say, China, I select my reward – let’s say it’s a portable BBQ Grill. What’s the classic journey of that grill?

1. Item Manufactured in China
2. Shipped to the Incentive Boulevard Warehouse in the USA or UK
3. Item Shipped from the USA or UK back to employee in China!

Compare that to gift cards:

1. Item manufactured in China
2. Shipped to local department store close to employee in China. Employee collects locally.

I know there are thousands of permutations of how this could play out, but the basic premise is that a second shipping trip is always required to get the item from Incentive Boulevard warehouses – even sometimes back to the very country where the item was manufactured to begin with. This creates a lot of carbon footprint! Or think of it this way. When the price of oil went through the roof in Summer 2008, the surge in shipping costs was the equivalent of a 9% tariff on trade. If you cut the costs of shipping merchandise around the world, you not only cut your costs, you spend more of your recognition and reward budget where you intended – on your people – and you eliminate the eco-expense as well.

Now let’s consider the social impact too. I am that employee in China – yes by picking an item of merchandise made in China – I support local manufacturers, but I am also supporting employees in Incentive Boulevard warehouse thousands of miles away in the US or UK. What would I prefer? How about spending my reward, yes, on a locally manufactured item, but also purchased from a local merchant, with local employees who understand my specific needs.

Or how about spending my reward at a local spa, or in a local restaurant or cinema chain, or giving my reward to a local charity. All of these are possible when local gift cards are used – I get to enjoy and use my reward while also making an economically progressive decision to support my local economy and the local employees who are my neighbors. Don’t get me wrong – I am 100% for international trade; however, the gift card route allows many thousands of local economies to benefit from your program, not just the one of two where Incentive Boulevard has their warehouse.

More food for thought – do you think your employees care that your reward options are Green and Socially Responsible?

For those just joining the GloboBlog community today, these are the links for the past related posts in this series:

Part 1: Catalog Providers Hate Gift Cards because Your Employees Love Them

Part 2: “I love REAL CHOICE, not pretend choice.”

Part 3: “I love that they are LOCAL to where I live, not one size fits all."

Part 4: “I love BEST VALUE for my money, not being price cheated.”

Part 3: Catalog Providers Hate Gift Cards Because Your Employees Love Them!

Continuing my look at why employees love gift cards in a reward program where we saw how if you introduce gift cards into an old catalog selection – within weeks 90-99% of employees will select the gift cards! That’s exactly why catalog providers hate them, because your employees love them!

Let’s look at one more of the reasons employees play back to us as to why they love gift cards. Customer employees tell us…

“I love that they are LOCAL to where I live, not one size fits all”.

I know it’s hard for program managers to evaluate which are the best rewards to offer employees, so I shall try and keep the comparison on this employee reason as straightforward as I can.

Basically, I recommend you think about recognition program providers as behavior consultants, technology solution providers and reward vendors. That’s as true of us as it is of our competitors. A good way to look at classic merchandise catalog reward vendors is to think of them as a store, with a storefront called, say, “Incentive Boulevard.” Behind this storefront they are offering their merchandise items that they have purchased, sourced, and stocked in their warehouse facility, fork lift drivers and all! They are in effect merchants, and some have even got manufacturing facilities where they make some of the items they sell (e.g., jewelry). This model has certain built-in characteristics:

• Stock of items available is limited to their warehouse capacity.
• Stock rotates about 3-4 times a year.
• Their buyer team of 2-3 people is selecting what items to stock.
• Cultural sensitivity is covered by merchandise groupings for like-minded regions.
• Merchandise items are shipped by courier around the globe.

The most common descriptor I hear from employees for this approach is the “One Size Fits All Catalog”. Much like that T-shirt we’ve all picked up at trade shows that is just not meant to fit you!

Now, compare this traditional catalog approach to our gift card experience delivery model. Yes we are reward vendors too, but the key difference is that we are not selling our merchandise – rather we are opening the way for your employees to go select their reward from an enormous portfolio of famous-name merchants that are respected brands in every country -- famous department stores, restaurant and cinema chains, sports stores, travel providers, local online retailers, and local charities among other all-local choices, too. So employees choose LOCALLY an aspirational reward – at what I call street level - from the millions of items suited to their local culture. Let’s compare this model to the points bulleted earlier:

• Stock of items available also limited to the items in stock. But how limited in stock is Macy’s or Kohl’s, Marriott or Travelocity, Pottery Barn or Amazon.com – just to name a few. Globally, stock exceeds 20 million possible reward experience choices.
• Stock rotates every week.
• The buyers are professionals catering to the needs of real consumer populations locally. These local buyers know what an employee in Beijing wants, because they are LOCAL citizens in China, and not based in Cincinnati!
• Cultural sensitivity is built-in and ensured in ALL countries, as merchants are LOCAL.
• Bulky items are NOT shipped, but locally selected, locally collected, and locally consumed.

My advice – THINK GLOBAL, BUT THANK LOCAL. By adopting a local-level reward approach you show respect for the local employee, respect for their local culture and respect for their ability to choose a reward that is truly motivating to them – locally.

Now what is more motivating than respect?

For those just joining the GloboBlog community today, these are the links for the past related posts in this series:

Part 1: Catalog Providers Hate Gift Cards because Your Employees Love Them

Part 2: “I love REAL CHOICE, not pretend choice.”

Part 2: Catalog Providers Hate Gift Cards Because Your Employees Love them!

Continuing my look at why employees love gift cards in a reward where we saw how if you introduce gift cards into an old catalog selection – within weeks 90-99% of employees will select the gift cards! That’s exactly why catalog providers hate them, because your employees love them!

We’ve 1.7 million employees worldwide using our solution today, a sizeable population, and one that we survey frequently and hear many comments from. When it comes to gift cards what do we hear from employees? Well, employees tell us they love gift cards because:

• I love REAL CHOICE, not pretend choice.
• I love they are LOCAL to where I live, not one size fits all.
• I love BEST VALUE for my money, not being price cheated.
• I love that gift cards are GREEN and SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE too.

Using the verbatim survey comments from employees, let’s look further at each of these, as employees explain their reasoning, often better than I will.

I love REAL CHOICE, not pretend choice:

“In our previous catalog program, we’d a pretend choice of probably a thousand items. I always felt like I had to pick something that I didn’t really want, just to get something, anything really!”

“Now, I actually enjoy my reward! I can shop at my local department store in Paris, or take the family to a local restaurant. Much more choice – everyone is catered to.”

“Now I get rewards I love!”

“I really want the latest versions of electronics items, I was nearly always disappointed not to find them in the old catalog, now I can shop online at Amazon, or go to my local electronics store."

In a global population of employees representing all generations from Y, X, baby boomers, close retirees, across many different geographies and different cultures too – what catalog of a thousand items, or even twenty thousand items could possibly cater to this wide, diverse group of consumers and their varied needs? For that matter what global retailer has ever done this? Is there a global retailer that succeeds in catering to all consumers worldwide? Not even close! There is no single global retailer like this. Oh, except one – your local merchandise catalog company – that claims to be able to cater to a worldwide employee base, when no single world retailer has yet done this. Really think about that one, can their claim be true?

Some employees are conservatives, some are hedonists, for some a great reward is a watch, but for others it’s a Def Leppard music collection, or a fishing rod; for some of our Chinese factory employee users it’s a chance to visit high end bakery store Ganzo for special cake treats.

REAL CHOICE is about providing your employees the opportunity to get a reward that is personal, meaningful to them, and meets their view of what is inspiring to get, and not – with all due respects – your view! That’s exactly why we have built over the past decade the world’s largest portfolio of gift cards from thousands of local famous-name merchants, respected brands in every country, famous department stores, restaurant and cinema chains, sports stores, travel providers, local online retailers, and local charities among other choices too, so that your employees have REAL CHOICE from the millions of items suited to their local needs.

I’ll be returning to this topic next week…more soon.

Want to Motivate? Provide Clarity and Remove Obstacles.

Continuing on the topic of alignment and 2010 business plans, a couple of people I respect had some interesting insights recently. Blogger, author and coach Jason Seiden made these observations about motivation and retention in his predictions for 2010:

“As the economy begins to recover and employment mobility returns, organizations that have been practicing cram-down HR—forcing people to conform to corporate’s plans rather than leveraging corporate to support people—as well as organizations that have ignored talent development, created opaque decision-making processes, or allowed their legal departments to write HR’s notices will watch their best talent stream out the door.

“Meanwhile, organizations who have been treating their people like grown-ups—that is, organizations that realize that the way in which something is said often has a significantly greater impact than what gets said, and put energy and focus into getting the communications/human element aspect of their business right—will see their futures brighten even in the face of a tough economic climate.”

And Roy Vallee, CEO of Avnet, noted about his role in motivating employees:

“I do think that the vast majority of employees want to do a good job. I think people want to come in and do what's right for their companies. I think that as long as they are being appropriately recognized and rewarded and have opportunities for career growth -- the opportunity to achieve what it is they want out of their career -- they will be motivated over a long period of time.

“What I figured out was that it wasn't my job to install a fire in their belly, so to speak. In fact, most of them already had that fire in the belly. What they needed from me was two things: one, clarity of the work that I wanted them to do, or what it is I wanted them to accomplish; and two, they wanted me to remove the obstacles that were beyond their personal control.”

I think both Jason and Roy highlight a common fallacy of motivation pundits – the belief that employees have to be motivated to do the right thing, as if the majority are just slackers who want to laze around at your expense. In fact, as Jason and Roy point out, employees want to do the right thing. Too often management, however, either beats that desire out them by ignoring them and their needs or by not creating an environment in which they can succeed to their highest ability. Such an environment – one in which employees want to engage – is itself motivating.

What are you doing in 2010 to remove obstacles to high performance, to eliminate barriers to success, to create an environment in which employees can and will deliver what you need?

Symantec’s Strategic Recognition Story

I’m thrilled to share with you excerpts from the cover story of the November issue of Incentive magazine. In “Global Engagement,” Tom Aurelio, vice president of human resources, and Jennifer Reimert, senior director of global compensation, for Symantec discuss their Applause global strategic employee recognition program.

These days, business has no borders. Expanding across continents presents organizations with advantages, but it also poses challenges, such as how to keep far-flung employees engaged, especially during this time of economic tumult. Software giant Symantec Corp., headquartered in Mountain View, CA, near San Jose, has experienced this firsthand, as the company’s rapid global expansion spurred a revamp of its employee recognition strategy. Centralizing program administration while localizing the awards, the company is now able to reach more employees and more effectively encourage the right kinds of behaviors—all the while cutting out the costs associated with running multiple programs.

The need for one comprehensive program that offered global reach and the technology that would make an expansive program function effectively led Symantec to Globoforce, the provider of employee recognition programs based in Dublin and Southborough, MA. Globoforce specializes in assisting multinational, multicultural organizations with employee engagement challenges.

As Symantec began working with Globoforce to build the new engagement program, it determined to focus on driving the four values that the company leadership set out years before: action, customer-driven, innovation, and trust. It wanted the program to “refresh” those values—support, uphold, and breathe new life into them—and ensure that, around the globe, all employees were working toward the same core company goals. While the four values had played a role in employee performance reviews, this was the first time they were incorporated into a company reward and recognition program. With the global platform of the Applause program, Symantec is able to measure award usage, the values that are being recognized, and the distribution and reach of the awards.

The Applause program, with the goals of building a culture of appreciation and recognition, fostering employee engagement, and achieving global economies of scale, is run on one central platform across all of the company’s divisions, and allows all employees to award their teams or peers Applause certificates, valued from $25 to $1,000 (though always in the recipient’s local currency). Since recipients can redeem their awards from a worldwide network of merchants, winners have a world of options that fit their cultures and tastes.

The company sees Applause as a happy streamlining of two goals made more pressing in the current economic climate: keeping employee morale up and suppressing costs. Symantec has found that its new global approach to recognition has greatly improved efficiencies and reduced company-wide costs, so despite the poor economy, it has never considered cost-cutting that might reduce the program’s effectiveness in boosting employee engagement and performance.

I encourage you to read the entire article for more details about the benefits of applying strategic employee recognition in a global organization.

Work Worth Doing with Quintiles

If you enjoyed the DHL webinar, you may also want to view the webinar with Quintiles on their Work Worth Doing strategic employee recognition program.

IN 2004, new hire retention was a major priority for improvement for Quintiles. Leadership saw employee recognition as a away to achieve that objective. Even though 63% of employees in 2004 said managers gave adequate praise and recognition, Quintiles by no means felt this was a satisfactory level of achievement. Given the global footprint of Quintiles, leadership also realized recognition demanded a globally consistent solution and teams that spanned across many regions. Internal studies also showed more engaged groups had higher customer loyalty making engagement of strategic importance.

Recognizing exceptional behaviors that demonstrated company values to foster engagement led to the name of the recognition program: Work Worth Doing. And employees are responding with a four-fold increase in usage of the new recognition program over previous version. All employees are eligible to participate in all five award levels, which is effecting positive change and greater engagement across the company. The ease of use of the program and individual choice of reward experience is also highly valued with employees able to choose the experience they want – shopping, dining, playing – anywhere in the world.

In just 13 months, Quintiles has seen dramatic success with Work Worth Doing:
• New hire retention is up to 90%
• Managers providing recognition increased to 78%
• Employees in all countries have been touched
• Averaging over 2,300 awards per month – a five-fold increase from the previous program – while reducing cost per award by half

If you’d like to see the full webinar with Quintiles, please register to download the webinar.

First Choice Honors with DHL

DHL Global Forwarding’s Senior Director of Talent Management, Brent Biedermann, recently joined me for a webinar on how they’ve applied the five tenets of strategic recognition within their First Choice Honors program, which was designed to improve the overall experience of DHL customers and employees.

DHL wanted to create a consolidated employee recognition program based on a foundation of behavior, essentially getting people to understand what they can do and how they can behave to bring value to the organization. In creating this new structure, DHL wanted to move away from their old disparate structure in which not all employees were eligible to participate, detracting from the ability to create a culture of appreciation. DHL also wanted to eliminate the catalog approach to rewards as the selection was not connecting with employees on a meaningful level. A critical aspect to include, however, was a strategic, global approach that could translate easily across multiple geographic regions.

With Globoforce, DHL was able to foster a culture of recognition based on performance excellence. Very easy to use, the First Choice Honors program ties every employee recognition to a strategic and operational goal and the behaviors that bring results to the business. Employees are particularly excited they can nominate other employees for recognition.

The global reward choice available through Globoforce gave DHL’s employees the flexibility and choice they wanted. Brent shared the story of one employee who came to him to show a new camera accessory she had selected, saying: “Look what I got with my award. I wanted to show you because I’m thrilled I got to choose this for myself. I’m so glad we’ve opened the program to everyone.”

If you’d like to see the full webinar with DHL, please register to download the webinar.

Recognizing Fairmont

Workspan magazine, the member publication of WorldatWork, recently published an excellent case study on Fairmont Hotels & Resorts’ Strategic Employee Recognition Program. A few highlights from the article:

In the hospitality industry, service is directly tied to the bottom line, so innovative companies must create an employee engagement strategy that is motivating and meaningful to all employees. Toronto-based Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has done just that with its Serviceplus Colleague Recognition Program. The one-of-a-kind strategic program embraces and communicates the company’s core values while helping create an engaged culture where its 30,000 employees — also called “colleagues” — deliver on the company’s mission and are fully committed to their day-to-day work, team, management and organization.

Since launching the program in May 2007, Fairmont has seen impressive improvement regarding employee recognition. In fact, according to the company’s most recent employee engagement survey, the following survey items have shown significant increases:
• I’m recognized for a job well done.
• The best performers receive the greatest recognition.
• I’m recognized in ways that have special meaning to me.

In addition, since the program’s launch, employee surveys and qualitative feedback have shown that employee engagement at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has increased significantly.

Of note from the employer perspective: In a recent BusinessWeek and J.D. Power & Associates survey, Fairmont scored third place overall out of the 50 best providers of customer service across a variety of industries in the Customer Service Champions survey. And Maclean’s magazine has rated Fairmont as one of Canada’s top 100 employers for eight years running.

Fairmont continues to see vast increases in the use of Serviceplus, and the engagement factor of employees continues to rise. Serviceplus has helped Fairmont extend its global presence beyond Canadian borders and encourages employees worldwide to celebrate the exceptional work their colleagues do every day, whether it’s given right on the spot, weekly, monthly or annually.

We’re pleased to be in partnership with Fairmont and wish them continued success.

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

World at Work -- Join Me Today!

Are you in Seattle at World at Work's Total Rewards Conference? If you are, I would be pleased to meet you. The easiest way to find me will be at the roundtable I’m hosting TODAY(workshop code: C26T4), called “21st Century Employee Recognition Knows No Boundaries.”

The roundtable is 3:30 – 4:45. Joining me will be experts from telecommunications, software, media, and pharmaceutical services, specifically:

* Jennifer R Lepird, CBP, Sr Compensation Business Partner, Intuit
* Scott Himelstein, CCP, Director Compensation, Discovery Communications Inc
* Rob Schmitter, 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

We will be discussing how strategic employee recognition programs help reinforce a culture of appreciation that knows no boundaries. The results are increased levels of employee engagement and customer loyalty, high productivity, higher sales and profits, and increased operating income and earnings per share. We will offer insight into how to budget for a global recognition program, using metrics to determine the program's effectiveness in specific geographic areas, achieving global culture change through recognition, and communicating the rollout to a dispersed workforce.

I hope to see you there! If you can't attend the session, Globoforce is hosting a break and you may be able to catch me on the show floor.

From the Trenches * HR Leaders Discuss Strategic Recognition

I’m very excited to be hosting a roundtable discussion at the upcoming Total Rewards 2009 Conference (31 May to 3 June) in Seattle, Washington. This year’s conference is “Dealing with Today’s Challenges/Preparing for Tomorrow’s Opportunities.”

If any blog readers are attending the conference, be sure to say hello. I'd be pleased to meet you. The easiest way to find me will be at the roundtable I’m hosting on Tuesday (workshop code: C26T4), called “21st Century Employee Recognition Knows No Boundaries.”

For those unable to join us in Seattle, this is your chance to participate virtually. If you were in the roundtable session (more details below), what would you ask the panelists? Send your questions via email, in comments, or via the Ask Derek section at the bottom of this blog page. We may answer them in the session. Any questions I receive, I will pose to the panel and will answer in a blog post after the event.

For those attending, the roundtable will be held Tuesday, 2 June, from 3:30 – 4:45. Joining me will be experts from telecommunications, software, media, and pharmaceutical services, specifically:

* Jennifer R Lepird, CBP, Sr Compensation Business Partner, Intuit
* Scott Himelstein, CCP, Director Compensation, Discovery Communications Inc
* Rob Schmitter, 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

We will be discussing how strategic employee recognition programs help reinforce a culture of appreciation that knows no boundaries. The results are increased levels of employee engagement and customer loyalty, high productivity, higher sales and profits, and increased operating income and earnings per share. We will offer insight into how to budget for a global recognition program, using metrics to determine the program's effectiveness in specific geographic areas, achieving global culture change through recognition, and communicating the rollout to a dispersed workforce.

What would you ask this panel? Let me know!

Globoforce/Symantec Webinar & Recognition Podcasts

This Thursday I’m hosting a webinar with Jennifer Reimert, senior director of global compensation at Symantec, discussing how and why Symantec overhauled their legacy recognition program to improve processes, save money, involve more participants and change their very business culture to achieve better results. Offered in conjunction with HR.com, the “Delivering a 21st Century Recognition Program during a Down Economy” webinar will also address the importance of recognition during this recession and how to measure and report on the ROI.

Join Jennifer and me on 5 March (Thursday) at 11:00 Eastern time by registering here.

Also, just a reminder that Globoforce is now offering podcasts on hot topics including recognition, motivation, morale and productivity to make it easier for you to follow these conversations in your busy schedule. The Globoforce Podcast Series are available for free download via subscription.

I hope you will join Symantec and me for our webinar this Thursday, 5 March, at 11:00 Eastern. I also look forward to receiving your feedback on our podcasts and suggestions for future topics. Help make sure we stay on top of our recognition game – tell me what other resources you need to make the case for strategic recognition in a recession.

What’s All the Recognition Fuss About?

Quite a lot, actually. The news headlines around the world in the last couple of weeks have been nailing bailed-out banks to the wall for trying to continue with traditional employee recognition junkets, senior executive bonuses and other schemes that are ill-conceived in the best of times but in this economy show how truly out of touch these executives have become.

A quick listing of just some of the latest headlines:

• Major U.S. bank Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf actually took out a full-page advert in several major U.S. newspapers (text available here) to justify its since cancelled Las Vegas junket
• A bank in Wisconsin, USA, planned a trip (since cancelled) for 100 employees to a Puerto Rican resort after receiving half a billion dollar in federal stimulus funds.
• The Royal Bank of Scotland “bowing to government demands” to reduce investment banker bonuses from £1 billion to £175 million and cancel future bonus schemes.

Do hard working, dedicated and productive employees deserve to be recognized for their efforts? Of course, but firms must be more judicious in their use of recognition. Massive junkets offered in the name of recognition, regardless of tradition, are not wise in the current environment and, I would argue, are not wise at any time. For truly effective recognition, employees should be recognized when they do something worthy of recognition, not months later. This is critically important to driving home fundamentals such as company values or strategic objectives that you need to reinforce through recognition of behaviors that reflect those values and objectives. This must be done in the moment for full impact.

And employees should be given a choice of how they want to be rewarded for that recognition. Public acknowledgment is anathema to some, desired by others. Some may prefer to choose a vacation with family over a glorified business trip with colleagues. Others may not choose travel at all. My point is, to be meaningful, recognition should be personal.

And in regards to bonuses for bankers and financiers who oversaw mass failure in 2008, I like how John Hollon, editor at Workforce Management, put it:

"Regular Americans believe that Wall Street bankers are largely responsible for the financial mess the country is in right now. Whether that perception is right or wrong, Stumpf and his CEO friends need to buck up, shut up and be more sensitive to how their business practices might be perceived by the folks on Main Street. This is hardly the time to defend business as usual, no matter how legitimate it might ultimately be."

Let’s look at a couple of examples of those who got it right.

First, there’s the Miami banker that gave $60 million of his own money to his employees and even former employees. “After selling a majority stake in Miami-based City National Bancshares last November, all [Leonard Abess Jr.] did was take $60 million of the proceeds -- $60 million out of his own pocket -- and hand it to his tellers, bookkeepers, clerks, everyone on the payroll. All 399 workers on the staff received bonuses, and he even tracked down 72 former employees so they could share in the windfall.”

While I typically advocate against cash-based bonuses, this is entirely different. This is a man who looked at the profits of his business and realized he could have never realized that value without the effort of all his employees. This is more a profit-sharing plan, albeit a surprise, than a cash bonus. And it’s that surprise factor – a reward in recognition of years of dedication, loyalty and hard work – that sets this story of banking bonuses far apart from those I discussed above and elsewhere.

And second, there’s our client, Nortel Networks, who fought in bankruptcy court to keep its strategic recognition program for its employees. As reported in the Globe and Mail:

“The company has asked for court permission to keep the recognition program, known as Excellence@Nortel. In court filings, Nortel argues that these programs are critical to boosting morale and making sure its 26,000 employees don't spend their time looking for work elsewhere. Nortel and its subsidiaries ‘believe that in this difficult time it is essential that they be permitted to continue their practice of providing limited awards in recognition of the exceptional and outstanding work of their employees,’ the company said in a filing in the Delaware bankruptcy court last week.”

Employee recognition has proven to be so strategic to Nortel, it is specifically requesting funding to continue the program. This shows beyond a doubt Nortel understands it can recover under bankruptcy protection and emerge to again lead its industry, but it cannot do so without the commitment and hard work of its employees. This is also true for many companies struggling in today’s tough economy.

Our CEO at Globoforce, Eric Mosley, recently wrote an article in Chief Executive magazine that concluded with this observation and challenge:

“In today’s challenging economy, companies are looking for new and creative ways to enhance performance within the organization. Realizing employee engagement through strategic recognition efforts holds the potential to be the next significant ROI opportunity. These programs empower companies to create a unified, global workforce, aligning employees from multiple generations and multiple cultures around the very essence of the company, its core goals and values. What was once relegated to a tactical task that usually sat at the bottom of a priority list now sits squarely on the desk of the CEO. Are you ready to heed the call?”

I ask you, the readers of this blog – are you ready? Are you ready to get recognition right? What steps are you taking to keeping your employees engaged, motivated, and focused on your critical tasks? Join the discussion.

Recognition for Offline Employees with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts

Kyla Deveraux, manager of learning and development at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, joined me last week for a webinar: “Turn Moments into Memories with Strategic Recognition.”

Built on Fairmont’s mission to turn moments into memories for their guests and on the company’s brand promise and values, the Serviceplus employee recognition program acknowledges employee behavior that delivers on these goals. Kyla discusses in the webinar how Fairmont uses Serviceplus to “turn moments into memories” for their colleagues who go above and beyond.

Since the majority of Fairmont’s employees are offline, Kyla also shows unique aspects of their program to address the needs of offline workers as well as continually communicate the program appropriately to all employees.

Serviceplus has been a resounding success for Fairmont, who has seen significant improvement in the recognition factor on the company’s employee engagement survey since launch of Serviceplus more than two years ago. As Kyla says, “Serviceplus is not an incentive, but a means to celebrate in a way that enhances our culture.”

I also discuss in the webinar the urgent need for HR to rescue employee morale and productivity in this recession and how strategic recognition programs can help.

I encourage you to download the webinar to learn more. Then tell me what you think in comments.

Nortel Achieves Recognition Program Success to Drive High Performance

Nortel Networks recently joined Globoforce on a webinar discussing their global strategic recognition program, Excellence@Nortel. While Nortel had a recognition program, the company’s employee satisfaction scores reflected poor results regarding recognition.

In the webinar, several Nortel team members share their experience, including their recognition key principles, program structure and communications including their ongoing Recognition News Network global effort, and training and change management initiatives. Thanks to those efforts, 96% of Nortel managers report they understand Nortel’s philosophy on recognition and 100% believe that recognizing, acknowledging and celebrating employee’s contributions is important.

Nortel also discusses the success they achieved including in just the first eight weeks, nearly 10% of employees have been recognized through Excellence@Nortel, a dramatic improvement. Under their original recognition program awards took an average of six weeks for delivery. Globoforce delivers 70% of awards for Nortel on the same day (the remaining 30% are delivered within days), which ensures the reason for recognition is at top of mind for the recipient. Moreover, 83% said that receiving an award motivated them to sustain high performance – a critical measure during a tough economy when individual high performance is more important than ever.

And most important – Nortel accomplished all of this on the same small budget investment they had in place for their previous program of few, infrequent awards to a small percentage of employees.

Learn more by requesting to download the webinar.

Intuit “Spotlights” Global Recognition Success in Webinar

Intuit, a valued customer of ours for many years, joined me last week for a webinar “Spotlighting” their global strategic recognition program. The subject of a recent Stanford Graduate School of Business case study, Intuit and their “Spotlight” program have achieved their goals to:

1) Say thank you globally to drive employee engagement
2) Implement an easy-to-use system
3) Integrate recognition into the performance management process

As Jim Grenier, vice president of rewards, workplace and HR global shared services, and Jennifer Lepird, senior compensation business partner, of Intuit reiterated, recognition is the “simplest and most positive form of informal feedback.”

Adopting this attitude becomes even more important in our current business environment where 65% of Americans claim they get no recognition and 80% of global employees cite lack of recognition as a reason for leaving a job.

As Jim and Jennifer explain, Intuit chose to drive their company culture through recognition, which naturally increased employee engagement levels. Intuit’s past and current CEOs have supported this cultural direction because of the direct link they see between engagement and financial performance.

I encourage you to download the recorded webinar to learn more about Intuit’s successful global strategic recognition program and how you too could benefit from a culture of recognition.