The other day, I met with a couple gentlemen from the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, one of Baudville’s long time charitable partners. As we were talking, our conversation strayed from sponsorship opportunities to the recognition and appreciation solutions Baudville offers. The guys were in awe of the fun new products we had on display in our Board Room. They especially loved the Exclamations recognition theme and the funny lines on our Pocket Praise cards and gifts. 

As we were talking about recognition, one of them shared a story about a friend’s current work situation; one that I fear is all too common in today’s workplaces. The friend’s organization is trying to do more with less (a common theme in business today), and he was finding more and more work piled on his desk. At the same time, the only communication he was receiving from management was “be glad you have a job right now.” 

Today is Veteran’s Day. It’s a day when people and organizations across the country take time out of their busy schedules to recognize the service of the men and women who served in our armed forces. 

We understand and appreciate the importance of veterans in protecting our country and our freedom, so we honor them by saying thank you and acknowledging their contributions. Veterans and active duty members alike are motivated and inspired by the words of thanks from others. The recognition they receive contributes to the satisfaction they receive from doing their jobs. 

When it’s time to give an employee reward, a tangible gift along with your recognition, deciding what that something should be can be tricky. You want the reward to be memorable and motivating, but how do you achieve that? 

We recently posted a poll on our website asking, what is your favorite employee reward to receive, and the results are in: 

When I was at the HR Southwest Conference, I told many of the HR Professionals who stopped by the Baudville booth how easy it would be to train managers to use day-to-day recognition tools. Last week, I mentioned some of the day-to-day recognition that managers can easily implement in their regular schedule. In this entry, I’ll share some tips for training your managers to use those tools to motivate, engage and retain your people. 

1. Identify desired behaviors. A major obstacle keeping managers from recognizing employees is knowing what behaviors should be recognized. With a team of managers, review corporate values and give specific examples of what each behavior looks like in real life. 

You may have heard about peer-to-peer recognition from a colleague or saw it mentioned on Twitter, but you do know what it is or how it works?