Did you know Baudville.com is a wealth of information and ideas for our customers? We have hundreds of articles, eBooks, white papers, and free downloads – and they’re all free! No log-in required! You can find all of it in our Recognition Resource Center.

The Recognition Resource Center is a library of ideas and knowledge for individuals starting a recognition program, planning an event, or recognizing their team. To visit, click on the gray tab on the left hand side of the Baudville homepage or click here. Starting today, this area of the website has a new look and navigation that should make it easier to find information and new ideas.

We have changed the navigation, and you can now find content by resource topic or type. If you’re looking for information for a certain event or industry, I recommend you sort by topic. Resource topics include education, healthcare appreciation, volunteer appreciation, team recognition, low cost ideas, special events, and more. If you’re browsing for the latest eBook or download, use the resource type navigation. It will help you get to our white papers, videos, and free downloads the fastest!

Features of the new Recognition Resource Center include:
• New design and page layouts
• Revised Recognition Event Calendar with more holidays
• Easy-to-use navigation and expanding menu
• Ability to browse by resource topic or type
• Refine content to find information faster
• Organized Recognition TV webisodes 
• Recognition Tools, like our ePraise and Gift Finder, are more easily accessible

To get the most out of the Recognition Resource Center, link to it from your intranet, website, or blog and encourage staff members and managers to visit it regularly. That way, the entire company can stay on top of the latest recognition tips.

 What do you like about the new Recognition Resource Center? What would you like to see us add?

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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.

It’s that time of year! Students will soon be packing their bags and moving back to colleges and universities across the country. Many of those students will also begin or resume jobs and leadership positions on campus.

To get the year started off right, we’ve put together some back to school ideas for Student Affairs Administrators. Some of these ideas are great for the first few weeks of school, to help everyone get back into the groove, and others you can use throughout the school year!

Back to School Ideas for Student Affairs Administrators:

Give a Personal Welcome. One of the most effective and memorable ways to express your appreciation for a student is with a handwritten note. Give a warm back to school welcome by completing a Pocket Praise card for each one of your students. In your note, explain why you’re glad to have the student on your team, whether it’s her amazing attention to detail or his ability to work with computers. Remind your students that it takes their individual skill working in concert with the team to have a successful year.

Remember your Spring Award Ceremony. A lot of college and university spring banquets happen at the end of the semester. But with so much going on during the last few weeks, it can be easy to forget about publicizing or communicating the awards banquet! This fall, post pictures from your spring award ceremony in the office or a central location. Students who participated in the ceremony will start getting excited for this year’s events, and new students will be motivated to aspire to earn an award of their own.

Peer Recognition Program for Resident Assistants. Keep your team of resident assistants positive and encouraging all year by starting your own Spot On Peer Recognition Program. Each week, members of your team can nominate one another for the Spot award by completing a ballot and depositing it in the dog house box. Nominations should be for students who go beyond the call of duty, help a peer, or do something extraordinary. Award Spot to the winner until the next staff meeting when a new award winner is chosen!

Post Positive Messages to Make Students Smile. Coming back to school and away from family can be a challenge for some students. Make their day – and a smile! – by posting one of our free Print and Post sentiments on their dorm door or on a pay check. The surprise note will be sure to brighten any student’s day!

Candy Always Works. When it comes to college students, the way to their heart is almost always through their stomach (that or a free t-shirt). Keep your office stocked with small treats like our Sweet Treats, snack size candy bars, or individual bags of chips. Be ready to toss these to a student at a moment’s notice to say “thanks,” “great job,” or simply “you look hungry.”

What are some of your tried and true back to school ideas for Student Affairs Administrators?

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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.

If you haven’t visited our Recognition Resource Center lately, get over there! We published six new employee recognition eBooks that you can download for free! The eBooks are filled with tips, ideas, and best practices for having fun at work, recognizing employees, encouraging innovation, and more.

Here’s a summary of what the different employee recognition eBooks have to offer:

 52 Ways to Have Fun at Work eBook
We spend a lot of time at work, so why not have some fun while we're there! Get 52 ideas for having fun at work and use one idea every week of the year!

 Winning Ways to Recognize Your Stars eBook
Keep recognition fresh and exciting with nearly 40 employee recognition ideas you can use to recognize your stars.

 52 Ways to a Positive Culture eBook
Create a positive culture where you can work, innovate, and collaborate. With 52 unique positive culture ideas, you can try one every week of the year!

 Winning Ways to Think Outside the Box eBook
Innovation is key to a successful team and organization. Encourage creative thinking and problem solving with these creative ideas!

 Team Building Ideas to Motivate, Engage, and Encourage eBook
Keep your team feeling motivated, engaged, and encouraged with the 15 ideas in this eBook! Maintaining high team morale will create a work environment that attracts and retains top talent, achieves goals, and strives for excellence.

 Teacher Appreciation Ideas eBook
60 unique, creative, and low cost teacher appreciation ideas for special days, holidays, and every day!

What topic would you like to see us tackle in our next eBook? Volunteer appreciation ideas? Customer service appreciation ideas? Other? Let us know in the comments!

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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.

As the business day approaches its end, hushed whispers bounce around from cubicle to cubicle. “Do you think we’ll get one?” “I heard that we were going to have one.”  4:30 comes and goes… no word, 4:45… nothing. The realization sets in as Baudvillians shuffle papers, finishing their final projects of the day, sighing from the unfulfilled rumors. 4:50, out of the corner of my eye, an email pops up on the computer screen. Casual Day Tomorrow!!!

No email brings greater enjoyment then one proclaiming a Casual Day. Casual Days are cherished events here at Baudville. Rejoicing rushes through the entire building. “Yes! We get to wear jeans tomorrow.”  Being a college student I am personally all for casual dress, so I can’t help but look forward to a Casual Day. For me, Casual Days mean pushing the snooze button 1 extra time.

There are a number of reasons as to why your company can offer Casual Days. Your employees could have achieved a goal of theirs, they might have gone above and beyond by working late, or the company could have had a good sales day. This week several of our teammates were out of the office representing Baudville and Idville at the annual SHRM conference, back at the office, our CEO enticed us with a few Casual Days.

But there was a catch; to obtain our Casual Days we had to wear an “I’m Casual Today” sticker with a creative reason stating why we deserved to be casual. These reasons ranged from I am casual today because: I dominated a project, to I can recite the Jabberwocky passage in Alice in Wonderland. Allowing for lots of conversation and laughter throughout the day, as we read everyone’s I’m casual today stickers.

Casual Days for us are not a day to slack off in our jeans. It is a day when we are appreciated for doing a great job. To keep our morale going, we receive casual days to reiterate the fact that we have been working hard and to keep up the hard work.

As I finish up this blog post its 4:30, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed tomorrow will be day 3 of Casual Days!

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Kendra is the newest Baudvillian. She is currently an advertising intellectual at Grand Valley State University, and is ecstatic about the change of atmosphere as Baudville’s web marketing intern. Watch out because this young professional just touched down at Baudville.

Today is my first day back in the office from the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Annual Conference in Las Vegas. While at the conference, I had the opportunity to meet with some of the human resource bloggers I follow all year on Twitter and through my RSS feed. Since these individuals are known for their expertise on everything human resources, I asked them each to share their employee recognition advice for HR professionals and managers. 

Rachel Salley (@rachelsalley)from the Career Anarchist blog stopped by the Baudville booth twice to complete her interview! Thanks for your dedication, Rachel! Visit the Career Anarchist blog to read her musings on the SHRM Annual Conference, employee engagement, and more.

Jessica Miller-Merrell (@blogging4jobs) also stopped by twice to chat with me about social media, HR, and employee recognition. Jessica is well-known in the HR industry for her blog, blogging4jobs.com. She’s apparently also one of the most popular SHRM attendees. She confided that she had six parties to go to on Monday night!

Matthew Stollak (@akabruno) of the True Faith HR warned us that as a professor, he would give us an academic response to our question about employee recognition. We didn’t mind! We thought his answer was great.

It was wonderful to finally meet Sharlyn Lauby (@sharlyn_lauby)in person at the conference this year. Sharlyn is president of Internal Talent Management Group and blogs at HR Bartender, so we talked about how to use recognition to make training more effective. We were able to give her an exclusive sneak peek into some exciting new products we have coming out in September.

Finally, we see the “Pin Man” every year at SHRM. Since we’re big proponents of lapel pins, we had to interview him to learn more about his impressive collection. Naturally, we added a new piece to his collection!

Overall, the bloggers all echoed the same sentiment: that employee recognition is important and is most effective when it is personalized to the recipient and sincere. What’s your piece of employee recognition advice for HR and managers?