Maximize your overall return on recognition investment

Our experience shows that when leadership is enrolled—and empowered—to support an organization's recognition objectives, program performance improves dramatically. RORI (Return on Recognition Investment) increases. Recognition cultures catch fire.

“Key Insight: 79% of employees leave their managers, not their companies. Empower your leadership to set the tone.”

Our leadership coaching curriculum is based on the results of over a decade of global research and benchmarking, involving over half a million employees and managers, and spanning dozens of nations. Offerings include keynote speeches and training sessions based on Recognition Teamwork and Onboarding.

Recognition Training - Based on two powerful studies published in the New York Times bestselling book The Carrot Principle

Learn why people may not feel recognized, and discover what type of recognition works in your culture. Intensive, interactive exercises help managers master the skills needed to integrate on-the-spot and formal recognition into your daily relations. Our dynamic leadership coaches help managers to:
 • Discover successful methods for using recognition to build a positive work environment
 • Make recognition second nature

 Recognition Training is available in the following formats:

 •Live classroom training    •Online training     •Certification Workshop    •Public Seminar

visit www.carrots.com for more information

Nearly Half of High Achievers Considering New Jobs

While the number of unemployed Americans continues to be a top concern for the country, employers should not overlook the risk of losing employees who leave on their own, new research finds. The Aflac WorkForces Report finds that 49% of U.S. workers are at least somewhat likely to look for a job this year. Perhaps most concerning to employers, a majority of those claiming to be extremely or very likely to leave describe themselves as top-notch workers.

 The report, which draws on the online responses of almost 1,876 benefits decision-makers and 6,151 workers, finds that 90% of those who say they are extremely or very likely to look for another job this year describe themselves as hard workers. Additionally, 79% say they are high achievers at work, 73% claim to be highly educated, and 64% believe they are ambitious.  Though these qualities are self-reported and difficult to independently verify, Aflac maintains that they point to a broader trend that employers should be concerned about, particularly as the economy begins to improve and more options become available.

 “Employers should be concerned that after several years of recession and a very slow recovery, their top talent has a pent-up desire to leave for what they believe to be greener pastures,” says Audrey Boone Tillman, executive vice president of Corporate Services at Aflac, in a statement. “Our study also sheds light on some of the reasons employees consider leaving and what employers can do to keep them.”


 
The study found a high number of those holding particular opinions about their employer saying they were extremely or very likely to leave. Some 35% of those who do not believe their company has a reputation as a great place to work expect to leave in the next 12 months, while 43% of those who say they are stressed out reported the same. An additional 28% of employees who are highly likely to leave their job this year say they do not have peace of mind. 


“It’s been an employer-driven market for a number of years and businesses watching their bottom lines may not have taken care of employees as well as they did before the recession,” says Tillman. “However, demonstrating they care and showing appreciation in ways that are meaningful to their employees are the most important actions company leaders and HR executives can take to prevent their best workers from walking out the door.” 

What is your organization doing to keep your top-notch employees?

Visit www.octanner.com for more information.

ONBOARDING!

Onboarding Connects…

*purpose – connect with the mission and vision of the organization
*people – build relationships
*processes – learn the skills, systems, and ways of creating value (not just compliance)

“By creating positive emotions at the beginning of the company’s relationship with new hires, they want to deliver the best results and stay where they are appreciated, valued, and productive.”
Nick van Dam -The Business Results of Strategic Onboarding. Chief Learning Officer

What We Communicate…

*connect to the team
*reinforce the decision to join
*exposure to our culture
*create excitement for their first day

Onboarding…connecting to:  purpose - people - processes and resources

Does your organization have an onboarding process in place?  Have you seen this affect your production and retention rates?  If you don’t have a process established, do you see the need for one and are there plans to create one?

CELEBRATING MILESTONES

Celebrate milestones: demonstrate how your people’s great work has contributed to your organizations success.
We believe that from hire to retire, when you celebrate employees through every stage of their careers, you inspire loyalty and remind them they belong to something bigger. Something important. Something that’s making a difference.
Help your people experience a sense of unity and belonging to something bigger. Why is it so important to align your brand with the awards you give? Organization-branded items can greatly enhance the personalization of the award and create additional pride and attachment to your organization. These symbolic award options help create a sense of unity and belonging to something bigger.
A study of 10,333 people (representing a wide range of industries) were surveyed in 13 Countries to determine more about the drivers of engagement and how appreciation affect these drivers. One of the three drivers of engagement is PRIDE.
Pride “I feel a strong sense of pride when I see our organization’s brand / symbol / logo.”

Acceleration to Business Results

As our book The Carrot Principle illustrates, the greatest challenge for leaders in growing their organization is not introducing a revolutionary strategy but engaging employees in executing their current strategy. The foundational element of our Recognition Effectiveness Model stems from the research - that goal setting, communication, trust and accountability are the Basic Four elements of effective management.

So to boost engagement and create the results you're going for, recognition must have:

ALIGNMENT with what matters most in an organization - whether it's the culture, values, mission or business objectives.

IMPACT through recognizing people the right way - having inclusive programs and creating human and personal recognition experiences that are meaningful and performance based.

Is your organization seeing a positive change in the culture and meeting their mission, values and business objectives?

Do your recognition moments have ALIGNMENT and IMPACT?

Building a rewards & recognition program: One size does not fit all

Remember the baseball movie epic Field of Dreams? In it, Kevin Costner’s character, Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella, hears a voice saying, “If you build it, he will come” with the accompanying vision of a baseball diamond. Heeding the call, he plows under his cornfield in favor of the turf and “he,” Shoeless Joe Jackson, and later “they,” others from the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, do come.
Hoping that life imitates art, many HR managers and leaders hypothesize that a recognition program is as easy as 1, 2, 3: sign up with a gift vendor, put your company logo on the standard web template and begin dispensing points, gifts or other awards. That works…if your only goal is marking 1, 2 & 3 from the to-do list. In reality, once it’s built, not too many come, not too much is accomplished and sooner or later senior management starts asking, “So why are we doing recognition again?” Effectual, strategic employee recognition, like other lasting and essential objectives, is not quite that straightforward.
Having seen companies go through this for over two decades, my first piece of advice: don’t pre-suppose that you or your vendor know what solutions are best for your organization without first doing your homework. In addition, don’t let your unique circumstances be pressed into a standardized program. Your focus needs to be on working with your vendor and stakeholders to design an employee recognition solution that produces the maximum impact within your unique business environment and truly effects staff morale. But how do you do this?
A good way to start is by working through a solution design process. Do a thorough assessment of your current recognition state by reviewing relevant employee survey data, conducting focus groups and executive interviews. Next, conduct a facilitated design session where you bring all your key stakeholders together. Find a seasoned facilitator/design consultant either internally or externally who will work with you to answer a few questions like:
What are our objectives and key success factors?
What recognition program criteria will reinforce our desired objectives and goals?
What guidelines should we consider to ensure consistency and fairness across our organization?
What award currencies–cash, gift cards, points, merchandise–and what value should we use in our programs? What are the pros and cons of each?
What should be the approval process for each program, i.e. peer-to-peer vs. manager to employee, or team recognition?
How do we communicate to and train our managers and leaders so they understand the what, why and how of recognition?
How do we measure our return-on-recognition-investment (RORI)?

A key deliverable from the design session is a recognition blueprint. A good blueprint includes plans for:
Alignment and impact – Your recognition reflects your organization and aligns with your goals, objectives, mission, vision, and values.
Leadership development and training – Train your managers. Companies who invest in training deliver on average return on equity three times higher than those who don’t.
Communications – Keep recognition top of mind and bolster what’s most important at your company. With effective communications your recognition takes off; without, it pancakes.
Measurement and assessment – Focus on metrics to drive RORI and validate to your key stakeholders that strategic employee recognition is good business and can improve your bottom line. A Towers Watson study on global recognition showed that a 15% improvement in your employee engagement scores can lead to a 2% improvement in operating margin.
Awards – What award currency works best for you? How often should your people be recognized (frequency) and what percentage of your employee population should be recognized (reach)? How much should you plan to spend on awards in Year 1, 2, 3 and so on?
Ongoing impact management – After implementation and launch, you need to ensure that your solution continues to meet the ongoing goals and purposes of your strategy. Continually review and fine-tune to meet your changing needs.
Technology – Technology is important and an assumed component of any recognition program–dashboards to track activity and results in real-time, social appreciation tools to extend the reach for the recipient and great fulfillment systems. Technology will be most effective as it supports the key strategies outlined above.
Whether you develop a recognition program internally or work with a vendor, look for a stable software platform that is customized to your brand, is easy to use, and has recognition tools and reporting to assist your users, managers and administrators in their unique recognition roles.
Build your employee recognition solution the right way and they will come. You can drive sustained, positive culture change and lasting business impact.

Chris Vyse – O.C. Tanner
www.octanner.com/blog

The High Cost of Disengagement

Do you wonder how many of your employees are just showing up to pick up a paycheck? PeopleMetrics’ Employee Engagement research found that 12% of all employees are actively disengaged at work. Twelve percent may not seem like such a big deal, until you consider the myriad costs this 12% brings to your organization. According to The Economist, 84% of senior leaders say Disengaged Employees are 1 of the 3 biggest threats facing their business. Yet only 12% of them report regularly tackling the employee engagement problem—perhaps because it can be difficult to assign costs to under-performance.

This article delineates three ways that employee disengagement costs companies money.
1. Direct Cost to Employers.
Gallup has estimated that that employee disengagement costs the overall US economy as much as $350 billion every year. That’s a staggering number, but it’s hard to get motivated to tackle such an endemic problem. Instead, think about what each company loses per year: at least $2,246 per disengaged employee.

The specific expenses contributing to those numbers vary by company, but a few costs generally associated with employee disengagement include:
*Disengaged employees take more sick days and are tardy more often.
*Disengaged employees undermine the excellent work their more engaged colleagues accomplish. Constant complaining is a common characteristic of disengaged employees.
*The decreased productivity of each disengaged employee costs each employer $3,400 to $10,000 in salary, according to Gallup research.
*Missed deadlines and poor sales results are common characteristics of disengaged employees.
*Customer complaints often rise with employee disengagement. Disengaged employees create disengaged customers because frustrated workers can’t help but pass on their cynicism and negativity.

2. Low Employee Engagement and Low Company Performance. Employee disengagement definitely contributes to inadequate company performance. Dozens of linkage studies have compared companies’ employee engagement rates and business performance levels. Our own research has demonstrated that:
Highly profitable companies have 50% more Engaged employees versus unprofitable companies
Teams with high levels of Engagement sell over 20% more than teams with low Engagement
Bottom line: disengaged employees drag down overall company performance.

3. Turnover Costs to Train New Employees.
As employee disengagement grows, so does the risk of talent loss. Corporate Executive Board research has found a 13% increase in the number of high-potential employees desiring to leave their current companies in 2011. Another metric to calculate a portion of the cost of employee disengagement in your organization is to consider how many of your talented employees left in the last year. How much did you spend on training those employees? And how much will you spend to train new employees?

Conducting an Employee Engagement survey is a good way to begin evaluating engagement levels in your ranks. but it’s not enough. In fact, many employee engagement surveys end up stranded on some executive’s desk.

Has your organization taken an employee survey? What has happened since you've receieved the results?

Author: Kate Feather
*This post originally appeared on PeopleMetrics Industry News

Majority of American Workers Not Engaged in Their Jobs

According to a recent Gallup poll - Seventy-one percent of American workers are "not engaged" or "actively disengaged" in their work, meaning they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be productive. That leaves nearly one-third of American workers who are "engaged," or involved in and enthusiastic about their work and contributing to their organizations in a positive manner. This trend remained relatively stable throughout 2011.

These findings are from a special Gallup Daily tracking series conducted on an ongoing basis since the fourth quarter of 2010 to explore American workers' engagement levels. Gallup's employee engagement index is based on worker responses to 12 actionable workplace elements with proven linkages to performance outcomes, including productivity, customer service, quality, retention, safety, and profit. Further research shows significant linkages between engagement at work and health and wellbeing outcomes.
Americans' levels of engagement at work are generally consistent with Gallup's trends on workplace engagement from various studies since 2000. The current percentage of engaged employees is similar to the historical high of 30% in 2001 to 2002 and 2006 to 2007. The percentage who are actively disengaged is near the high of 20% recorded in 2007 and 2008.
Article date October 28, 2011

Communicate - Train - Build

As economic conditions slowly improve, organizations all over the world are beginning to focus on growth. But, as global organizations prepare to move forward, many say one particular challenge stands in their way: retaining top talent.

A Towers Watson survey of more than 700 global companies revealed 51 percent view the loss of key talent as the biggest obstacle to growth. An additional 38 percent cited concerns about attracting the right talent to fit their needs.

What can be done to keep top performers on board? How can your organization bring new talent to the table? In a time when salaries are frozen and budgets are tight, consider these:

• Consistent Communication – Discuss goals and expectations with employees. Recognize effort, provide constructive feedback and reward results. When workers feel their employer is vested in their career development, loyalty is the result.
• Training – Arm employees with the knowledge and support needed to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.
• Team Building – A well-planned team building workshop or program can build trust, improve morale and bolster culture.

O.C. Tanner has the tools to help you attract, develop and retain top talent. We would like to explore whether we can help to develop solution that matches your unique culture and goals with some of our best practices, maximizing results for you.

Team Assists

To stay on the theme of TEAMWORK, here is a great story:

Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden had an interesting rule for his teams. Whenever a player scored, he was to acknowledge the person on the team who had assisted. When he was coaching high school, one of his players asked, “Coach, won’t that take up too much time?” Wooden replied, “I’m not asking you to run over there and give him a big hug. A nod will do.”
To achieve victory on the basketball court, Wooden saw the importance of teaching his players that they were a team—not “just a bunch of independent operators.” Each person contributed to the success of everyone else.

From The Orange Revolution - 101 Ways to Bring your Team Together
page 178 - Create a softball, volleyball, or bowling league made up of teams from work. Friendly competition between departments pulls people together in a very positive way.

Have you given a nod to a team member today?

The Orange Revolution - How One Great TEAM can transform an Entire Organization

Are you ready to start your own Orange Revolution?

Log in to http://carrots.com/orange and receive free white papers, videos and other cool tools that will help you and your team excel. Plus, get exclusive insights from some of the most revolutionary “Orange Teams” in the world.

What our research clearly reveals is that within the most productive teams, employees feel a heightened sense of camaraderie, considering at least one of their co-workers a close friend. They also feel their manager cares about their well-being, a dramatically human emotion. For those who prefer numbers, 63 percent of workers found office productivity to be positively affected when co-workers are friends outside of work.
All these indicators clearly point to camaraderie, or even love if you choose to call it that, as a major driver of esprit de corps, which in turn drives productivity and achievement. page 12 - The Orange Revolution

INSPIRE GROWTH

Appreciation does more than keep people happy. It inspires them to do more. To go further. It transforms managers into leaders and employees into champions. By appreciating people who embrace and move your vision forward, you also strengthen your organizations brand and mission.

What’s important to your organization? Sales? Mission? Safety? The bottom line?

Appreciating those who get it done can deliver powerful results. To turn potential into performance you have to inspire people to see possibilities, connect with your mission and embrace your vision.

Think engaged employees – what are the possibilities?



Studies prove it. Experience confirms it. And the most successful organizations can feel it. Appreciating great work creates a high performance culture where things like innovation, extra effort, and more effective leadership practices drive results.

Appreciate INSPIRE

What is YOUR praise to criticism ratio?

Over the past 30 years, renowned marriage counselor John Gottman has been able to predict with 90% accuracy which newlyweds he works with will stay married versus getting divorced after watching just 15 minutes of their interactions on videotape.

The key factor that Gottman looks for is the ratio of positive to negative reinforcement that couples give to each other. When the ratio is 5 to 1 positive, the couples report the overall relationship as positive. Anything less than 4 to 1 and the relationship is perceived as negative.

Why does it have to be slanted so heavily in the positive direction? The answer is emotion. The emotional response surrounding each praising or criticism amplifies its impact. For most people, criticism is stinging and leaves a far larger emotional footprint than positive praising.

Leaders can promote healthy relationships with the people who report to them by praising and reprimanding effectively. Here are three tips.

1.Be timely. Nobody likes to deliver negative feedback. But some managers have trouble delivering positive praising also. Uncomfortable with the whole situation, these managers believe that by not communicating, at least they are doing no harm. But the reality is that “not communicating” is sending a message. If your boss never communicated with you about your work, how would it make you feel? What message would it send to you? People want to matter and they want to be noticed. As a manager, it is your job to make sure that you are paying attention to your people.
2.Be specific. Feedback is best when it is specific. A general praising of, “You’re doing a great job!” is nice, but a more specific praising of, “The way you ran that meeting today was fantastic. You really did a good job of having all of the background information ready and also redirecting the discussion when it was getting off track,” is better. When it comes to negative feedback, it is even more important to be specific. Consider how damaging a comment like, “You really don’t seem to understand how we do things around here,” is. Instead be more specific. Say, “We have a very specific process for approving email that needs to be followed. Anytime something new is created, please make sure I see it first and have a chance to review it before sending it out.” This turns criticism into redirection—which is what you’re looking for. Even though it will still hurt, you want to keep the focus on the behavior that needs to change. If you don’t, the recipient will only remember how you made them feel and the necessary change will be an afterthought.
3.Be aware of your emotional impact. Remember that negative feedback is serious business and carries five times the emotional weight as positive feedback. Anytime that you find yourself having to deliver a reprimand, make sure that you follow it up with a reaffirmation of the person and their abilities. This doesn’t mean that you backtrack or soften the reality of what needs to change, it just means a reconfirmation of your faith in the direct report to do better and your belief that they can change.
By mastering the art of positive and negative feedback, managers can strengthen their relationships with direct reports. Keep in mind both the quantity and the quality of the messages you deliver. It’s an important skill that will keep people engaged and performing at their best.

Strategic Recognition

For companies looking to do more with less, this is where the strategic use of recognition comes in.

The way to expand the impact of your compensation effort, without increasing the costs, may lie in expanding the use of recognition. Dr. James Oakley from Purdue University examined the impact of compensation and the role it plays in fostering and sustaining culture in his study “The Road to An Engaged Workforce”, (www.performanceforum.org). In Oakley’s opinion, all forms of compensation must be leveraged to drive the culture that’s right for your business. He feels non-cash as a compensation lever is actually under-utilized in all business models.

Effective use of recognition, using non-cash rewards that are distinct from ongoing compensation, is a powerful tool for sustaining culture, driving innovation and rewarding the right behaviors across the corporation.



Ask us about your free thanks website to send e-cards and personalized certificates - be strategic and recognize someone today!

Onboarding vs Orientation - what's the difference?

Here's an interesting article that talks about the difference between Onboarding and Orientation. How is your organization using Onboarding to engage YOUR new employees?

Onboarding has become a human resources buzzword but it seems as if many people confuse it with orientation. The two are similar, but very different. In fact, I suggest that orientation is simply one small piece of onboarding. While orientation is an introduction to a new job and some of the nuances of the organization, onboarding is an entire process designed to immerse a new employee into the vision and culture of your company.

Engagement occurs more quickly and the process is also designed to assist in retention by making sure the employee aligns with the organization’s goals and wants to stay.

Onboarding is proving extremely valuable in many areas where human resources is currently challenged such as engagement, workforce optimization, and retention. Successful onboarding programs result in an employee who is excited by their role, anxious to begin and feels valued for what they can bring to the table. In other words, the employee becomes engaged quickly which results in a higher level of production in a much quicker timeframe.

Recent research shows that employees decide shortly after they are hired how long they plan to stay at your company. Anything you can do to make sure they feel welcome and valued from the day they are offered a position is going to lengthen the time they choose to stay with you.

Another benefit of an effective onboarding strategy from the date of hire is the effect it has on counteroffers made by their current company. If a candidate is offered a role and you maintain contact with them in a very positive and welcoming way while they are deciding, they are more likely to view the offer of a raise from their employer in a new light. Instead of thinking that they just earned a raise, they are more likely to question why they weren’t more valuable to the organization yesterday. They will also feel great about accepting a job for a company that is already showing that they value the talent they are hiring.

Once a role is accepted, reiterating over and over in many meaningful ways that the employee made the right choice will do wonders for your engagement and retention rates.

Does your organization have an onboarding process in place? Have you seen this affect your production and retention rates? If you don’t have a process established, do you see the need for one and are there plans to create one?July 2, 2010 by Jen Turi, CareerCurve

How does your T-E-A-M rank? Take the test!

Measure Your Team Engagement
In our work with global organizations, we find that teams with the most engaged people have the best results. Here’s a simple test to determine the engagement level of your squad. If your team members answer 'yes' to the following questions, there’s a good chance they are engaged.

•My team consistently puts in extra effort beyond what is expected.
•My team is highly motivated to contribute to the success of the organization.
•My team has a strong sense of personal accomplishment from its work.
•My team understands how its roles help the organization meet its goals.
•My team always has a positive attitude when performing its duties at work.
•My manager does a good job of recognizing employee contributions.
•My team consistently looks for more efficient and effective ways to getting the job done.

How did your team do? What have you done this week to build engagement within your team?

What can YOU do to motivate your team? Funny you should ask! Here are a couple of suggestions:

Give each team member a stack of thank-you cards and ask them to recognize co-workers when they see them furthering your organization's values.

One day a week, let team members work on a self-defined project. The only qualifier is that the project benefits the team!

Take responsibility for your own mistakes; but share the credit for your successes. Fun follow-up: Whenever you make a team-related presentation, make it a point to mention, by name, team members who helped- even if they just cheered you on!

Make a list of what you know about each person on your team. What do they do at work? What do they hang on their office/cubicle walls? Do they have kids/pets? If so, what are their names? Then ask yourself: Which co-worker do I know the LEAST about? Take time today to visit that person in their office and get to know them better!

At the end of each day, take a moment to gather the team and write down three things that went right. Getting in the habit of looking for the positives around you will pay dividends at the office, at home and socially. It also gives you many things to recognize as a team!

Carrots are back in the area!

Don't miss this chance to be a part of our our award winning ‘A Carrot A Day Training Workshop’- How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance.
We are inviting the Human Resource, Organizational Development and Training executives from public and private organizations, located in the Greater DC Metro area.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
TIME: 9:00am - 12pm EST
WHERE: Sheraton National Hotel, Arlington, VA

Please join us for a 2 1/2 hour entertaining and interactive session based on the best seller: “The Carrot Principle” on April 6th starting at 9am! Come early, 8:30-9am, to network with other human capital management professionals. Continental breakfast is provided.
Please see the attachment for further details.

*Groups of 5 or more will receive a 20% discount on the $199 session fee (does not include shipping and taxes).

Please call our office for more details - 410-363-3800.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Four Essential Qualities Of Great Teams

By Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, 11.12.10 - Forbes.com

As revealed by decades of research.

They can happen in the middle of the day, night, or even during a traffic jam, the "aha" or "light bulb" moments in our lives--those thoughts of clear brilliance where the proverbial light bulb appears over our head.
What does a light bulb moment have to do with teamwork?

Charles Batcheldor was a machinist. John Kruesi was a clockmaker. Ludwig Boehm was a glassblower. Francis Upton was a mathematician. Together, they shared a light bulb moment with the inventor Thomas Edison. After all, the commercially viable incandescent light bulb was the product of an entire team, not the single inventor we were taught in fifth grade. In fact, our research about teamwork shows that there are no great leaders without great teams.

For the past few decades we have buried ourselves in research into the drivers of human performance. Growing out of that research, our latest book, The Orange Revolution, includes the results of a 350,000-person study that measured the characteristics of extremely productive teams. We found a lot of what we had theorized there in the data. Just like that night in Menlo Park when Edison and his team knew their bulb would light but had no idea how long it would stay lit, we were staring at the glimmer of our own light bulb moments.

Please click on the link below to continue reading about the four essential qualities that might change the way you lead or participate on your work teams.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/12/teams-essential-qualities-leadership-managing-engagement.html

The Carrot Principle, World-Renowned Recognition Training Seminar!

COMING SOON TO THE DC METRO AREA, EARLY 2011!

Corporate America’s most valuable training program, once exclusively offered only to select organizations and managers, will soon be offering limited seating to the public.

The Carrot Principle Training Seminar teaches managers how to engage employees and accelerate performance through purposed recognition.

Participants will learn:
• The science behind recognition’s impact in an organization (based on the New York Times bestselling book The Carrot Principle and its 10-year, 200,000-person research study).

• Why aligning recognition with your organization’s core values, goals or strategies can immediately engage employees—initiating immediate results.

• How recognition done right can accelerate performance, increase productivity and impact your bottom-line in a down economy.

• How and when to most effectively recognize employees, along with countless low-and no-cost ideas to help you personalize recognition efforts to your team or organization.

• How to form an action plan and implement a recognition strategy today.

All registered participants receive the A Carrot a Day Recognition toolkit, a copy of the New York Times bestselling book The Carrot Principle, educational videos, stationary, and more!
All this for only $199*.

Dates and location will be confirmed in the New Year, so stay tuned for more details.

To reserve a seat, or for more information please contact our office at baltimore@octanner.com or call 410-661-5668 (ask for Ellen or Natalie).

Note to managers: Lack of employee recognition damaging to company performance

Suppose someone asked you the following questions: Do managers in your company do a good job of recognizing employee contributions?

What would you say? Let’s hope you answered positively. But for a majority, getting a pat on the back may be a rare thing.

Based on a large study of employees at U.S. organizations over a decade, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton, who write books and conduct training programs on the power of recognition and team-building, reported some disheartening statistics:

• 79 percent of employees who quit their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving.
• 65 percent of North Americans report they didn’t receive recognition at all in the previous year.

The lack of recognition is not only demoralizing to employees, but it can hurt company performance. When employees know their strengths and potential will be praised and recognized, they are more likely to produce value. Recognizing their efforts is not about making sure everyone gets a trophy. It’s really about taking the time to thank people for the contributions they give to making the company a better place.

So what’s a manager to do?
First, examine what is currently being done to recognize employees at the firm. Get feedback from employees on what’s working and what’s not.

Second, design a recognition system that is performance-based. Make sure the system is aligned with the culture you want in your firm and the company’s values and business objectives.

Third, train other managers in providing recognition.
This training might incorporate some of Gostick and Elton’s recommended recognition strategies, including:

• Day-to-day recognition: The most frequent, specific and least costly, this could include pats on the back, handwritten notes, team lunches, on-the-spot award certificates and thank-you gifts.

• Above-and-beyond recognition: More formal recognition for significant accomplishments such as the achievement of sales goals, exceptional customer service, etc. Generally, they suggest awarding these to employees about every two years.

• Career recognition: Formal programs to recognize people for loyalty or cumulative contributions, such as years of service. You could start with a welcome award — thanking them for joining the firm, followed by recognition at their one-, three- and five-year milestones.

• Celebration events: Consist of celebrations for successful completion of a team project, achievement of record results, new product launches, etc.

Courtesy of NJ.com, 11/1/2010: -- Joyce E.A. Russell, Special to The Washington Post

For more recognition ideas contact your local appreciateologists at the Baltimore Office. Email us at baltimore@octanner.com or call us at 410-661-5668.