I love when I find examples of employee appreciation in pop culture! I can always count on scenes from “The Office”or Dilbert comic strips for comic relief. Both do an excellent job of making fun of some pretty outrageous appreciation blunders.

I recently learned about this scene from Seinfeld, and I’m certainly going to add it to my video library! In the clip, Jerry and Kramer both give Elaine birthday gifts, but one of them completely misses the mark. Can you guess who made the faux pas?

Watch the video on YouTube.

Today the Atlanta chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management posted a great blog post about this clip, the value of employee appreciation, and the lessons we can learn from Jerry’s slip-up. I recommend you visit their blog for the full article and to learn more about authentic appreciation!

Read more on the Atlanta SHRM blog.

Have you ever witnessed or been involved in an employee appreciation blunder? Tell us about it!

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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.

This week is National Backyard Games Week, and I love my backyard games! I’ve built up a decent collection of them in my garage. At my house, we’re always ready with a game of bean bag toss, ladder golf, badminton, Frisbees, and even bubbles for the neighborhood kids. It’s common to find me outside on a beautiful summer evening playing a game with neighbors and friends. Backyard games provide an opportunity for camaraderie, fun, and enjoying the outdoors – all things I love!

I’ve noticed that my time spent playing backyard games has improved my friendships (and my sweet game skills!), so it makes sense to me that we should bring games to work. If playing games at home is energizing and improves relationships, imagine how it could influence your team!

This is a great thing to do the week before Memorial Day weekend. Organize a game tournament during the week. You can create teams or have employees compete individually. Each day, play another round of the game and post scores and updates. Employees will be engaged in the tournament and want to come to work for all the fun. You can also make the games available during lunch hour or breaks so employees can play just for fun. They will welcome the opportunity to get in some practice before the holiday weekend!

We’ve even brought backyard games inside during the off-season and played a bean bag tournament along the marketing aisle. It makes a little extra noise, but gets everyone away from their desk for a moment and engages in a team-building opportunity. If you don’t have any of your own backyard games to bring to work, ask your teammates. You could even check out this Popular Mechanics article for these 10 Fun DIY Backyard Games. They all look like a blast and very easy to create.

Can’t get outside? If it’s impossible to get your team outside this week, try one of the ideas in our 52 Ways to Have Fun at Work eBook. It’s a free download in our Recognition Resource Center full of ideas for infusing work with fun throughout the year.

How do you have fun at work? What are your team’s favorite games? Tell us here!

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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.

Every week I have the privilege here at Baudville to review and approve the amazing reviews you all write and send in. Once and awhile we will get photos of our products bringing smiles upon your recipient's faces. Every time I receive a photo I ecstatically usher everyone over to my desk so they get a chance to see our product bringing joy to a deserving person.

 
This week Baudville was touched to have a video about our Midnight Star Galaxy Trophy being put to amazing use. We here at Baudville, want to thank Kodiak Island Borough School District (KIBSD) for sending this outstanding video giving us the opportunity to see the amazing job they are doing for their coworkers.

Keep up the great work KIBSD! We applaud you for making the difference in your employee’s lives every day.

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Kendra has moved from Web Marketing Intern to her current position as Product Coordinator. She is a recent graduate and is ready to help with your recognition wants and needs. Watch out because this young professional just touched down at Baudville. 

Those who know me will not be surprised at all by this story. Crazy things happen to me all the time. Last week I was definitely ripe for some sort of debacle, as I’d been sailing fairly calm seas since I single-handedly demolished our garage door back in March.

It started during a toasty-warm lunch hour, when I headed out to pay my mortgage, with my check and payment stubs on my passenger seat filled out and ready to go. About halfway to the bank, I opened my sunroof to soak up some rays. And, then, when it got a little too hot, I lowered my window. This immediately created a tornado effect and all of the papers on my seat began to dance and flutter. I quickly sprang to close the window, but not before the check I had neatly endorsed was whisked through the open space. All I could do was watch through the rearview mirror as it made its hasty escape.

My first hope was that it had been run over hundreds of times after landing on the high-traffic road. Then I decided it didn’t matter, even if it wasn’t, because no one would likely be able to cash it anyway.

Then it dawned on me: all of my personal and banking details were on that check. Even though the check itself was probably useless, the information on it wasn’t. ::sigh::

I called my bank and we talked through some options, including the possibility of closing my account and starting over. ::::double sigh::::    

When Friday evening rolled around, I had the weekend on my mind, and not my forthcoming identity-protection worries. As I sorted through our household mail, a hand-addressed letter caught my attention (after all, we don’t get much of that anymore). I ripped it open, and there it was: my check—sans a single tire tread or evidence of any distress. It turns out that my check had quite an adventure, bypassing semis and SUVs and landing gently in the parking lot of a local logistics business.

The young man who found it chose not to ignore it, or just throw it away (so that I would never have the peace of mind of knowing it was safely discarded), or actually use it for ill-gotten gains. Instead, he and one of his coworkers took the time to put it in an envelope and send it back to me.

It probably didn’t take all that much time; but consider this: we speed to work in the passing lane, we try to pick the fastest-looking grocery line, we sometimes threaten our safety and others’ in the pursuit of multi-tasking. Everything in our lives is quick, quick, quick. Which makes it all the more overwhelming to me that a stranger would slow down and perform an act of kindness like this.

And that made me slow down, too, and think about opportunities I might have to do something kind for one of my fellow humans. Because, even though we sometimes forget, we really are all in this together, aren’t we?

What will you do today, big or small, to help out a friend, coworker, or stranger? Get inspired with our Random Acts of Kindness eBook. Click here to download it!

We love a good story. Tell us about an act of kindness that you’ve given or received!

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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 three-plus years and has worked in a variety of business settings for more than 18 years. Before becoming a professional writer 11 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!  

I talk a lot about handwritten thank you notes on the Recognition at Work blog, and we have many articles on the topic in our Recognition Resource Center. When you talk and write about something so much, it can be easy to forget about the magnitude of its impact. In most of my articles, I instruct readers to write a thank you note to an employee or co-worker. Baudville is the place for daily recognition after all!

Recently, I was reminded that a thank you note can be a powerful tool for customer retention, too. Within the past week, I learned of two unique instances of organizations using the thank you to leave a positive impression on a customer.

First, I had the privilege of speaking at the Greater Ann Arbor Society for Human Resource Management  chapter last week at their monthly luncheon with a friend from Credential Check. During the presentation, my co-presenter shared that all of his sale representatives do A4s after sales visits. (If you work in an office, you’re probably familiar with the A4 paper size, approximately 8.5” x 11”.) Every sales representative is required to write an A4 thank you note after a customer visit before they even drive out of the parking lot! Sales reps have stationery and stamps in their car, so the letter gets mailed immediately, and the customer gets wowed.

Also last week, my dad had an outpatient procedure at a local hospital. Thankfully, everything went well and my parents had all good things to say about their experience. The icing on the cake, however, was when they received a thank you card in the mail from one of his nurses. The card was simple, it said thank you for letting us care for you, and was personally signed by the nurse. The simple gesture of a thank you note made an impact on my parents who told the whole family about it over the weekend.

Have you ever received a thank you note from a company who just wanted to recognize your business? How did it make you feel about the company?

Now imagine how your customers would feel if you sent them a thank you note after a large order, or included a personal note in their shipping box. How would your business grow? Think about the referrals and word of mouth marketing you’d receive!

This week, give a handwritten thank you note a try! Grab your own A4, stationery, or mini note cards (my personal favorite), and take a few moments to write a sincere thank you. I guarantee your card will have a lasting impact!

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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.