I'm not going to tell you that it's all fun & games up here in creative-ville, but every once in awhile, we do get to have a laugh. We certainly did when we were working on the new Positive Praise recognition theme. The Goofy Guy Squeezable Praise became everyone’s favorite new projectile and the Goofy Guy Pens were the perfect remedy whenever things started to get a little too tense.

Having fun at work not only lowers stress and improves morale, it can also increase productivity. I’ve see it first hand in our department, but this WorldatWork article does a great job of backing me up as well.  

If you need to have more fun in your office, our Positive Praise theme is an excellent place to start. Maybe you took the quiz in that link I just posted. If so, let’s see how you scored.

If you answered mostly no, I’m afraid your situation is pretty grave. You’re going to need to take serious measures to increase employee morale. For this, I prescribe:

Totally Wacky

Next in our How-To Recognition series is a focus on our new Happy Birthday recognition theme. Everyone has a birthday therefore every employer struggles with whether or not to celebrate employee birthdays in the office. I shared best practices on celebrating birthdays in the office in our Recognition TV Webisode today, and you can watch the recorded version on Baudville.com or Baudville’s Facebook page. Most of my tips, ideas and best practices are below. 

Celebrate!
The official Baudville stance on birthdays is: celebrate! Birthdays are a great opportunity to let employees know that they matter, you value them, and to foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie. On the other hand, ignoring birthdays can be hurtful to employees. Ignoring a birthday sends a message to employees that the company doesn’t value what’s happening in their life outside of work. Acknowledging employee birthdays, in small but sincere ways, can improve employee engagement and loyalty to the company. 

Yesterday, I read a press release announcing that the Best Western River North Hotel in Chicago is using social media to recognize one of its star employees, Wallace. Wallace has recently been nominated for the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association’s Star of the Industry Award, and a Facebook page was created to support Wallace (and maybe influence the judging!). 

If having a Facebook page dedicated to him wasn’t a big enough compliment, customers quickly filled up the wall with their favorite Wallace stories. Some of the stories were from hotel stays two years ago! Other repeat customers confessed that they stay at the hotel because they want to use Wallace’s extensive knowledge of the city and ability to get the best deals. 

Celebrating birthdays at work can be tricky. Some people love a big production, and others prefer to be more private about their big day. Some managers go all out with for their employees’ birthdays and others aren’t even aware birthdays exist. 

Something as simple as birthday celebration inequities within your organization can hurt employee morale, loyalty and camaraderie. Creating a company-wide birthday program can level the playing field and make all employees feel appreciated and valued on their birthday. 

I found this great article in my reader last week by Career Matters titled, “Are you getting the recognition you deserve at work?” The article got some attention on Twitter after I tweeted the link, so I decided it would be valuable to expand on the topic and deliver it to our Baudville blog readers. 

It’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day routine at work and lose sight of the importance of appreciation. This has been especially true over the last year/year and a half when workloads increased as a result of the decrease in the workforce.  We tend to get so focused on our goals, our projects, our results that we forget to say thank you to the people who help make the results happen.