Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding starving children around the globe.  The success of the organization is due to its fun and easy approach; school-aged children and adults pack meals formulated by food scientists for starving children.  Once the meals are packed, they’re sealed, boxed and stacked on pallets ready for shipment.

FMSC sends meals all over the world, including El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua, to name just a few. We learned how our 2 hours of effort can change the lives of hundreds of children.   At the end of the day, we were able to feed 33 children for one full year!  It was truly an amazing experience. 

What is your organization doing to support social responsible initiates?  Please let me about.

The group’s demographics might surprise you.  You might picture college age, male – well, guess again.  70% of this group is 30 or older, 56% female, household income is $2000 higher then the average online consumer, and their level of engagement is sky-high!

To me, the biggest shock is the number of online consumers who are NOT using social media, which is down to 17% and dropping at a quick rate. Are you using social media to its full potential to reach possible clients?

As we all know, social media is a successful way to market your business.  It’s a great way to expand your blogging efforts, gain exposure to your products and services or find a new salesperson for your organization.

For example, consider Ford using social media to promote a new Fiesta model.  They invited dozens of social media users (with a specific demographic, of course) to live with the car for six months. Not only are they receiving valuable feedback, but they are also building a broader awareness of Ford.  This really shows Ford cares about what their customers (and potential customers) think.

Or retail chain Target’s charity campaign.  The company launched “Bullseye Gives” an online voting application on Facebook.  Users select one of the ten charities listed they would like to see funds allocated to.  The money is given out on percentages; 10% of the votes gets 10% of the money. Because these social media applications are so smart, the vote is published on your Facebook feed which means your friends will see it – and more and more will become fans of Target.  Very clever!

How can social media campaigns work for you?  What are your organization’s strategies using social media?

Everywhere you look companies are slashing budgets, but you can still make the sale.  How do you handle that less than desired answer “We don’t have a budget for that.”  You want to make sure your sales people have the right focus.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers” (March 2009), by using provocation-based selling, they persuade customers that the products or solutions you bring to the table are not just nice, but necessary.  How do you change your existing sales force to this new way of thinking?  Recognize them for making the transition to the new desired tactics.

Here are 3 steps provided by the Harvard Business Review that you can do to ramp up your sales force.

1. Identify a critical problem facing your customer, something so large that the company will locate the funds.  Ask yourself “What is keeping the CEO up at night”?
2. Bring a new perspective to the problem; use research and brainstorming to create a new view for the problem.  For example, you are thinking X, and maybe you should be thinking Y.
3. Target the executive to lodge the provocation with someone that has the power to approve it.  Many of the executives you and your sales force have forged relationships with are no longer there, but you can motivate those new contacts by using provocation-based selling.

Of course, this approach is not going to happen overnight or be the answer to all selling situations, but it can shine a new light on age-old selling problems. It can get everyone thinking in the right direction.

No matter what your sales strategies are for 2010, it is most important to reward those sales people who are creating innovative solutions and those who break new sales barriers. Take a look at my white paper, “Impact Your Bottom Line Now, Build a Culture of Recognition.”  Creating a culture of recognition can and will impact your sales people by creating engaged and motivated employees.

What are your strategies to increase sales within your organization?  Does it include recognition? I would love to hear your thoughts.

I would like to sincerely thank my clients for your continued partnership and to congratulate you for staying so focused on your goals. Thank you for being an advocate for your company employees, channel partners, and keeping your corporate vision top of mind. 

This is a great time of year to recognize and thank each of your staff members for the things they do well.  It is also a good time to recognize the outstanding and innovative energy they put into your company.  Appreciate your staff with recognition.

I recently reviewed the McKinsey Quarterly Survey (June 2009) which stated three non-cash motivators – praise from immediate managers, leadership attention, and the chance to lead important projects – are viewed as motivational as the highest rated financial incentives – cash bonuses, increases in base pay, and stock options. These findings show how powerful non-cash recognition is, and it’s as simple as saying thank you! 

This Holiday Season, thank your team for their hard work and diligent efforts.  Showing appreciation will play a critical role in making your employees feel that you value them, take their well-being seriously, and strive to create opportunities for their career growth.

What are you doing to show appreciation within your organization?

We have had a great year and are looking forward to an even better 2010!

Thank you!

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. 

 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!

A recent poll completed in the performance improvement industry surveyed more than 1,000 employees about rewards preferences. It turns out there’s a significant gap between what they want and what they’re getting.

Here are some suggestions that grew out of the survey:

1. Give participants the choice. What floats your boat might not float theirs.

2. Place an emphasis on variety.  The poll found two-thirds of employees say that their company needs to offer greater options when it comes to how they reward employees.

3. Make the rewards rewarding. It’s an important factor in retaining excellent employees and for improving performance.  Offer items that have lasting trophy value.

It is so important to provide choice and variety.   Every employee is unique, and one size does not fit all in employee rewards. Provide a selection of rewards to accommodate all employees. At Anderson Performance, we offer over 4500 items in our catalog; well above the industry standard.  Trying to guess what a person will find rewarding is like trying to forecast the weather.

And, people everywhere embrace the opportunity to extend kindness. This trend is especially true with Generation Y; they are civic-minded and socially conscious as individuals, consumers, and employees. This is a true testament of why choice and variety is so important.

Recently, we have added a selection of socially responsible rewards to our offering. These items are unique and creative, and are manufactured by a variety of social enterprises whose sole mission is helping disadvantaged men and women learn new skills, become self-sufficient, and improve their lives. The selection includes gourmet chocolates made by smallholder cocoa producers in West Africa, beautiful jewelry created by mountain villagers of Guatemala, and scented soaps and spa products handcrafted in a transitional job program for at-risk women in Chicago.

What are some unique rewards you have seen?  We would love to hear your feedback.

You might ask yourself, what is transparency and why is it so important?  According to Business Dictionary.com, the term transparency means the availability of full information required for collaboration, cooperation, and collective decision making. In a nutshell, honesty and openness. 

The Anderson Performance team decided to change our technology with a new platform and infrastructure.  This enabled our clients to have access to a full range of tools and information via filterable reports with the capability of downloading data. At the time, this data was only accessible by our internal IT department. Even a simple data pull was costly for the client.

This change would ultimately benefit our current and future clients by reducing costs and adding the ability to change their platform immediately. Whether it was launching a new incentive or posting a new quiz or survey, the tools were available at any time. But our team was not happy.  They felt our customers did not want a “self-service” tool.  They could see how it would benefit our smaller clients, but felt nothing would change with the larger clients.

Long story short, change started to take place quickly.  Companies took the reins and administered 100% of their programs. We implemented quarterly strategy meetings to look at how they could innovate and improve even more. What happened inside our company was transparency. Showing our employees, from the beginning of the process, the new model and the projections associated with staffing changes was key.  We had open conversation about what our employees really wanted to do and how they should continue to invest in their skills.  We offered assistance to anyone with resume review or training that would expand their skill base.

Using transparency returned a measurable increase in productivity and some very innovative ideas.  Change can be stressful, but properly channeled it can be the stimuli for improvements of all kinds.

What is your organization doing to promote transparency? Are you rewarding individuals who are exhibiting examples of transparency?

Many companies (mostly mid size, 4000+ employees) for the first time are seeking a rewards and recognition partner. These companies have been running programs themselves for years. Unfortunately, they never took the time to formalize their recognition efforts, and quite possibly, many programs were running throughout their organization at the same time.   Not only were results improperly tracked, ROI was not on target.  Talk about throwing money out the window! 

While good companies realize the importance of motivated employees, they are also looking for cost savings and value. Organizations are looking at what is being spent annually and are realizing a centralized recognition system would save thousands.  An experienced partner can assist with powerful online reward and recognition tools, allocating funds, budget creation, and ROI tracking.  Check out the 2009 Circle of Excellence Award winners.

Also, a variety of players in the marketplace are morphing and changing.  Many of those who specialize in years of service, travel options or trophies are now expanding their horizons.  Not only are they providing their existing products and services, they are now offering a more complete array of services.  Goes to show this marketplace is changing just like any other industry in this economy. 

Another interesting take away from the show was the huge impact of green and socially responsible award suppliers.  More green and socially responsible “products” are appearing as reward choices.  And the Gen Y group is the number one fan!

If you attended The Motivation Show, I would enjoy hearing your thoughts and feedback.

Each year, as we have receive this honor, it gives me the opportunity to again recognize and thank each one of my staff for the outstanding and innovative energy they put into our company; they are the ones that make the company what it is.  Thank you TEAM!

To make the list, HRO Today explores market trends, examines case studies, and analyzes actual customer feedback collected through an online survey of more than 300 active recognition customers. Then, an overall index is compiled using data ranging from quality of service, scope of service, and size of business relationships to determine the top companies.

I believe there are several reasons why my team at Anderson Performance continues to shine each year in the performance improvement marketplace. 

1. We work with each of our clients to provide them with the right tools to use recognition with their employees/dealer distributor partners to keep key company strategies and values top of mind. Recognition is so powerful!
2. We understand there are cultural differences; our awards are culturally appropriate and fulfilled globally.  Our awards are sourced and shipped directly from the country of order origination.
3. My team understands and focuses on delivering a good Return on Investment for our clients. A rewards and recognition program is an investment and we understand that.  Our process has “checkpoints” throughout the program to ensure maximum ROI. 
4. We know our audiences! Our award selection is generational appropriate. We have the “right” reward for all generations: Baby Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y.  Choice is the number one motivator! Currently, we have over 4000 items in our online award selection.
5. Our clients are happy! Our customer feedback is what gets us on this list year after year.

My staff makes offering rewards and recognition simple and easy by using one platform that can do it all.  Our online platform is all encompassing! If you want to run a program for sales, peer-to-peer recognition, or tackle a little of everything, our flexible online tool along with our talented staff can do it.  Take a look at the full story.  I’d love to hear your feedback!