The other day, I met with a couple gentlemen from the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, one of Baudville’s long time charitable partners. As we were talking, our conversation strayed from sponsorship opportunities to the recognition and appreciation solutions Baudville offers. The guys were in awe of the fun new products we had on display in our Board Room. They especially loved the Exclamations recognition theme and the funny lines on our Pocket Praise cards and gifts.

As we were talking about recognition, one of them shared a story about a friend’s current work situation; one that I fear is all too common in today’s workplaces. The friend’s organization is trying to do more with less (a common theme in business today), and he was finding more and more work piled on his desk. At the same time, the only communication he was receiving from management was “be glad you have a job right now.”

Can you imagine having that sentiment pounded into your head day in and day out, all the while struggling to keep up with your ever-increasing work load? Sounds motivating, right?

This young man has become so frustrated with the work environment that he’s been considering quitting – in this job market! This isn’t as uncommon as you may think. The Department of Labor has found that 64% of working Americans have left a job for lack of appreciation. That statistic has decreased during the recession, but many in the talent industry are predicting lots of turnover once the economy recovers. Employees are looking to make a change in part due to the way they were treated during the recession by their current employers.

Employers who act now can prevent their talent from walking away. Because cash is tight, employers are using non-financial strategies to improve employee morale, employee engagement and loyalty. Flexible schedules and telecommuting are popular, but employers should not lose sight of the value of appreciation. Thanking employees for their extra efforts and hard work this year will go a long ways.

During the remaining weeks of 2009, make it a priority to take time to thank employees. Don’t worry, you can never give too much praise and appreciation! Your sincere, specific recognition of their efforts will let employees know that you value their contributions both now and in the future.

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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.

We recently inaugurated two of our employees into a new leadership training program at Baudville. Both employees have a solid performance history at Baudville and have earned the respect and admiration of their peers. They also already shoulder significant responsibility. Yet they chose to pursue further development opportunities that will inevitably lead to more responsibility., which leads one to ask a perfectly reasonable question:

WHY?

The acceptance into this program requires weekly out-of-work class attendance, sitting in on additional meetings, and doing homework (it’s all very tempting, I know). But the program also acts as recognition of the employees as two of our brightest up-and-coming stars. It’s an honor well worth the extra effort.

This situation is an example of how intrinsic motivation can be a powerful motivator. Professional development is a desired form of recognition, especially among Millennial and Gen X employees, and it serves multiple purposes.

1. Powerful recognition. Like I’ve said, giving an employee a chance to further develop her skills and talents is powerful recognition. The professional development opportunity lets the employee know you recognize and believe in her potential.

2. Valuable training. You’ve identified your top performers, and you’re investing in them. When they come out of their training, they’ll be better equipped to take up the next big thing. You can expect better performances in the near future and a definite return on your investment.

3. Improved loyalty. In exchange for the investment in your employee’s future, you’ll gain their loyalty. Professional development is a great opportunity for mentoring that often leads to a strong bond between the employee and an individual manager or organization. This is important because once you invest in top talent, you want to make sure you keep it.

What professional development opportunities does your organization offer top talent? Invest your time in the up-and-coming talent at your organization to help secure your organization’s future and future leadership.

And don’t forget to make the “big moment” memorable for those recipients. If you’re making a public presentation about the professional development opportunity, present the employee with an award certificate or letter of acknowledgement or both. While the skills and knowledge they’ll gain will be invaluable intangibles for your organization, the symbolic award will be an invaluable motivator for your employee.

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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.

Today is Veteran’s Day. It’s a day when people and organizations across the country take time out of their busy schedules to recognize the service of the men and women who served in our armed forces.

We understand and appreciate the importance of veterans in protecting our country and our freedom, so we honor them by saying thank you and acknowledging their contributions. Veterans and active duty members alike are motivated and inspired by the words of thanks from others. The recognition they receive contributes to the satisfaction they receive from doing their jobs.

What if employees viewed their jobs like our veterans? What if they came to work each day understanding that their contribution was a part of the bigger picture? What if they got satisfaction out of doing a good job? What if they felt inspired?

Today is a day to honor veterans, but every other day is an opportunity for you to recognize your employees. Practice recognition on Veteran’s Day by sending a thank you card to a local VFW, and every day after that, use recognition and praise to inspire your workforce.

“How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes! “ - Maya Angelou

The holidays are approaching, and everyone agrees that employee morale has experienced a turn for the worse. Corporations are expected to have a record low number of employee holiday parties. Give your staff a boost with an inspiring and optimistic theme for the year end.

In this blog entry, I’m throwing the spotlight on one of our latest additions to our Recognition Theme library, New Beginnings.

We designed New Beginnings especially for the 2009 corporate climate. The year has been especially challenging for companies and employees who have struggled with layoffs, budget cuts and just plain hard times. The soothing color palette and optimistic story motivates your team for the next year and hints at better things to come.

So how do you use New Beginnings in your organization? Give your employees a small token of your appreciation for the year by selecting a personal gift for the entire team. You can also engrave the story on a number of products and personalize it for your recipients.

Most importantly, though, your employees want to hear from you. Add a holiday greeting card to your gift and take the time to write a personal note inside of each one. Let your employees know what it is you appreciate about them. This is the greatest gift you can give this year.

Will New Beginnings be your theme for the end of the year? Tell us how you’re using it! Email us at recognition@baudville.com.

The New Beginnings Story
Freshly fallen snow revives the senses, Inspiring new ideas. Each tiny flake glistens with optimism and the promise of new beginnings. ‘Tis the season for possibilities.

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Cori is a Certified Recognition Professional at Baudville and a member of the Millennial generation. Follow her recognition tips at Twitter.com/Baudville.

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.

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.

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.