I’m not making this up…

Once, at a former workplace, our espresso maker got more peer nominations for Employee of the Month than anyone else. A high performer, true…but really?

That was the state of our morale. Our spirits had been broken by circumstances too mind-boggling to adequately describe here; but, we were truly disenchanted and pretty much walked around like an office full of zombies. Zombies who really valued a strong cup of coffee in the afternoon.

• There is only one winner—and that can make everyone else feel like a loser.
• To be fair, winners are sometimes chosen on rotation (either deliberately or subconsciously), which actually isn’t fair at all. Or, just the opposite, the winner is always one of just a few top performers.
• There is often only a nomination-type system in place (with the potential for management or peer favoritism), rather than having a forum in which specific behaviors and achievements are rewarded.   

Knowing what I know now, we could have chosen a more inclusive method of recognition. In fact, working at Baudville, I’ve seen two powerful employee recognition programs in place that are much more effective than the traditional system of single-person nomination: day-to-day recognition and peer-to-peer recognition.

Day-to-day recognition focuses on genuine everyday expressions of appreciation that reinforce and reward positive behaviors. It’s administered mostly by managers through low cost tools like Cheers Kits™, Pocket Praise®, and our latest champion the Pintastic Manager. The important part is that everyone has the opportunity to be recognized on a regular basis, sometimes just for little things, which makes everyone feel good.

Peer-to-peer recognition is a subject I’ve already talked a lot about lately, so I’ll try to keep it brief. But a program like our internal Shout Outs incorporates our core values, which means we are given recognition for exemplifying behaviors and attitudes that matter to our company (and are also key to business success). Spot On is the same way. People know why they’re being recognized; and, as with day-to-day, peer recognition includes everyone, so we all get to feel like winners.

Both systems have the potential to elevate the entire team—all the time, any time—rather than just focusing on one person per month. They also create a positive culture in which giving and receiving recognition feels natural and sincere. Finally, people are enthusiastic about the programs and look forward to recognizing their staff and coworkers…not appliances!

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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! 

This week calendars are promoting Fun at Work Day; our calendar lists it on Thursday, January 28. Though some people may roll their eyes or consider office diversions like Fun at Work Day to be frivolous, having fun at work can actually be extremely profitable, as Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For prove.

At SAS, a privately owned software company at the top of Fortune’s list this year, an employee-friendly culture reigns supreme and fun isn’t hard to find. Employees watch intramural teams compete in volleyball and soccer during weekdays and M&Ms are readily available for staff (they go through 22.5 tons a year).

One employee from Wegmans Food Market, third on the list, is quoted by Fortune on how a fun atmosphere encourages him to work harder: “I just love it. No day is the same as the previous day. I'm usually here until 6 in the evenings and on Fridays I work until 8, or if it's really fun I stick around until 9. Sometimes I lose track of time.”

Fun at work can translate to lower employee stress levels, higher commitment, increased engagement and improved results. While Fortune’s 100 best are able to offer desirable employee perks and benefits, organizations of all shapes and sizes can create a fun work environment that employees will appreciate. Remember, the key to a successful fun work culture is consistency. Managers and company leadership need to encourage and embrace fun all year round if they want to impact corporate culture.

Bring fun to your work this week (and beyond) with these ideas from Baudville. Having some fun may take a little bit of time out of the typical work day, but it will be well worth it.

• Play board games at lunch.
• Host a ping pong tournament.
• Get creative juices flowing with a game of Pictionary or charades
• Build ice cream sundaes together.
• Make the traditional potluck more interesting by having employees guess who made which dish.
•  Host a caption contest. Take a picture of someone in the office, add a thought bubble and have employees fill in the bubble. Post the results and give everyone something to laugh about.
• Have an "Embarrassing Incident" contest and give a prize to the person who suffered the funniest cringe-worthy moment.
• Give employees a set of our Print and Post sayings. Encourage them to give the sayings to their peers and brainstorm their own.
• Host a department spirit day or week and celebrate all the great things about your team.
• Have a paper air plane throwing contest.
• Keep a stash of Everyday Certificates handy and give out “You’re the Bomb Diggity Awards” often.
• Do an old-school arts and craft project like paper maché or anything involving macaroni or play-doh.
• Give employees their own candy dish full with sweets.
• Hand out Pick Your Nose Party Cups and take pictures of your staff with their new noses.
• Give employees their own set of coloring books and crayons for stress relief.

Allison, one of the regular contributors to the blog, was the subject in this Fill-in-the-Thought-Bubble exercise.

What are some of your organization’s fun office ideas? What activity or event do employees ask for over and over again? Tell us about it! We’d like to try it out for ourselves!

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her daily recognition tips by following Baudville on Twitter at Twitter.com/Baudville.

January 7th was my one year anniversary with Baudville, and, as is the tradition, I got to go to lunch with my boss to celebrate. She asked me about some of my former jobs, and I had the embarrassing task of detailing my checkered past of repeated job hopping. I’m not sure, but I swear I heard concern in her voice when she asked once again, “…and how long were you at that job?”

Truth is, she has *nothing* to worry about, but with US job satisfaction at a 22-year low, many managers do have a reason to be concerned. And while it may not be as easy now as it was 5-10 years ago to switch jobs on a whim, it is easy for employees to just mentally check out of their jobs. And that’s what a lot of people do, causing both employee productivity and workplace morale to take a huge hit. In fact, according to a Gallup Organization survey, in the United States, disengaged employees cost the economy $300 billion a year.

Faced with this statistic, you might ask yourself: what can I do to? I don’t have the budget to give anyone a raise, reduce healthcare costs, or create new opportunities within my department.

Well, for the third consecutive year, Baudville has been declared one of the “101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For" in West Michigan; yet our company faces many of the same economic challenges as others.

So how do we do it?

We know that if we can’t spend more money, then our only choice is to make things more interesting and engaging. And if you’ve ever seen photos of some of our events, then you might think that interesting is just one word for it.

Considering that one of the satisfaction stats is that “fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting” this seems like a fairly good avenue to pursue.

So, a lot of what we do around here, when not diligently working, involves getting people together or involved in an activity. This regular interaction with each other helps break up our workdays and gets us talking, connecting, and relating. And because many of these activities are either low cost or no cost, a lack of budget is not a factor. For example:

Peer Recognition: Our internal “Shout Out” program allows employees to write a note of praise for a coworker and post it in a designated location for everyone to see. It is very low cost, and it inspires all staff to get involved in appreciating and recognizing one another. And it contributes to our job satisfaction because we know that our coworkers value the work that we do. In fact, it works so well for us, we decided to develop a few variations for our customers. You can read more here.
 
Impromptu Activities: From “just because” casual days (free!) to recruiting a group of staff to decorate the parking lot with sidewalk chalk (cheap!) to the occasional pizza lunch (moderate; but the camaraderie it instills is priceless!), these events do a great job of breaking up the monotony. And, they often make us look forward to coming to work, so we are definitely tuned in and not checked out.

Communication: I still remember my first day when someone passed me in the hallway and said, “Welcome to Meetingville!” Sure, there is such a thing as death by meeting, but I think we do a pretty good job of balancing that (despite that comment!). Meetings mean people are involved, from the top down. These are opportunities to share feedback, express ideas and opinions, brainstorm, commiserate, and stay informed. And, they only cost a little bit of well spent time.  

During tough times, when resources and opportunities are hard to come by, it’s easy for staff to become bored, disenchanted, and detached. But, with a little bit of Baudville-prescribed creativity it’s easy to shake things up and get people re-engaged.

So, take a minute to look around your workplace. Do people seem satisfied? If not, what will you do reverse the statistic?

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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!

Companies are responding to the crisis in Haiti and supporting the recovery efforts of the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince last week. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that U.S. companies pledged more than $43 million dollars within the first 72 hours after the earth quake, and many more have donated since then. Baudville has also joined the cause.

Baudville’s Helping Hand, Baudville’s charitable fund, has made a $5,000 donation to Partners in Health (PIH) to assist with medical care in Haiti. PIH’s mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. The organization has had a presence in Haiti since 1985, and currently operates 8 medical facilities in the country.

Partners In Health will be integral in the medical care of the relief efforts. Because PIH is a primary healthcare provider in Haiti, patients are flooding their sites outside of Port-au-Prince for help and medical care. Donations to PIH will assist with their earthquake relief efforts and provide medical care to those wounded in the quake.

For more information about Partners in Health and to donate to their Haiti relief work, please visit www.pih.org. Together, we can make a difference.

When we set out to create our own internal peer recognition program, we had a pretty good feeling it was going to be popular. We’re Baudville, after all; if anyone knows how to recognize, we do. But I don’t think anyone expected that it would be this popular:

If you’re wondering what, exactly, you’re looking at, this is Baudville’s Shout Out wall where employees post recognition notes about their coworkers. It’s part of our peer recognition program, called Shout Outs, which encourages staff to recognize each other based on our company’s seven core values: inspire, nurture, share, perform, innovate, respond, & excel (it spells INSPIRE; clever, eh?).

At any point in the day, you can find a Baudvillian paused at the wall to read the latest post. People get excited to write them, read them, and most importantly, receive them. At the end of each month they get distributed to the recipients, who can’t help but post them up at their desks. What a way to spread positive mojo!

But, what we really love about peer recognition is the way it enhances our already thriving recognition program by giving staff the opportunity to share their input. Employees also have a better understanding and appreciation of the contributions of their coworkers—especially those they don’t work directly with. And, because managers see the Shout Outs, they get the inside scoop on all the day-to-day greatness going on.  

Thinking you want to try it at your office? Well, after test driving our program for about six months (and seeing amazing results), we decided it was a no brainer to bring this product to our customers. And we know you like variety, so we developed the program in three of our most popular themes: 

Shout Outs are inexpensive (only 50¢ per note), really easy to implement (you pretty much just need a wall), and a great way to energize a team without a lot of work from managers. See, really—a no brainer!

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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!