When it’s time to give an employee reward, a tangible gift along with your recognition, deciding what that something should be can be tricky. You want the reward to be memorable and motivating, but how do you achieve that?

We recently posted a poll on our website asking, what is your favorite employee reward to receive, and the results are in:

Gift card – 39%
Handwritten note – 39%
Personal gift – 20%
Ecard – 2%

Now compare these results to your assumptions of what rewards people give most often. They probably don’t match up, do they? I would guess you receive a lot more ecards than handwritten notes.

For the most effective employee rewards, do what we did: ask your employees about their preferences. Then act on the information you learn.

Regardless of what employee reward you are giving, always give the reward with specific recognition. If you don’t tell the employee what they did to receive the recognition, they won’t be able to repeat it.

Tip: Combine the top two rewards by giving a handwritten note, complete with your specific recognition, with a gift card as a motivating employee reward.

Give your employees the kind of employee reward they truly want...it may not be your traditional trophy cup.

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation.

The holiday season is underway. All the usual signs are here: retail stores have put up the holiday displays, toy advertisements are in circulation, and that one annoying radio station has started playing Christmas music. At the same time, companies are beginning to consider the state of their holiday company celebrations. Typically, organizations take the end of the year as an opportunity to recognize the accomplishments of staff and the successes of the company. However, this year, it may seem like there are fewer reasons to celebrate…and less to celebrate with.

After a challenging 2009, many organizations are wondering if they can afford to have the traditional holiday party. Even if budgets are tight this year, we recommend not giving up on the holiday party altogether. This event is a primary employee morale booster and an important demonstration of good will for your employees. Instead, brainstorm ideas that will help cut back on the costs of the event without sacrificing the appreciation employees receive. This Associated Press article by Joyce M. Rosenberg has several ideas to pare back your company celebration costs.

Baudville’s also risen to the challenge to help organizations give their employees some much needed recognition this year. We’ve created three new holiday themes and coordinating employee gifts that help managers and company leaders give appreciation during the holidays. Most of the products in the collections are under $10 each, making recognition extremely affordable.

This year, when you select your employee holiday gifts and awards, you may find yourself recognizing different behaviors. Instead of broken sales records and exceeded revenue goals, accomplishments this year may be more subtle. Recognize the effort and hard work that helped you get through the year. And if you’re lucky enough to be able to recognize exceeded goals, make a big deal about it!

Don’t forget that for appreciation to be truly effective, it needs to happen more than once a year. An excerpt from Joyce Rosenberg’s article says it all:

“The boss needs to let employees know their work is appreciated no matter what time of year it is. And along with the positive feedback an owner needs to give, there should be periodic events to lighten the collective spirit…If you lay the groundwork throughout the year, it makes for a much richer environment, and people are much more willing to share."

Try “laying the groundwork” of recognition all year with day-to-day recognition practices, and extend employee cheer year-round.

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation.

When I was at the HR Southwest Conference, I told many of the HR Professionals who stopped by the Baudville booth how easy it would be to train managers to use day-to-day recognition tools. Last week, I mentioned some of the day-to-day recognition that managers can easily implement in their regular schedule. In this entry, I’ll share some tips for training your managers to use those tools to motivate, engage and retain your people.

1. Identify desired behaviors. A major obstacle keeping managers from recognizing employees is knowing what behaviors should be recognized. With a team of managers, review corporate values and give specific examples of what each behavior looks like in real life.

For example, one of Baudville’s core values is Nurture. The value is all about encouraging growth and learning. In practice, nurture can be an employee training a peer or showing a new employee around the building. For each of your corporate values, give a couple examples of how the value is lived out day-to-day at your organization.

Do the same exercise with department goals. Managers should walk away from training with plenty of example behaviors to look for!

2. Go out and LOOK for recognition moments. Knowing what behaviors to recognize only takes managers so far. They have to make an effort to recognize, especially if they haven’t practiced employee recognition regularly before.

Encourage managers to take time out of each day to simply stop and observe their team. Tell them they must go out and look for achievements and successes – they won’t always find them. Managers can walk around the office and directly ask employees what has been going well. Then write a note and give it to them!

3. Make it a habit. A few walk-a-bouts in the office won’t make your managers recognition professionals. A great tip is to schedule time on the calendar for recognition. Once a day or once a week, having time set aside to write and deliver thank you notes will make recognition more likely to get completed.

That’s it! Identify behaviors, go out and look for recognition moments and make it a habit. Train your managers quickly on these three areas and let them loose with recognition tools. Be sure to establish follow up criteria and check up on them in a few weeks to see how they’re doing.

And don’t forget to schedule time on YOUR calendar to recognize your managers’ hard work and dedication to day-to-day recognition.

Get your managers into the best recognition shape of their careers with some easy manager recognition training!

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation.

You may have heard about peer-to-peer recognition from a colleague or saw it mentioned on Twitter, but you do know what it is or how it works?

No worries! We’ve just posted our fourth white paper in our Recognition Resource Center all about peer-to-peer recognition!

"The White Paper That Clears Up Gray Areas About Peer-to-Peer Recognition” answers the questions:
                    1. What is peer-to-peer recognition?
                    2. What are the benefits of peer-to-peer recognition?
                    3. How can you make peer-to-peer recognition work?

Visit Baudville’s Recognition Resource Center to download your free copy of this paper plus three others focused on day-to-day recognition, non-cash recognition and generational recognition.

Happy reading!

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation.

As Baudville’s copywriter, I am painfully aware of the number of themes we have that relate to making a difference (if you’ve ever had to write repeatedly about the concept of making a difference without saying making, a, or difference, then you know what I’m talking about).

But there is a very good reason we have so many themes of this nature. There are so many ways that a person can make a difference, whether it’s volunteering for a non-profit, working as a caregiver, or having significant impact in a business setting. All people in all situations have the power to affect the world around them in a positive way, which means our customers need to have choices when it comes to thanking these folks.

So, we have Making the Difference, You Make the Difference, Making a Difference, You Make a World of Difference, and You Made the Difference. We also have one called The Power of One that has a "you make a world of difference" tagline.

Inside these four walls, we giggle about the redundancy (or maybe it’s just me alone in my cubicle); but it’s actually very serious business. When you think about it, it’s pretty profound that there is such demand for this sentiment. In fact, this Saturday is National Make a Difference Day—a whole day dedicated to (here it comes) making a difference! The organization that instituted this holiday focuses on the philanthropic aspect, but since we know that making a difference can take so many forms, we like to promote them all.

Wondering how you can get involved? One way is to participate directly in volunteer efforts in your community. The Make a Difference Day web site has a project finder for activities already going on in your neighborhood. Or, you can organize your own project and use their idea generator to help you get started.

You can also consider every day Make a Difference Day, and focus on the little things you can do all the time to create positive change. At work, in your neighborhood, at school, for the environment, on the political front, on the other side of the world, or even by smiling at the right person at the right time—there are opportunities everywhere!   

Finally, possibly the most significant way you can do your part is to encourage (and thank) those who make a difference. That’s not why they’re doing it, but that doesn’t mean we all don’t appreciate the efforts any less. And guess what? We have just the thing…

  

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Allison is Baudville’s one (and only) Copywriter. She’s been writing for a variety of media for more than eight years, so if she tells you she has been there and done that, she probably has. Before embarking on a career in writing, Allison worked as a department manager where she used Baudville products to motivate her team. She’s what we call a true believer!

Last week, I spent three days in Fort Worth, Texas, at the HR Southwest Human Resources Conference. The folks in Texas sure know how to put on a fantastic conference! Everything is so well done and everyone treated with exceptional care. A big thank you to all of the volunteers and staff who made the conference successful.

I’d also like to give a shout out to the local Hilton Fort Worth, which I believe is the friendliest hotel on earth. I received a last minute shipment Wednesday morning just an hour and a half before the exhibit hall opened. It was raining in the morning, and this awkwardly shaped package was going to require me and my co-worker to carry it together the 3 blocks to the convention center and our booth. Before we got out the door, the hotel manager rushed out to get his car, and he drove us right to the entrance. If that’s not a true display of customer service excellence at work, I don’t know what is!

Once we settled into our booth, we talked to 400+ human resources professionals over the two days the exhibit hall was open. Many of them had the same story: budgets have been cut and money is tight, but they feel the need to boost employee morale in their organizations now. Easy and affordable recognition options are a must for the attendees.

The challenges facing the HR Southwest attendees aren’t isolated to Texas. Employee morale and employee engagement are low across state and industry lines, and your top performers have been most affected.

As the year wraps up and the economy slowly begins to recover, organizations are running out of time to convince employees to stay. The key is communicating to employees that they are valued and appreciated by individuals (managers, leadership, etc.) and the organization as a whole.

When it comes to solutions, we (obviously) shared the tools in Baudville’s arsenal with attendees. Since we’ve been focusing on day-to-day recognition, our tools are designed to help managers engage employees in positive communication on a regular basis. We stressed how simple this can be with a good handwritten note, simple training (more on that coming soon!), and the right tools.

You know that a little employee morale boosting is necessary to retain your talent, and you know where you can get the tools to do it (cough Baudville.com cough). Over the next few weeks, we’ll bring you more tips and ideas on how to boost morale at the end of the year. Stay tuned!

Our awkwardly shaped package with important tradeshow items, and a few of the tools that were popular with HR Southwest attendees.

With so many tools available to us for communication, it should be surprising that so many companies claim a lack of communication as one of their biggest issues. But everywhere I’ve worked, it has been at different times, and for different reasons.

As I’ve mentioned, I have a background using recognition as a motivation strategy, and have worked in environments where recognition was part of the culture. So, when I started at Baudville it wasn’t a new concept to me. But as I started to really immerse myself in the theories, I had a revelation of sorts: recognition at its core is really just about communication.

At Baudville, one of the ways we strive to improve communication is by defining who we are, what we stand for, and what we consider to be the most valuable traits and behaviors for our staff to exhibit. We call these our core values, and we broadcast them to all staff through a variety of different communication vehicles. Then we recognize when we see them in action. It’s through recognition of ourselves and others that we all understand what we need to do to be successful.

Here’s an example: I pretty much need a meeting scheduled at 8:00 a.m. (with donuts) to make it to work on time. But my managers let it slide because I perform, and often stay late, when I get here. “Perform” happens to be one of our core values, but “punctual” is not. Thank goodness.

I know what’s expected of me because it’s clearly defined. That’s communication. If being punctual were important to my managers, I’d do it. I’d not only get to keep my job, but I would probably receive accolades for doing it. That’s reinforcement of expectations through recognition.

If you want to improve communication in your organization, creating a recognition program around your core values or company mission statement can be your first step. We know that defined expectations are just one facet of good communication, and that recognition on its own will not create or repair communication in your organization; but it will help you send clear messages to your staff and foster a more open dialogue among individuals, peers, and managers. I’d say that’s a pretty good start!

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Allison is Baudville’s one (and only) Copywriter. She’s been writing for a variety of media for more than eight years, so if she tells you she has been there and done that, she probably has. Before embarking on a career in writing, Allison worked as a department manager where she used Baudville products to motivate her team. She’s what we call a true believer! 

We recently asked blog visitors to answer the question, who do you like to receive recognition from? These were the responses:
 
- 11.1% said My mom
- 44.4% said Peers
- 33.3% said Manager
- 11.1% said CEO

The results of this poll reveal two important recognition principles that I think you should take to heart.

Number one: The poll gives insight into what employees really value: recognition from individuals who witness performances first hand.

Peers and managers are a bigger part of an employee’s everyday work life than the CEO – or their mom for that matter. Peers and managers see how hard you work on month end summaries, implementing a new process or cranking out a major project. They observe your triumphs, struggles and achievements on a regular basis, so it makes sense that you would value what they have to say about you and your work.

Number two: Frequent exchanges of recognition between peers and employees and managers is key. Peers have very few opportunities to recognize one another unless you have a peer-to-peer recognition program in place. Most often, recognition is placed primarily into the hands of the manager who likely struggles with a full workload and large team. Equipping all employees with the tools to recognize their peers can have a huge impact on morale, employee satisfaction, engagement and create a more positive work culture.

Peer-to-peer recognition programs can be a little scary for some organizations. Everyone worries that the system will be abused and employees will recognize one another for trivial matters or only give recognition to their friends. Therefore, creating a strong recognition foundation is important to a successful peer recognition program. Establish clear guidelines about recognizing one another for specific behaviors that are tied into your corporate goals and values. Include a receipt portion in your program, too, so you can track who is giving recognition and why. For more detailed information and ideas on peer-to-peer recognition programs, visit our Spot On Peer Recognition Blog.

And remember, just because it’s a peer recognition program doesn’t mean managers are excused from participating. According to our poll results – and experience - manager involvement is very important. A peer recognition program is simply another valuable tool managers can add to their recognition arsenal.

Getting recognition from peers is important to employees.

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation. In addition to writing for the Baudville blog, she’s taking on the task of flooding the Twitterverse with positive mojo. Find out more - and join her cause! - at www.Twitter.com/Baudville using the hash tag #positivemojo.

Today marks the finale of our Customer Service Week festivities and the close of our poll on your favorite Customer Service Week activity. The results were tied! "Lunch with the team" and "Puzzles, games and prizes" each received 44% of the vote.

At Baudville, we had a lot of fun with our Customer Service Week celebrations, and we kept our focus on recognizing the great customer service our team consistently offers our customers. If you're not a Baudville customer (yet), you can read about one of our Customer Service Representatives who was recognized as an Everyday Customer Champion by a customer strategy website. Do you have a story about great service you received from Baudville? Tell us about it!

Wednesday - SuperHero Day

Thursday - Decades Day

Customer Service Week is underway at Baudville! This year, we are having a spirit week. Each day has a different theme, and employees are encouraged to dress up and get in the spirit. In addition to all the fun outfits, each day there are activities and games for employees to play. Monday, there was a sports quiz featuring local sports teams. All correct entries were entered into a drawing for two tickets to a Griffins hockey game. Rockstar Day was complete with a rousing game of Rock Band as well as a word search, trivia and one hit wonder matching game. Only our SPIRIT Team knows what's in store the rest of the week!

Monday - Sports Day 

Tuesday - Rockstar Day

Wednesday - Super Hero Day

Thursday - Decades Day

Friday - Baudville Spirit Day

Follow all the Customer Service Week fun on our Facebook page where pictures are being added daily. What are you doing for Customer Service Week? Show us how you're celebrating by adding pictures to the Facebook page or adding comments to this blog entry. And don't forget to participate in our poll about your favorite Customer Service Week activity!