Proactive Management of Company Culture Is the Cure for What Ails the Workplace

Recognize This! – “Facestabbing” in the workplace is a symptom, not the disease.


What’s your opinion of managing “Facestabbing” incidents in the workplace? When it comes to your attention that an employee has posted a negative comment of some kind about your company, superiors or colleagues, how does your company respond? How do you think it should respond?

Is there a formal policy? What is it? If not, do you think there should be a formal policy or procedure for addressing such comments progressively up to and including termination? Do you believe in a more informal approach?

Or do you see it more like my friend Bob Selden, author of the Management-Issues issues blog, who sees such Facebook commenting as “the old ‘water cooler gossiping’ or ‘heard it at the pub’ that have been part and parcel of work life forever?”

I tend to fall in the camp of how medical professionals might address Facestabbing – treat the disease, not the symptoms.

For some companies, treating the disease may be a bit like treating cancer at first, requiring excising of cancerous growths in the form of backstabbing, unproductive, and incompatible people that simply don't fit with a culture of appreciation focused on teamwork, success and a commitment to living out the company values in the daily work. As Josh Bersin pointed out:

“Companies which understand their core culture can far outperform their peers by building a set of staffing and management programs to reinforce this culture. And what this research clearly shows is that employee engagement (or employee satisfaction) is directly related to leadership and culture: the company must understand the culture it wants to create, hire for that culture, and manage around that culture.”

Once you have that culture built, the symptoms simply melt away.

Don’t forget on Monday next week I’ll be writing on my new blog – Recognize This! Content will be what you’ve come to expect here on the Globoforce blog, but with an expanded focus across the entire Talent Management spectrum. Current subscribers will move with me. If you want to subscribe to the corporate Globoforce Blog for new multi-author content on Globoforce news, events, customers and products, please subscribe here.

What’s a Leader Supposed to Do?

Recognize This! – A leader’s sole responsibility is to focus employee energy on achieving target objectives.

Leaders in an organization – especially people with the responsibility for managing others – are often overwhelmed with the many responsibilities, objectives and tasks on their own plates, much less those on their employees’. That’s why I enjoyed Chris Edmonds’ piece that focused expectations of leaders to one clear thing:

Source: www.drivingresultsthroughculture.com

Isn’t that the essence of what we expect our leaders/managers to do? Set their employees on the path to delivering strategic objectives and doing so in a positive, helpful way that reflects the company’s core values?

That’s precisely what strategic employee recognition is designed to help leaders accomplish:

1) Clearly communicate expectations through frequent, in-the-moment praise and recognition of employee efforts that help meet company goals

2) But not offer that praise unless such employee efforts are in line with company values and a culture of positive appreciation and recognition.

As we learned in Monday’s post of highlights from an HBR podcast:

"If managers just increased their praise and recognition of one employee once a day for 21 business days in a row, six months later, those teams as opposed to control group, had a 31% higher level of productivity." 


Do you agree? Is this list of 1 sufficient for what we need leaders to do? What would you add?

I’m launching my own blog – Recognize This! – on Monday, May 2. Content will be what you’ve come to expect here on the Globoforce blog, but with an expanded focus across the entire Talent Management spectrum. Current subscribers will move with me. If you want to subscribe to the corporate Globoforce Blog for new multi-author content on Globoforce news, events, customers and products, please subscribe here.

Generations vs. Life Stage * What’s More Important in the Workplace?

Career Advisory Board

Recognize This! – Forcing an “understanding” of a group of people based on an arbitrary designation will lead to incorrect assumptions and disengagement.

When you think of your workforce as a whole, how do you categorize them in your mind? By generation or by life stage?

A good deal of press and research seem to be devoted to “generations in the workplace” – GenY/Millennials expect ABC whereas Boomers prefer XYZ. I tend to fall in the other camp, though. As I wrote about a few months ago on Compensation Café:

Whether 26 or 46 years old, people with children tend to have more in common than singles of 26, and singles of 46. Comments I’ve received from readers are nearly universal in tone to this one:

“I want recognition, not some fussy bonus thing once every year or two but simple, frequent ‘Thanks, that was great and it really mattered!’ I want to see some understanding that I have a life outside work that is more important to me than some new fancy title. I want to work where I'm not expected to check my personality at the door and be a cog. I want to get out of this silly face-time model and, as I did in a previous job, use social media for virtual presence so I can work from anywhere. I want to be treated like the trustworthy, professional, hard-working grownup that I am. I'm a 56 year old gen Y and agree with you that generations aren't so different. We're all changing together while leadership models aren't keeping up.”

Relying too strongly on “generational expectations” simply leads to a disconnect in expectations as illustrated in the chart at right (from Career Advisory Board, full infographic available here).

“Millennials” want meaningful work, high pay, and a sense of accomplishment for what they do. Is that very much different from what you want? It’s not for me.

Tell me – do you identify more with those of the same “generation” as you or those in the same “life-stage?” What are the most important factors to you at work?

Recognition & Reward Program Best Practices

Recognize This! – Reinforcing behaviors in a timely way will always be at the top of my recognition best practices list.

Ascent Group recently came out with their annual Reward & Recognition Program Profiles & Best Practices. The report is well worth the investment. Highlighting just a few of the key findings:

“Reinforce behaviors and reward results. Recognize the right behaviors and communicate such that the employee’s behavior becomes a model within the work group.”

When you define the behaviors that reflect your values, your employees begin to see the values come alive in their daily work.

“Be timely, specific, and communicate! Make sure you recognize behavior and reward results in a timely manner so employees know exactly why they are being recognized.”

Recognition given at the annual banquet or performance review does nothing to reinforce in the moment precisely what it is you need them to repeat. Make sure messages of recognition are specific and reference the value demonstrated.

“Match the reward to the person and the achievement.”

Every person is different. A BBQ isn’t motivating for a person who lives in a high-rise apartment building. A gift-card to a steakhouse isn’t rewarding for a vegetarian. Let your employees choose what’s personally memorable and culturally relevant for them – from 2,500 brands and 25 million options around the world.

“Involve employees in the design and refinement of your reward and recognition programs.”

One of our 10 tactics discussed in Winning with a Culture of Recognition, involving employees – from every division, region and level – turns employees into program evangelists, ensuring rapid program adoption.

“Don’t just offer rewards and recognition for front line employees – extend the program to cover all employees in the department so the entire group is working towards the same goals.”

One of our 5 tenets of strategic recognition also discussed in our book, giving the opportunity to all to participate not only reinforces the needed behaviors and values across your entire workforce, but makes it possible to measure the understanding and demonstration of those values by employee, division, region and company as a whole.

“Look to technology to facilitate program administration and tracking.”

Doing any of this strategically – especially on a global scale – is far beyond the capabilities of an Excel spreadsheet. Take advantage of our Global Strategic Recognition solution to eliminate the administrative overhead, hassle and risk associated with old-school tactical approaches to recognition and reward.

“Measure the effectiveness and impact of your reward and recognition programs.”

Without a strong technology solution, it’s impossible to measure results. Our real-time In*telligence reports let you customize dashboards and reporting elements to deliver the status updates and success metrics your executives demand.

I encourage you to download the full report. Tell me, what other best practices would you highlight for recognition and reward programs?

Five Steps to Change Your Company Culture

Recognize This! – Behaviors drive values drive culture. You cannot change the culture unless you address the underlying behaviors.


As the employee engagement discussion has grown, so has the discussion about the importance of company culture. After all, what is it you’re hoping employees engage with? As the importance of culture has surged, so has the resurgence of Edgar H. Shein (recently profiled in a Q&A in Strategy+Business).

For example, Schein explains the why well-intentioned efforts at culture change fail:

“They think that to change culture, you simply introduce a new culture and tell people to follow it. That will never work. Instead, you have to conduct a business analysis around whatever is triggering your perceived need to change the culture. You solve that business problem by introducing new behaviors. Once you’ve solved your business problems this way, people will say to themselves, “Hey, this new way of doing things, which originally we were coerced to do, seems to be working better, so it must be right.”

Using that as a starting point, here are five steps to changing your culture.

1) Do the business analysis to identify the culture you need to succeed – Is that culture innovative (Apple) or iterative? Low-cost (Wal*mart) or high-end (Lord & Taylor’s)? This is a critical definition as it will guide all future decisions.

2) List the values you believe are inherent in such a culture – If you want an innovative culture, you would likely include values such as “questioning."

3) Define the behaviors underlying each of those values – Under the value of “questioning,” you might include behaviors like “looks for a better way to do things,” “offers critical feedback in a desire to improve,” and “accepts feedback willingly.”

4) Communicate those behaviors to employees so they are understood in their daily work – Unless you communicate the behaviors underlying the values to the employees, they won’t understand what it is you need them to do.

5) Positively reinforce demonstration of those behaviors with frequent recognition – Such reinforcement, given to anyone at any level who demonstrates the needed behaviors in line with the values, ensures employees will repeat them, creating a continuous circle.

Or, as Schein explains it:

"One electric utility company I studied, Alpha Power — I can’t reveal its real name — was under pressure from regulators to improve its environmental record. Management told employees, 'Every oil spill on every sidewalk must be reported immediately and cleaned up.' A lot of electrical workers said, 'That's not me. I’m not a janitor. I splice big, heavy cables.' Alpha responded that this was an order, not an option, and that workers would be trained in cleaning up spills safely.

"Some electrical workers quit, but most were retrained. After about five years, the workers were asked, 'How do you feel about Alpha’s environmental policies?' They answered, 'It's the right thing to do. We should be cleaning up the environment.' That wasn’t what they’d said five years earlier. But once they embraced the behavior, the values caught up."


Change the behaviors, change the values, change the culture. Do you agree?

Can Saying “Thank You” Change Your Life?

Recognize This! – The power of “thank you” can dramatically change your workplace, too.

John Kralik certainly thinks so. After watching everything in his life, personally and professionally go from bad to worse (and complaining about it all the way), John tried the opposite approach – looking for something to be grateful and writing a thank you note every day of the year. After 365 notes, John took stock, finding:

"When you appreciate something, it comes again. If I was thankful for clients paying their bills, they seemed to pay faster. If I was thankful for cases, they seemed to come more."

There is power in positivity in the workplace, too. Scientists have run the studies for us, proving that receiving a simple thank you increased the likelihood of a person’s willingness to help again in the future by 100%. A different study by McKinsey reported 67% say praise or recognition from a direct manager is an effective or extremely effective workplace motivator.

How do you implement this idea of saying “thank you” in the workplace? It’s easier than you think if you just give people the mechanism (employee recognition) to do so, the guidance on why, and the example (from the highest levels on down) of others doing the same.

Jonathon Hogg of PA Consulting discussed this in a Financial Times article earlier this year:

“Companies can also explore ways of developing systems to recognise the efforts of individual employees. These are mechanisms that show people how their work contributes to the organisation’s achievements, and to encourage them to appreciate the efforts of colleagues. Nine months after security software provider Symantec [watch Symantec tell their own story] launched its global programme, called Applause, employee engagement scores rose by 16 per cent.”

Do you believe in the power of positivity – that saying “thank you” can change your life? Tell me a story of a time when hearing or saying “thanks” really impacted you.

Critical HR Priorities: #2 Improving Manager Capabilities

Recognize This! – Line managers must improve ability to respect, trust and care for their employees, too.

Continuing our look at the Top 5 Critical HR Priorities for 2011 from the Corporate Leadership Council HR global agenda poll, the requirements for achieving priority 2 are quite similar to priority 1.

Priority 2 for HR in 2011: Improving Manager Capabilities at Managing Their Direct Reports

Just as senior leaders must demonstrate respect, trust and caring for the workforce they manage, so too must line managers show the same for their direct reports. But now it becomes much more personal.

RESPECT
Line managers must be careful to remember that respect is a two-way street. If they want the respect of their direct reports, then managers must show respect for their direct reports as well. Dan McCarthy points out, “Respect is not something you only give away when it may serve your needs." The same is true of employee recognition. You don’t show your appreciation for your employee efforts only when those efforts directly work to your advantage. You should also be liberal with your thanks when your direct reports may have performed well in helping another manager, team or department.

TRUST
Trust is often more easily gained by direct managers than senior leaders who are more removed from employees. But as with respect, trust is a two-way street. As Bret Simmons says, “You have to earn it by the way you behave toward them. Your people need to believe that you are competent and that you care.”

CARE
One way to demonstrate to employees you care about them is by taking the time to talk with them, to clearly communicate what you need them to do, praise them when they’re doing it well, and offer constructive feedback when they need improvement. Harvard Business School research showed employees overwhelmingly prefer a manager who is likeable to a person is very skilled but terrible at communicating.

Oft-reported Google research into their own employees (in an effort to “build a better boss) found:

“What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”

What does that tell me? Employees want bosses to be present, patient and honestly interested in the people they manage. How do you or your managers stack up? Take my quick poll:

My direct manager demonstrates respect, trust and caring:

My direct reports would say I demonstrate respect, trust and caring:

Prior posts on 2011 Top HR Priorities
Priority 1: Improving Senior Leader Capabilities at Managing the Workforce

Top 5 Critical HR Priorities: #1 Improving Senior Leader Capabilities

Recognize This! – Senior leaders need to improve respect for employees, trustworthiness, and caring to better manage the workforce.

The Corporate Executive Board recently shared with us the Top 5 Critical HR Priorities for 2011 from their Corporate Leadership Council HR global agenda poll. Each day this week, I’ll address one priority.

Priority 1 for HR in 2011: Improving Senior Leader Capabilities at Managing the Workforce

Senior leaders constantly juggle innumerable priorities, each often requiring a different capability. Which should HR focus on to help senior leaders improve? I suggest senior leaders can’t hope to manage effectively unless they have the respect and trust of their teams. Their employees must also know the senior leader cares about them as people, not just “human capital.”

RESPECT
Paul Marciano, author of Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work, recently offered seven “critical” ways managers show respect for employees. His way was employee recognition: “Thanking employees and acknowledging their contributions on a daily basis.”

I don't know if Paul listed these in order of importance, but there is no denying that acknowledgment of ourselves, our work, and the value of our contributions goes a long way to telling us we are respected in the workplace. Paul’s last item was trust: “Demonstrating faith and belief in their employees’ skills, abilities, and decisions,” which leads in the next capability senior leaders need to manage the workforce.

TRUST
BlessingWhite’s CEO points out that without trust in leadership, employees question where they fit in the company. Towers Watson’s 2010 Global Workforce Study found “the most desired leadership characteristic is to be trustworthy, but only 47% of respondents agree that their leaders are, in fact, trustworthy.”

Why is this? Les Allan suggests on his Business Performance blog: “It can be more difficult to ascribe honorable motives to a ‘faceless’ leader.” To become more present to employees and “add a face,” senior leaders must show they care.

CARE
In his book The Thank You Economy, “King of Social Media” Gary Vaynerchuck, said:

“I care more about my employees than I do my customers, and I care more about my customers than I do breathing.”

Do you care more about your employees than you do breathing? Do your employees trust you? Do you have respect for them? If not, I can guarantee they do not respect you, trust you, or care about you and your success.

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.