What Do Your Leaders Do for Administrative Professional’s Day?

Administrative Professional’s Day falls on the same Wednesday of the last full week of April every year. 

Long gone are the days when this day was known simply as National Secretaries Day. For never the right reasons, secretaries seemed to be perceived “lesser-than” because of that title. It seemed they only typed and answered the telephone. 

Now they have risen in profile and respect by their new title of office and administrative professional. 

But how should leaders show their appreciation for their administrative professional? 

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How To Write An Amazing Career Milestone Recognition Ecard

Each of us are unique human beings and are truly works-in-progress.

I would never expect that each person who writes and sends an anniversary or career milestone ecard, or any ecard, look exactly the same way. That would make them impersonal and insincere. 

However, the recent experience of reaching my 15th year with Engage2Excel, previously known as Rideau Inc., provided some wonderful insights to learn from with the emails or ecards that I received from leaders and peers alike. 

Let’s look at some messages sent to me and learn some practical principles when expressing recognition in writing on a long-service anniversary.

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Here’s What Needs To Happen To Win an Oscars Award

Yes, the Oscars take place in Los Angeles as usual, but in two different locations. They will broadcast it from the Dolby Theatre, which is where it has been held since 2002, and at the Union Station, a transit hub for the city. 

Winning an Oscars award is totally a numbers game. But the vote represents the endorsement of all your industry peers. 

Membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is now well over the 10,000 mark, which increases the voting members into the 9600+ range since they announced last year that agents now get voting rights, too.  

I will share with you exactly what happens in the selection of an Oscars Award winner. 

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How To Create a Successful Employee Referral Program

One of the significant benefits of working for an amazing organization is you immediately create walking and talking billboards that attract potential family and friends into joining where you work.

In addition, when you set up an employee referral program, you reward employees for referring their friends and/or family members for positions if hired, and they meet the minimum job requirements.

If you don’t already have an employee referral program, consider designing one for your organization.

Follow these principles and steps in designing an employee referral program. 

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Top 10 Ways to Create a Points-Based Reward Program

If you are considering setting up a points-based reward program, consider following this list of basic principles before meeting with a vendor or with your own IT team. Points-based incentives are a great tool to use for achieving amazing performance results and for motivating your employees.

  1. Clarify the need for an incentive or reward program. Incentive and reward programs reinforce specific behaviors or actions achieved within a specific time period. Does this fit your purpose for why you want a points-based program?
  2. List the perceived benefits of a point-based reward system. Points are an easily understood reward currency and an alternative to cash. They can be problematic if unredeemed or you paid on issuance. Ensure a great merchandise selection.
  3. Create a business case for using a points-based rewards program. Discuss with all stakeholders the purpose, benefits, and costs, of a points-based program. Outline your action plans for monitoring and any course corrections as needed.
  4. Identify the specific behaviors and positive actions you want people to do. Articulate the specific, actionable, objectives to be achieved that merit earning points. Tell employees things must be done in an ethical and non-gaming way.
  5. Determine how you will track the occurrence of specific results. Figure out the right things to measure using the right measuring stick to do so. How will you know when an employee has performed the desired results in order to reward them?
  6. Find the right way to measure the desired activity. Measure employee productivity and desired behaviors appropriately. Set up systems, recording methods, reports, and online processes needed to measure your target activities.
  7. Figure out the appropriate reward levels for different actions. Different behaviors merit different point values. You can either reward incremental progress towards an end goal or wait for full task completion or target output reached.
  8. Select meaningful and motivational items for point redemption. Make your reward values match the level or degree of performance done. Also give a wide range of merchandise items to choose from when employees redeem their points.
  9. Ensure activities are done the right way for the right reasons. Points-based reward programs can instill gaming or manipulative behaviors. Tell employees to always do the right things that are aligned with both organizational and social values.
  10. Set up analytic opportunities to mine the point-based reward data. Use advanced analytics to look at your points-based incentive data. Find out why certain activities are happening and prescribe what can be done to make great things happen.

Roy is no longer writing new content for this site (he has retired!), but you can subscribe to Engage2Excel’s blog as Engage2Excel will be taking Roy’s place writing about similar topics on employee recognition and retention, leadership and strategy.

Why Don’t You Have A Recognition Strategy?

You know how surprised I am that the percentage of organizations with a written recognition strategy has actually dropped from 55 percent back in 2017 down to 49 percent in 2019.

I guess the question remains to be answered why this is. And while WorldatWork never asked respondents to answer why they had a recognition strategy or not, the issue needs to be answered. 

I won’t pretend to read people’s minds, but I can tell you from organizations I have subsequently worked with, why they didn’t have a recognition strategy before I worked with them. If you don’t have a recognition strategy, you just might relate with them. 

Check out some reasons below that organizations might give for why they don’t have a recognition strategy. 

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Top 5 Essential Recognition Skills for Leaders

You’ll find plenty of positive recognition practices to become a great recognizer in the many posts in this blog, or within chapters in my book Practicing Recognition, that will help you and the leaders in your organization.

Yet those of you who lead your recognition programs and strive to encourage your leaders to be exemplary recognition givers, influencing leaders to do this important skill can be tough. 

I wanted to dig deeper and draw upon the essential skills that leaders need to develop. What might you coach your leaders on that would help them catch the vision? 

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There’s No Room For Sarcasm When Recognizing People

Sarcasm is also known as verbal irony, and humor often tempers it. It’s a type of speech that has a semantic interpretation opposite to its literal meaning. Too often it is used to say something opposite of what is true, intending to make someone look or feel foolish.

Whatever people say sarcastically should not be taken literally. However, that’s not saying people don’t take it the wrong way. As communication experts will tell you, many people have been on the receiving end of sarcastic comments and it can hurt. 

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Teaching People How To Give Amazing Recognition Takes Time

Is recognition easy to learn? Not necessarily. 

For some people expressing appreciation and recognizing peers comes naturally. But there are a few people where telling others positive things about their actions is both awkward and an uncomfortable experience. 

Teaching your employees how to give meaningful and effective recognition might take a longer time for some of your staff.

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How To Use Technology to Enhance Recognition Giving

There is no doubt face-to-face recognition given in a meaningful and personalized way will always outshine the text-based recognition given through most online recognition programs. 

But can technology driven recognition programs actually enable daily recognition practices?

I will show you some ways how technology-based recognition programs can enhance regular recognition giving where you work. 

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