Always Say Thank You To the People Who Got You Where You Are

There are people in our lives, both past and present, who influence us for good and help us grow and develop.

You might never have taken the path that life offered you without their guidance, inspiration, and support.

Now, the only question remaining is whether you said thanks to any of these individuals for what they did for you.

I won’t pretend I have thanked everyone who has made a difference in my life, especially from the past. But I certainly work on thanking everyone today who has affected me. 

(more…)

This Is What Awesome Recognition Looks Like

Some people seem to be just a natural when they are out and about in the company as far as appreciating people for who they are and recognizing the wonderful contributions made by employees.

There will always be others who have a much harder time in recognizing others. For whatever reasons, such as not being recognized as a child, perhaps more introverted, or plain uncomfortable with knowing what to say or do, recognition doesn’t happen.

But the great news is that giving awesome recognition to people is a skill anyone can learn.

When you know what something hard to do looks like, such as a new skill you have to learn, observe those people that do it well. Then all you have to do is reverse engineer how they do the task or skill and then you can replicate this ideal performance and do it yourself.

What does awesome recognition look like? How can you learn to master this art and science of giving meaningful and effective recognition?

(more…)

How to Get Greater Participation with Your Recognition Portal

You’re excited about your recognition programs portal. You have everything you have asked for over several years of design and development.

Your recognition portal houses a recent peer-to-peer, social recognition program. You can easily access your career milestones program from here as well. The social news feed allows everyone to know about career and personal anniversaries and people can make comments, add replies, and like messages of praise, acknowledgment, and thanks for the great things happening at your company.

And, your supervisors and managers, have access to a performance-based reward and recognition program.  Here they can give rewards accompanied by recognition to employees who go above and beyond in their work.

You launch your new all-access recognition portal. Then it’s crickets.

Your wish is to get more employees and managers involved in effectively using your recognition programs.

Is there anything you can do to invite greater participation with your recognition portal? What are some principles you can apply to make your site more engaging? (more…)

Why Recognition Starts from the Top

ABC Company initiated new recognition programs over a year ago but somehow managers and employees are just not engaging with them. Participation rates are low and there is not much traction yet.

A major healthcare organization knows recognition is very low from reports of the latest employee engagement survey. Trying to get managers to find time to acknowledge their staff has been a real mindset challenge.

In both scenarios senior leadership was weak in leading the way with personally giving recognition and encouraging others to do so.

I will show you how you can get leaders at the top to lead the way with recognition giving. (more…)