Why You Should Keep Length of Service Award Programs Going

One of the common decisions senior leaders make with length of service awards is their perception that they don’t produce any measurable return for the organization, is dropping them completely. 

This rationale of career milestone awards not impacting performance numbers and results has been around for many years. 

However, there is definitely an impact made when you give these awards. So, what benefits are there from continuing with milestone recognition? Should you keep going with length of service award programs?

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6 Ways Leaders Can Make Your Award Events Shine

I think leaders underestimate the great value employees place in their presence at employee award events. Their genuine charisma and celebrity-like status truly add to employees’ feelings about attending award ceremonies. 

Consider the following pointers that your leaders can do to make award events shine. 

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What About Celebrating Birthdays and Anniversaries?

Do you celebrate birthdays and work anniversaries at your organization?

It is an interesting question.  

Some organizations are for it while others are not. 

Organizations using online recognition programs usually have options in their programs for employees to turn on or off the ability for people to know when their birthday or work anniversary occurs. Or, if they allow visibility, when someone sends them a congratulatory eCard greeting, employees can still keep it private between the recipient and giver or make it public to everyone. 

And then there are managers who think celebrating birthdays and work anniversaries is like something done only back in high school. At least, that’s the line they are saying to excuse themselves from celebrating their staff. 

How do you handle these situations around personal and work celebrations? 

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How To Celebrate From A Distance

Yesterday, I celebrated my birthday with my family from a distance.

Families sang happy birthday to me via FaceTime or sent unique greetings like the JibJab Happy Quarantine Birthday with my face and my children’s faces imposed on dancing animations. 

All the families surprised me in the evening with a Zoom video conference get together and playing 3 rounds of the smartphone app game called Psych. Highly recommend this if you haven’t played it with a group of people yet.

My one granddaughter had made cookies and her Mom put a single birthday candle on the cookie and I virtually blew it out as she blew it out. However, she ate the cookie!

Now that’s what happened for me to celebrate a birthday. 

What can you do to celebrate your employees’ career milestones virtually? How do you celebrate employees who make a difference or for significant achievements from a distance because of the COVID-19 pandemic?

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How To Leverage Recognition to Promote Diversity and Inclusion

Recognition is probably one of the best strategies you can use to promote diversity and inclusion.

I will explain why and how to leverage recognition to support diversity and inclusion.

Recognition should be a way of life in your organization and not just a programmatic offering. If this is the case where you work, then appreciating people for who they are and recognizing them for what they do will be the great equalizer.

Look at some inherent problems we create for ourselves with recognition that is not diversity minded or inclusive.

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5 Special Ways To Relive Your Recognition Moments

The act of expressing recognition to a person or giving a tangible acknowledgment of appreciation can be such a quick and fleeting action.

Rarely do these exchanges of emotion and feelings last very long.

If you are not careful you can lose the impact of the whole recognition experience.

You should strive to capture these recognition moments in as many forms as possible. Then the recipient of recognition can relive their recognition moment over and over again.

Your goal is make every recognition experience a keeper. (more…)

And The Winner Is…Handling Award Mistakes With Grace

For a long time I’ve shared the Oscars award process with people for different examples of how people might look at their own formal, best-of-the-best, award programs.

After 89 years of increasingly lengthy, and sometimes boring awards events, the Oscar bubble of perfection was finally burst last nights with a big snafu. It became apparent when Warren Beatty read the wrong Best Picture winner as ‘La La Land’ when in reality the movie ‘Moonlight’ won.

Yet, the Oscar Awards Ceremony still stands as an example of how you can handle mistakes even at a major awards event like the Oscars.

Let’s examine the mistakes more closely, look at how everyone handled the situation, and see what lessons we can all learn from this Oscar-level error. (more…)

Here’s How To Create Really Meaningful Celebrations

Have you ever received an award or some tangible recognition and felt it was a totally rushed experience? Or maybe you felt the recognition was not even representative of what you accomplished?

When these things happen it doesn’t make you feel very recognized because you were not celebrated in a meaningful way.

In this post I will show you how to ensure the awards and other recognition you give to employees are meaningful and celebratory for each recipient. (more…)

How to Make Career Milestones an Experience to Remember

Celebrating an employee’s career milestone is a big deal to them and should be to you. But many organizations struggle with how to acknowledge people’s length of service with the company.

I am going to show you how to honor your employees or colleagues for their career milestone the right way.

Follow these 4 P’s and you’ll turn any award presentation into a memorable celebration.

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