Recognize Right Blog: Unlock the People Potential in Your Organization

Recently, one of my clients approached me regarding the post-recession job market and what he can do to keep his employees engaged. Historically, once a recession has ended, many organizations experience a retention disaster.  What can you do to keep your top players on your team? 

According to Personneltoday.com, a retention warning comes as new figures reveal more than one-third of workers want to change their careers once the economic crisis is over. Did you know every new head you have to hunt and hire costs somewhere between $2,000 and $100,000 to get them oriented, trained, and engaged? Why do so many want to jump ship? They do not feel they are recognized adequately for their work.

How can you stop this from happening?  How can you stop your company from being a statistic?  It’s as simple as “Thank You.”  Take the time to recognize others – it will make a difference in your organization. Enable your organization so everyone can recognize others systematically; there are online recognition systems, like ours, that are easy and effective.  These tools allow peer-to-peer recognition, the ability for managers to recognize “on the spot”, and for the entire company to administer a years of service program.

Thank your top performers for a great year and everyone else who improved.  Recognize them for leadership, collaboration, documentation; this will give everyone a chance to be recognized. Celebrate what is working, don’t focus so much on what hasn’t.

This is the perfect time to create a culture of recognition. Statistics show companies who recognize their people outperform companies that don’t by 30 to 40 percent. Recognition leads to happy, motivated, and engaged employees, and that adds to the bottom line – both in employee retention and net revenue.

What is your organization doing to hold on to your key players?  I would love to hear your feedback. 

Recently I viewed a video on YouTube about changing behaviors using “fun”.  It’s called the Fun Theory (www.funtheory.com). The video goes to show making something fun is one of the most effective ways to change people’s behavior. To prove this point, they took on the challenge of getting people to take the stairs instead of an escalator when exiting a high-traveled metro station. The solution is brilliant; the stairs have been transformed into a giant piano, making music at each step, to the great amusement of daily commuters. The best part is they are getting exercise without even knowing it.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw

This really goes to show that making something fun will change someone to do something.  Whether it’s changing a behavior with your sales team or increasing physical activity, instituting fun can make it happen.

Currently, we have a health and wellness program for our employees.  To participate, everyone wears an electronic pedometer device that tracks the number of steps and total minutes of activity daily.  Once you enter the office, data from the previous day is automatically entered. It’s fun to see your actual activity level as well as hear what others are doing.  And it’s amazing to see the increase in everyone’s movement while having “fun”.  We have daily “walking meetings” and quarterly we have a team challenge. Everyone is asked to set a personal goal and if / when we reach our goal, we celebrate with a fun activity – bowling, golf, etc.     

What type of “fun” is being initiated at your organization? We’d love to hear your ideas!