Halloween is always a fun day at Baudville. Employees often dress in costume, and the entire company votes for their favorites.  This year, we had our costume contest on Friday, so we can share this year's winners with you today!

1st Place – Farmer Pete and his Fine Swine. One of our coworkers raises pigs and sells their meat, so the marketing team decided to honor him with a group costume!

2nd Place – Bella Swan-Cullen with child! For all the Twilight fans eagerly anticipating the release of the "Breaking Dawn" movie, you’ll appreciate this costume! April dressed as a pregnant Bella, complete with blood IV and baby bump!

3rd Place – Zombie Couple. You can’t have Halloween without zombies! John and Stacy make a very cute zombie couple. (Is it wrong to call zombies cute?)

In the afternoon, employees bring their children to the office to trick-or-treat from department to department and desk to desk. They usually collect a lot of candy from our staff. We usually have a lot of extra candy, so employees have the ability to satisfy their sweet tooth throughout the day, too.

Just because we celebrated Halloween on Friday doesn’t mean the fun is over! Today we have a special offer for all our customers: FREE SHIPPING! Use coupon code SPOOKY today only, and your order ships for free. Happy Halloween!

How does your company celebrate Halloween? Tell us about your favorite celebrations here!

Post your office costumes on our Facebook page!

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As Kim, my cubicle neighbor belted out Journey last week, I was reminded how something as simple as music provides A LOT of joy to your teammates.

Normally at Baudville we listen to a radio station that plays today’s popular music. The background noise is filled with Adele, Kelly Clarkson, U2 and more. Although there is nothing wrong with these artists (actually they are all fantastic), we switched up the radio station last week. For the whole week, we rocked out to the 80’s!

Baudvillians head-bopped, toe-tapped, and sang along with Journey, Madonna, and Pat Benatar while we worked. When an 80’s favorite played over the speakers, delight washed over my teammates’ faces as they let you know why they LOVED that song! Not once did I hear someone complain about the music for an entire week.

You can provide some simple musical enjoyment for your employees, too! Have a weekly switch up of the radio stations you listen to. This will provide a variety in your teammates’ day-to-day work life. Even though music is normally just background noise, your teammates will notice a change and become excited about the new songs.

Or, you can have a competition in the workplace. Winner chooses the musical genre that is played. You can choose one person a week, in which every Friday they get to pick what genre to listen to. This person can be selected because they had the best weekly sales, ideas, outcomes, or whatever fits for your company. Remember though, the music must still be appropriate for other team members!

Jazz up your work environment by creating variety in the music you listen to! Sometimes the simplest thing as background music can motivate teammates in a whole new way.

CJ rockin out to the 80's! 

Tell me what type of music you listen to in your workplace and what your teammates love about it!

1 in 8 women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her life.  That’s 12% of the population!  Millions of families are affected by this tragic statistic.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and Baudville is getting involved in this important cause with a week-long company fundraising event.

All employees have been given the opportunity to purchase up to five casual days for the week (casual days are a big deal around here!). In exchange for their donation, employees receive a pink Casual Day Sticker. The casual days only cost $1 each and all proceeds are being donated to the local Gilda’s Club, a free cancer support group community. Plus, our charitable foundation, Baudville’s Helping Hand, will match all employee donations!

On Friday, employees can earn extra money for Gilda’s Club by wearing a pink shirt. Every employee who wears pink will generate an additional dollar for Gilda’s Club!

As soon as I purchased my casual day stickers, I knew that I wanted to use this opportunity to honor my friends and family who have fought cancer. Today, I’m proudly honoring the memory of Larry Roth on my casual day sticker. Larry was a close family friend who lost his seven month battle with esophagus cancer last week. Later this week, my stickers will say Grandma, Mom, Rachel, and Danica. They are all people who fought cancer, and their stories inspire me.

My casual day stickers for the week. Each one honors a different friend or family member who had cancer.

Even at our small company, there are very few employees who have not been impacted by cancer in our friends, family, and community. This week is one way we can make a difference by providing support for families experiencing the effects of cancer first hand. By working with Gilda’s Club, it is also our hope to increase awareness of this wonderful resource to our employees, so if they are ever faced with cancer, they have a place to go for help and support.

Who will you honor this month? How will you get involved? Learn more about Gilda’s Club and how to get involved on their website.

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.

First, a big thank you to everyone who attended today’s Recognition TV webisode! If you weren't able to make it, click here to watch recorded version. I appreciate your participation and feedback – thanks for sharing some great ideas! Be sure to register for November’s webisode on Year End Awards and Events. It’s the last webisode for 2011 , so you don’t want to miss it!

If you’re looking for the gift giving best practices I shared today, jump over to Monday’s blog post, “Five Tips for Holiday Employee Gift Giving. “ And if you want to read my reasons for giving team gifts during the holidays, see my “Team Gifts for the 2011 Holiday Season ” blog post. This blog post is all about team gift ideas! Here are my suggestions from today’s Recognition TV:

New Holiday Themes
If you’re familiar with Baudville, then you know we design products in recognition themes to make your gift giving more effective and memorable. This year is no exception as we’ve designed four new holiday recognition themes  for you to use to recognize your team. Each theme says thanks in a different way and offers different gift options. These new gifts are perfect for recognizing your team at the end of the year. The message on the gift expresses your appreciation, it serves as a lasting reminder, and it’s something your team can use, whether it’s a travel mug or a note cube and pen gift set.

One of the most popular holiday gifts we offer is our Spinner Ornaments . These are a favorite even among our employees! Each year our executives recognize teams during our Year End Party by sharing their accomplishments with the entire company. The executives hand each person a Spinner Ornament engraved with the Baudville logo. It’s not uncommon for employees to swap boxes looking for their favorite ornament designs. Employees collect the ornaments over the years, and they begin to take on a very special meaning.

Lunch & Gifts
One of the most popular ways to recognize and thank your team at the end of the year is to treat them to lunch. Take the entire team out together to build camaraderie and celebrate the year. Present your gifts at lunch when everyone is together and in the holiday spirit. My father always took out his office for a lunch around the holidays, and he gave them Stainless Steel Travel Mugs  as a gift. Stuffed with a packet of hot cocoa and wrapped in tissue paper with a bow, it was a festive gift that the entire office used year round!

Low-Cost Ideas
These days, budgets are tight. Just because you don’t have a lot (or anything!) to spend, doesn’t mean you should ignore your team. Buy a set of holiday greeting cards  and have your organization’s logo printed on the inside. Write a personal note to every member of your team and mail the cards to their home. Receiving your card at home will be very unexpected, and I guarantee they’ll be talking about it in the office the next day!

Make your own team gifts with your famous fudge recipe or killer caramel corn. Whip up a batch of your favorite holiday treats and package them in holiday themed bags, boxes, or glass jars. Attach a gift tag for a festive touch.

Personalized Gifts
Make your gift unique by personalizing an item with the recipient’s name and the date. This makes it a special keepsake. You don’t have to give the traditional clock at the holidays, either. An engraved picture frame  is something everyone on your team can use. Or order an engraved journal  for every member of your team. Your team will be able to use the journal at work for meetings, notes, and brainstorming – and they won’t get their journal confused with anyone else’s!

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Lindsay is Baudville’s Product Manager, so she’s always shopping for the hottest new item! She’s been at Baudville for over seven years in a variety of marketing and product roles and knows the company like the back of her hand. Keep up with all of the new products Lindsay and her team create by signing up for Baudville new product email updates.

If you’re a regular Baudville customer, then you’ve likely seen the Spinner Ornaments we’ve developed in past years for our holiday product launch. Seems every year our Spinners get more and more popular, which fuels us to create more and more designs. 
 


This year, we kind of exploded, with a total of 19 new ones (we actually had even more; but managed to narrow it down to the awesomest of awesome)!
 


We always sell out early, and this year promises to be no exception. Especially since we just initiated a contest for our sales suite to encourage them to reach a specific Spinner sales goal by Halloween. It’s still really early in the season, so you might be wondering: why the push?

It’s good to have goals. They provide a reason for what we do. They help us put one foot in front of the other, even when doing so feels like a challenge. Without goals we may or may not get where we’re going. With them we not only have a direction, we have a destination.

Friendly competition drives and motivates. Our team is going to meet their goal both together and separately. Each member has to contribute to make it happen, and adding a little rivalry guarantees that everyone will be giving their all. In the end, we have an individual win, a team win, and a business win. And you know what we call that!

It’s a great excuse to celebrate. Celebrating for a reason beats celebrating for no reason any day. It helps you assign a value to the objectives that are important to your organization, and give a reward when those are met or exceeded.

So, what do you think? Are you now dreaming up ways that you can energize your team? What kinds of incentives can you create for them? Whatever you plan, remember: set a goal, add a dose of competition, and provide a prize that’s enviable by all!   

One more thing… if Spinners are on your shopping list this year, you can find them all here. Order early and you’ll not only ensure you won’t miss out on your favorites, you’ll be helping our super sweet sales team win a pizza lunch! Mmmmm…pizza. And, maybe tip the scales for one Baudvillian who’s going to earn a bonus prize for having the highest sales!

  
To add to the excitement, we decorated the sales suite and brought in treats. Yum!

What are some ways that you energize your team?  

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Allison is a self-proclaimed Copywriting Diva and has the certificate to prove it! She’s been writing for Baudville for nearly three years and has worked in a variety of business settings for more than 18 years. Before becoming a professional writer 10 years ago, Allison worked as a department manager where she used Baudville products to motivate her team. She’s what we call a true believer!