Thanks for joining me today for our Recognition TV, our 15 minute video webinar! Today I shared tips and ideas to give your recognition program a boost. How do you know when your program is in need of a boost?

a. Participation levels have dropped dramatically
b. Employees are grumbling about the reward options
c. Your program hasn’t experienced any changes or updates in a long time 

Keep your eyes and ears open for these symptoms of an employee recognition program in need of a boost. In today’s webinar, I shared ten tips that can give your program the boost it needs. For a copy of all ten tips, download our new eBook, “10 Ways to Revitalize Your Employee Recognition Program” now available in our Recognition Resource Center.

 According to Recognition Professionals International, a best practice for employee recognition programs is to be open to change and flexibility. As the architect or caregiver of your organization’s recognition program, you need to be frequently reviewing your program and making the necessary tweaks and adjustments to keep it running like a well-oiled machine.

Hopefully the ideas from our webinar, which you can watch on demand, and new employee recognition eBook give you the tools and ideas to keep your recognition program running strong!

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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.

Today is our final post in our 5 day series on our recent employee recognition success story. You can read the story of Grace Haven Assisted Living in its entirety in the Recognition Resource Center. Today we’re sharing the exciting results Grace Haven experienced after implementing an employee recognition program.

Recovery: Imminent

Within one week of the program’s implementation, the level of interest and optimism increased noticeably. The employee engagement survey given at the initial evaluation was repeated every 30 days and revealed steady improvement at each interval. The positivity grew over time, and after 3 months many Grace Haven employees expressed satisfaction with the improved culture.

Win 1: A Whole New Attitude Evolved
With the recognition programs in place, management met the goal of increasing positive feedback. The number of employees who felt recognition to be a priority at Grace Haven increased 47% since the beginning of the program.

After 60 days, 78% of staff had given recognition and 68% had received it. One respondent said of the program, “I’m impressed at the progress!” And recognition has made employees feel more comfortable about communication in general. Both managers and employees acknowledge that communication has improved and verbal recognition has become a common occurrence.

Win 2: Collaboration and Respect Increased
Before Shout Outs were implemented, only 26% of employees felt their coworkers were committed to quality work. After using the program for 60 days, that measurement increased to 63%. Teamwork and trust increased among team members, and many employees were pitching in where needed. The Shout Outs helped them show appreciation for and become more aware of each other’s contributions. One staff member told us, “I feel it made us closer; people you didn’t think cared, do.” Employee confidence in leadership also experienced a 66% lift.

Win 3: Attendance and Accountability Improved
The increased sense of teamwork led to employees putting a greater value on attendance. After just 30 days—and then again at 60—managers needed more Tokens of Appreciation because they had given so many attendance awards. 90% of employees received at least one token award in the first 60 days the program was in place. Since the start of the program, attendance has improved dramatically.

In just a few months, the Grace Haven team saw improvement in every area measured. Overall satisfaction increased by 66%, with 64% of staff believing that their work culture has improved since the start of the program.

Grace Haven Assisted Living Director of Resident Care had this to say about the changes:
I just can’t get over the change! I see smiles in the hallways and a true spirit of cooperation among most of the staff. And, our attendance issues are all but solved. Plus, giving recognition has been such a rewarding experience. Seeing the pride and satisfaction on the faces of the recipients not only tells me it’s making a difference, it makes me feel good inside, too!

Get a Case of the Positives

You don’t have to be in the caregiving industry or in a morale crisis to benefit from an employee recognition program.

Simple day-to-day acknowledgements improve communication, and expressions of appreciation make team members feel valued. Overall, staff members feel more satisfied with their jobs, increasing both engagement and retention. In addition, incorporating peer recognition into your program gives team members ownership as well as a greater appreciation for the work that others do in the organization.

The Grace Haven team discovered that implementing regular recognition into their routine was easier than they expected. With the right tools in place, the organization has transformed into a highly engaged, positive workplace where employees are proud to work.

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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.

We’re gearing up for tomorrow’s “Transforming Culture with Recognition” webisode by sharing the success story of Grace Haven Assisted Living. This facility improved its culture in 30 days with strategic employee recognition. Register for our Recognition TV webisode, and you’ll learn our prescription for success so you can transform your culture, too. 

Prescription: Day-to-Day Recognition

After establishing the most critical issues, a comprehensive, customized employee recognition plan was developed, which set priorities to address them. Implementation included coaching sessions with management and informational meetings with all staff to help acquaint them with the new program.

Priority 1: Increase positive feedback
The Grace Haven management team made a commitment to improving job performance feedback and changing their recognition habits through a variety of strategies, including:

Manager Recognition: Each manager received one of Baudville’s Pintastic Manager binders, which contain themed lapel pins and matching cards. These pin and note card combinations are given out for significant, above and beyond behaviors. Managers are encouraged to recognize at least once a month. The cards provide the recipient with a personal note of appreciation, and the pins serve as a conversation piece with residents as well as a badge of honor for excellent work.

Annual Recognition: To strengthen interpersonal relationships, management recognizes staff member birthdays with a greeting card signed by the supervisors, and they celebrate anniversaries with a “years of service” lapel pin. The pins are worn with pride and demonstrate loyalty to the company. They also demonstrate to residents that they are in the hands of a devoted and experienced caregiver.

Priority 2: Encourage teamwork and build trust among peers
Management placed peer-to-peer recognition Shout Out pads in prominent places throughout the building and provided pens and instructions to promote participation. The program gives staff, residents, residents’ families, and managers the opportunity to write a recognition note that is posted on a public bulletin board for everyone to see. It also encourages team members to recognize one another, to become more aware and attentive of the work going on around them, and to see the contributions that others were making to the organization.

Priority 3: Reverse Absenteeism
Managers implemented an attendance award program using Baudville’s Tokens of Appreciation. Tokens of Appreciation are ceramic coins, similar to poker chips, that feature Baudville themes on the front and have the option to be customized with a sentiment or company logo on the back. At regular all-staff meetings, the administrator awards a token to each employee who has achieved two weeks of perfect attendance. Staff members collect the tokens and redeem them for cumulative awards, starting with a simple casual day.

Rewards increase with the number of collected tokens; but must be redeemed at six, at which time the employee receives a $10 gift card. Tokens are recycled back into the program and the save and redeem process continues.

Join us tomorrow for our Recognition TV webisode when we’ll be joined by the Grace Haven Assisted Living Human Resource Director to discuss the culture transformation. Register for the webisode today!

Want to find out how these recognition programs made a difference at Grace Haven? Download the complete employee recognition success story in our Recognition Resource Center. 

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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.

 

We’re gearing up for Thursday’s “Transforming Culture with Recognition” webisode by sharing the success story of Grace Haven Assisted Living. This facility improved its culture in 60 days with strategic employee recognition. Register for our Recognition TV webisode, and you’ll learn our prescription for success so you can transform your culture, too. 

Diagnosis: Recognition Deficiency

To get to heart of the discontent, Grace Haven supervisors and staff took part in an evaluation process that included interviews, focus groups, and an employee engagement survey. The survey, modeled after one given by The Gallup Organization, helped set benchmarks, as well as identify the key issues that needed to be addressed to reverse the steady decline in morale.

Issue 1: Insufficient employee recognition and performance evaluation
Through focus groups and conversations, we learned that the staff felt underappreciated and overlooked by managers. This was particularly true with the night shift, who had limited supervision and face time with managers. However, nearly all staff expressed a desire for both informal and formal job feedback. With the overriding management philosophy of “if you don’t hear from us, you’re doing fine,” employees were insecure and hungry for positive reinforcement and acknowledgment of their hard work.

Read the Grace Haven Success Story.

Issue 2: Lack of camaraderie
While the Grace Haven staff were mostly satisfied with their work and felt they provided exceptional care to residents, they were less likely to feel the same about their peers.

With no one—managers or fellow employees—acknowledging the commitment and dedication of these individuals it was difficult to realize the impact each was having on day-to-day activity or appreciate each other for their contributions to the organization’s goals. Staff did not feel they could rely on one another, and less than 30% felt satisfied with the overall care that residents received at Grace Haven.

Issue 3: Poor attendance
Absenteeism interfered with everyone’s schedules, requiring last minute shifts in responsibilities and mandates for staff to work overtime. Call ins were not only inconvenient and disruptive to everyone involved, they also affected morale, workflow, and quality of resident care.

Tune in tomorrow for part three, Prescription: Day-to-Day Recognition, or join our Blog Email List and have it delivered to your inbox. Sign up on the blog homepage.

Is the cliff hanger killing you? Download the complete employee recognition success story in our Recognition Resource Center. 

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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.

Over the years we’ve had lots of customers tell us about the challenges they face implementing employee recognition in their organization. They know their organization would benefit from the positive reinforcement and open communication of employee recognition, but they have a difficult time convincing management to invest. We wanted to help our customers make a compelling case for employee recognition and implement it quickly and easily in their organization.

So we worked with a local assisted living facility, Grace Haven, to do exactly that.

Grace Haven’s fast-paced, ‘round the clock environment made it easy to overlook employee recognition. This lack of communication and feedback contributed to low employee morale, a negative culture, and tension between employees and management. The staff knew something had to change, but they didn’t know what to do.

We helped Grace Haven overcome their cultural challenges with a strategic employee recognition program. We assessed their environment, surveyed their staff, and identified three priority issues that could be easily addressed with recognition. Then we created strategic employee recognition programs that targeted each of the priority issues and evaluated our progress at 30, 60, and 120 days. The results are really exciting, and Grace Haven is a different facility today thanks to the employee recognition programs they implemented and continue to use today.

We’ve documented the entire process, and you can download the whole story in our Recognition Resource Center.

Our experience at Grace Haven outlined a process for others to follow, too. Employee recognition can be implemented quickly, effectively, and affordably if you know the right steps to take. Read our Success Story and get the information you need to make strategic employee recognition a reality in your organization.

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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.