by Diana Southall | Aug 19, 2013 | coaching, rewards
Are you recognizing like YMCA? Let me tell you the “Story of the Black Bead.”
And I challenge you to create your own simple and effective recognition program at your work!
Caring, honestly, respect, responsibility—these are the 4 core values of the YMCA and this organization does a terrific job focusing their program and participants on cultivating this values.
My kids and niece attend a YMCA day camp this summer. Every day, there is a “bead ceremony” where the counselors stand up in front of all the campers and publicly recognize a few who exemplified one of the values, and the camper receives a colored bead (each value has its own color—see below for the list).
Now imagine how a 6-year-old feels when they receive a green bead for showing responsibility today. They feel proud, tell their mom, and do more of the recognized behaviors (pick up toys, stay with their buddy on the field trip) the next day. And then the other campers learn, “hey, if I pick up my toys, maybe I will get a bead, too!” And the culture is built one kid and one day at a time.
What about the black bead?
Last week I picked up my son and he runs over to proudly give me this handmade card (see photo below.)
It reads “to earn the black bead, a camper must display an extreme amount of courage and bravery. Plus they must have a spectacular day. Today, Lindy expresses these qualities while going to battle that he would later to be found as the victor. He battled a bee that was terrorizing the camper lunch. Not giving any thought to his own well-being, he shooed the bee away and saved the lunch. He is forever a hero” AND there was a small dinosaur toy taped to the card.
The story continues that the one and only black bead for the summer has been sitting in the bead jar waiting for just such a brave and courageous camper.
All I can say is “WOW!”
Yes, I am proud that my son was recognized for his heroism but I am also blown away by the creativity of counselor Dominic who took the effort to make up such an award.
Can you imagine the impact if your office had a “bead” ceremony once a month? And what if someone came up with a new (creative, silly) “award” once in a while? Would everyone be tripping over themselves to get those bead by doing the 4 things your organization needs? Just because we are adults, we LIKE recognition too!
Ready to get started, for some ideas, read my blog article “Quick recognition template”
4 Core Values of YMCA:
- Caring (Red): to demonstrate a sincere concern for others, for their needs and well-being. Related values: compassion, forgiveness, generosity, and kindness.
- Honesty (Blue): to tell the truth, to demonstrate reliability and trustworthiness through actions that are in keeping with my stated positions and beliefs. Related values: integrity and fairness.
- Respect (Yellow): to treat others as I would want them to treat me, to value the worth of every person, including myself. Related values: acceptance, empathy, self-respect and tolerance.
- Responsibility (Green): to do what is right–what I ought to do, to be accountable for my choices of behavior and actions and my promises. Related values: commitment, courage, good health, service and citizenship.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by Diana Southall | Apr 23, 2013 | coaching, rewards
Our recent blog post showed that employees desire more appreciation and recognition, so here is a quick template for you to develop your own semi-formal recognition program.
(If you involve your team members in the development process, we will give you bonus points).
•List 3 ABC’s (ABC- attitudes, behaviors and contributions) that would improve your internal team work
•List 3 ABC’s that would improve your customer care
•List 3 ABC’s that support your organization’s core values
•Communicate list of 9 ABC’s to your employees (team meeting? poster on the wall?) and what you plan to do with it
•Make a list of when you can recognize at least one employee publicly for demonstrating one of these ABC’s
•Invite team members to recognize each other when they witness an ABC
•Take one minute to recognize an employee privately if you witness a great ABC
•Schedule and recognize based on your plan
Image courtesy of Maggie Smith at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Apr 16, 2013 | culture, job fit, performance
In a study by the Labor Relations Institute of NY, managers selected what they thought employees valued most, and then asked employees what they valued:
Manager /Employee rank- Job Reward
- 1/ 5- Good wages
- 2/ 4- Job security
- 3/ 8- Promotion and growth
- 4/ 9- Good working conditions
- 5/ 6- Interesting work
- 6/ 7- Personal loyalty to workers
- 7/10- Tactful discipline
- 8/ 1- Appreciation for work done
- 9/ 3- Sympathetic help with personal problems
- 10/2- Feeling “in” on things
You can see that the TOP 3 for employees were listed as the BOTTOM 3 in the eyes of managers. Hmm.. I wonder how much time and effort these managers put into these “bottom” rewards if they consider such each a low priority?
As a specialist in compensation, we regularly visit prospective clients who are convinced that their organization needs to pay more to attract, retain and motivate their team members. (And some of them do indeed have issues with pay below the market or internally inequitable.)
However, if your pay is fair for the work you expect and compared to others in your organization, one of the best investments you can make in building a terrific team is with recognition.
Recognition is practically free and creates an immediate impact such as:
- reinforcing company values
- aligning employee efforts to achieve organizational results
- appreciating specific employee efforts (then they continue to do these)
- modeling what ABC- attitudes, behaviors and contributions are valued (others start doing these)
- creating a positive work environment and culture (as more employees demonstrate the desired ABC’s and are recognized for them)
(Manager Survey Source: Foreman Facts, Labor Relations Institute of NY, 2004)
For a Quick recognition template view our 4/23 blog post
Image courtesy of watcharakun at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Sep 21, 2012 | culture, job fit, performance
Supervisors—you can’t fire yours, but you certainly can leave them…
The topic of the supervisor- employee relationship has been researched and written about since “industrial psychology” started as a field. A recent book title summarize the importance of this dynamic in retaining and engaging employees, “People Leave Managers, Not Organizations.”
How many times did you come home from work and shared your frustration with your manager to friends or family? If this continued, was this a factor in a new job search?
Okay, you say, good supervisors are important, but what is the real impact of a great one? Perhaps you have a few good ones, and few okay ones and only one that is really struggling to connect with her staff and/or achieve important results.
Consider these findings from Zenger Folkman group (see charts below):
- The best leaders had more than twice as many committed and engaged employees
- The worst leaders had more than four times as many employes thinking about quitting
- The best leader’s team had almost twice the customer satisfaction levels
- The best leader’s team in a sales study had almost 10 times (!) the sales compared to the worst leader’s team and about 50% more than the average leader’s team
What makes supervisors “multipliers” or “diminishers”—read Zenger Folkman article that lists the key “fatal flaws” of managers
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by Diana Southall | Aug 2, 2012 | rewards
“Employees expect to be recognized when they do good work. Thanking employees for doing good work is not just common sense, it increases the likelihood that they will want to continue to do good work and serves as a catalyst for attracting and retaining talented employees you and your organization need to be successful.” Dr Bob Nelson.
Dr Bob’s research found that managers who used recognition reported that it assisted them to:
- Better motivate employees (90%)
- Increase employee performance (84%)
- Provide practical feedback (84%)
- More easily get work done (80%)
- Enhance productivity (78%)
- Better achieve their personal goals (69%)
- Achieve their job goals
Our July 31 blog post on feedback mentioned that ideally employees want about 6 praises for every 1 correction.
To ensure sure managers are providing this level of aligned praise, an organization should have a formal recognition program. Back to the Aberdeen report (read 7/31 blog post), 65% of Best companies have a formal rewards and recognition program compared to 46% of the lowest performers (and I will bet you $1 that the Best companies have better alignment of recognition with goal-specific employee activities).
I remember in college I had a supervisor (another student) who would also say “thanks for your help today” but this did not engender any sense of pride or accomplishment— and now I realize why. He did not specifically explain what I did that was good today, and lost the opportunity to encourage goal-specific activity next shift.
What conversation are your managers having with employees and how often?
Image courtesy of nongpimmy at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
