The dog days are over! That is, if you strategically saved a stash of your PTO for the summer months (AKA: When everybody wants to be outdoors enjoying the sun instead of looking at it from thier desk.) But, if you didn’t, and your employees are in the same boat, you’re in luck. I’ve come up with a handful of ideas to keep you and your team productive when the struggle is real and the drag between the 4^th and Labor Day feels like an eternity. We all know the importance of employee engagement and employee motivation, so I’ll get right to it:

Day-to-day recognition is defined as the genuine everyday expressions of appreciation given to reinforce and reward positive behaviors. Although each dimension of recognition (day-to-day, informal, and formal) is important, day-to-day recognition occurs most often and has the greatest ability to impact employee performance. In this series, we’ll explain how day-to-day recognition can help you create a great place to work, establishing higher levels of employee motivation, engagement, and retention.

Can you believe Baudville was without an HR manager for six months? It seems crazy—mostly, I guess, to those who were trying to maneuver this ship without one. But, if it proves anything, it’s that we are committed to our stance that hiring slow is an onboarding best practice. And, now that we have the perfect candidate in place, we can pat ourselves on the back for our diligence. Whew!

Amy has been with us since the beginning of May—just in time to help reinstitute our summer flex time policy, put recruiting into high gear, and attend SHRM with the rest of the team. If this hasn’t blown her hair back a little, then she must be using Extra Super Hold Aqua Net!

I caught up with Amy recently to see how she’s braving this new adventure, and this is what she had to say: