by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – Our physical presence communicates far more about our humanness than we realize. Do you hear it? That little voice constantly in your ear? Not your conscience, but your inner nag? Whose voice do you hear? For me, that inner nag is my grandmother, Bubba. Yes, we call Bubba. We’re Texan.) And most often that inner nag, Bubba voice is repeating the same thing: “Stand up straight! Do you want people to respect you? Posture!”. Turns out, Bubba was onto something. But this isn’t a “fake it ‘til you make it” approach. What does your posture say about you?

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Social recognition can help new employees rapidly feel more connected, engaged, and aligned. The transition to a new job, either at a new organization or just a new department, can be a stressful time. Although new employees are often prepared for the sheer amount of things to learn, they are often far less prepared for the time it takes to ramp up. Part of the challenge is the level of enthusiasm and energy that new employees bring, which can be at odds with the downtime between the initial onboarding activities and achieving full utilization.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – A combination of coaching and social recognition can help consistent performers to realize their potential and reach higher levels of performance. It has become commonplace for businesses to differentiate between high performers, consistent performers, and those who need more development. majority of programs tend to focus solely on high performers, as those who can bring the most value to the organization. Effective organizations though also need to mobilize and develop the largest of these three groups: the consistent performers.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – The best competitive advantage available to all organizations lies in building a powerful, positive, WorkHuman culture. hosted a webinar with Newsweaver (internal communications experts and software) recently. My topic was how social recognition can contribute to driving a company culture and creating better employee communications. Net of it: how, by making a workplace more human, companies can win, big! We can’t, don’t and shouldn’t have to check part of our real human selves at the door when we enter work! Boost the meaning and purpose of work.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Find out what it means to truly WorkHuman. Join us in Orlando to learn more or to share your knowledge. What is WorkHuman? Yes, it’s an event, but that is just one facet of very large diamond. In its fullness, WorkHuman is a movement to change the very way we think about work and our role at work as full, multi-faceted human beings. Here’s the WorkHuman Manifesto: “The mission of the WorkHuman movement is to galvanize organizations and leaders worldwide to create a more human workplace. What does that mean practically? Read the full descriptors and extra tips.).

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – We are all human. Our workplaces, relationships and interactions need to reflect our humanity to help us all deliver more productively and achieve success together. I had the pleasure and honor of speaking again this year at SHRM’s 2015 annual conference. My topic – “The Power of Thanks: Bringing Workplace Gratitude to the Next Level” – involved a wide range through the history of humans at work, most of which was hard labor. For the majority of our history at work, we’ve mostly relied on our muscle for hard, physical labor. Most at SHRM could not.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – The Fourth Industrial Revolution shouldn’t be about preserving our humanity, but letting our humanity guide and direct the revolution and its outcomes. Do you follow news out of the World Economic Forum ? The Forum defines as its mission, “Engaging the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industrial agendas.” This year, one of the overarching topics was: “ Preserving our humanity during the Fourth Industrial Revolution.   We live in an incredible time. Everything about us is under question.”

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Every workplace has a culture for good or ill. Creating a WorkHuman culture requires transparency, resources and evolution over time. One of my go-to blogs for continual learning in HR is Sharlyn Lauby’s HR Bartender. In particular, her post today on corporate culture resonated deeply with me as I’m in final preparations for WorkHuman in Orlando, FL, next week. There’s still time to register here. Use blog code DIBLOG100 for a discount.). In particular, she highlights their three must-haves for a positive workplace cultures – Trust, Freedom and Community.

by Traci Pesch. Recognize This! Peer recognition serves a critical role, but managers must not abdicate their responsibility to notice and praise employees, too. In my role as a consultant, one of my favorite job duties is traveling to client locations to lead and facilitate strategy sessions. Other than missing an occasional volleyball game or school event for my kids, it’s usually fairly easy to handle logistically – unless my road warrior husband also happens to be traveling at the same time. That’s when we bring in the support team – the grandparents. We missed you!

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Leaders must first inspire others to follow of their own accord. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my career, it’s that you can’t just declare yourself a leader and expect others to follow. True leaders inspire others to find the best in themselves to work together to accomplish a goal. And true leaders can be anyone, at any level, not just those that carry a “manager” title. Today, I’d like to share the perspectives of two such true leaders on this topic. Emphasis in the quotations is mine.). Leadership only occurs if people are willing to follow.”.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Appreciation, recognition and praise are powerful means to engage and energize today’s modern workforce. That’s the power of “thanks.” ” In 2014, I worked on many inspiring and challenging projects, but one I am particularly proud of released today – our newest book, The Power of Thanks: How Social Recognition Empowers Employees and Creates a Best Place to Work. labor of love, The Power of Thanks is the latest iteration of research, philosophy and success stories co-authored by Globoforce CEO Eric Mosley and myself. Why does this matter?

by Brenda Pohlman. Recognize This! When recognition and appreciation fully permeate your culture, astounding things can be accomplished, often in the worst of situations. If you ever doubted the power of recognition, consider the military. I’d venture to say that perhaps no institution on the planet is better at recognition than our armed forces. Today is Veterans Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day in many other countries). It’s a holiday near and dear to my heart. Three of my family members are veterans, two of whom are in their 20 th year of active duty. It’s all recognition! Imagine that.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – A social recognition solution aligned to core values helps ensure that those values are lived by all employees and actively managed by leaders. Have you thought about where the core values at your company came from? In all probability, they were developed as a way to successfully drive a specific culture and achieve organizational success. senior leadership team spent a lot of time thinking through all of those relationships and what they wanted the company to be. Far from a straightforward task, developing core values can be challenging.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Budgets must be appropriately established to reach all employees in a differentiated and calibrated way. How should I structure an employee recognition program that will have the kind of impact I’m seeking?”. That has to be one of the most common questions I hear when discussing strategy for a social recognition approach that drives desired culture, engagement, productivity and performance. There are several critical factors for success, which we discuss in depth in Chapter 7 of The Power of Thanks. Think of it this way. So, what is the right level of budget?

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – We spend more time at work than anywhere else (while awake). The space we work in can be a key contributor to engagement, enablement, and productivity. Does your office have an open office plan? More importantly, does that kind of office workspace drive your desired goals? Today on Compensation Cafe I wrote about the mostly negative impact of open offices and how they actually detract from stated goals of increased collaboration, discussion and innovation. The reality is quite different. What kind office space do you work in?

by Lynette Silva. Alcatraz – Inside the Main Cellhouse, CC BY 2.0  – By Daniel Ramirez, Honolulu, USA. Recognize This! Respect is a foundational element of working more human, in any work environment. What’s the most inhumane work environment you can think of? Hard field labor in the blazing sun? Dangerous construction or energy work? After listening to an NPR interview with a Mother Jones reporter who went undercover as a prison guard in a for-profit prison, I’m thinking prison certainly makes the list of potentially the most inhumane work environments.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Social recognition is about creating “winners” who are strong contributors to the organization, not about creating “participation trophies.”. As recognition consultants, a question we sometimes hear is whether social recognition is just another flavor of the “everyone gets a trophy” or “participation medals” mentality. Questioners are often worried that these practices reward employees for just showing up, create an entitled rather than performance-driven workforce, or encourage other negative consequences. Social recognition a part of human experience at work.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – New ways of working rely on collaboration and relationships in addition to individual skillsets. Performance reviews should take this into account. There has been a lot in the news lately as more and more companies have abandoned their traditional performance review processes in favor of both more immediate and more ongoing alternatives. So far, the Fortune 500 players have been leading the charge, and other mid-size and smaller companies are sure to follow. It will be interesting to see which of these crosses the threshold into becoming a best practice.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Shifting away from too much hierarchy, organizations need to emphasize more dynamic and more human ways of working. The pace of changes facing modern businesses is incredible. Many organizations are finding that those changes require an evolution in management philosophy- away from aspects that were successful during the Industrial Era and toward aspects that allow the organization to be more dynamic. One of those groundswell transformations has played out in the very way that many businesses are organized. The way we work is changing. Crowdsourced performance.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Working more human requires we allow our humans to be fully themselves, inside and outside work. You could call me a football fan if, by “fan,” you mean I sit and a read book next to my husband while he watches the Patriots game. But I seem to have picked up more than I realized by this fan-through-proximity method. Being in Patriots country (and a communicator by nature), I’ve noticed how Patriots team members communicate with – or rather, don’t communicate with – the press. Let’s just say the Bennetts don’t hold back on their thoughts and opinions.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Social recognition is a simple, fast solution to ensuring the success of change efforts. One of the broad challenges faced by many of the global companies I speak with comes down to change management. For them, it is not only a question of the ultimate success of a given effort, but also their ability to diffuse those changes rapidly across their global employee base. As markets demand more frequent pivots and increased flexibility, this ability becomes especially crucial. Within such a culture, employees have built a capacity for mobilization and involvement.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Companies can create cultures that encourage meaningfulness through the impact that social recognition can have. One of the more powerful ways to make the workplace more human is through establishing meaning and purpose. For many HR and business leaders, that task can seem abstract and challenging to achieve. On one hand, we all know meaningfulness when we see (or experience) it, but scaling meaningfulness across an entire organization is another thing entirely. Meaning occurs when work impacts others more than just the individual worker.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – It’s the relationships employees form with each other across silos of rank and role that determine the success of an organization. Last summer I chronicled the story of the Market Basket revolt ( here , here , and here ). To summarize, two cousins (both named Arthur, just to keep things interesting) owned the company. Arthur S. DeMoulas (ASD) had 51% ownership and ran the board. Arthur T. DeMoulas (ATD) had 49% and the heart of employees. In short, they fought for the leader they believed in. But here’s the kicker. These were non-union employees. Maybe not.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Successfully engaging your employees instills a loyalty that can prevent company insiders from leaking private information. It seems we hear about more breaches of companies’ customers’ personal or financial information nearly every month. When companies suffer security breaches, costs are significant, but financial losses can be recouped. It’s much harder to recover from the loss of consumer trust and loyalty. Hacks as large as at Sony and this weekend’s at Ashley Madison are suspected as inside jobs. Spend millions in cybersecurity software. Lucy L.M.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Positive feedback has more power than negative criticism for boosting performance. In an article sure to inspire a good bit of negative “kids today!” comments, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article on a “kinder, softer” approach to performance management and the performance review process. Here’s an excerpt: “‘Accentuate the positive’ has become a new mantra at workplaces like VMware Inc., Wayfair Inc., and the Boston Consulting Group Inc., Does that mean we ignore constructive criticism, or – dare I say – negative feedback, when needed?

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – Motivating others takes much more than a platitude hung on the wall. Typically when I see articles titled “How to Motivate Employees” my back goes up a little. Motivation is complex and as much the responsibility of the person you’re trying to motivate as it is you own as a manager or leader. The infographic below (from Business Management Degrees ) is different. It zeros in on the number one challenge for leaders asked to motivate others – first, know thyself. Know your own EQ – emotional intelligence.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – We have the power to increase our own feelings of gratitude and happiness. It’s the US season of Thanksgiving, which is my favorite holiday of the year. Give me an excuse to eat too much and then nap in the afternoon, and I’m on board! I kid. love Thanksgiving because the point of the day is to reflect on all that you are grateful for and, if possible, express that gratitude to others. Sure, it feels good to reflect in this way, and a good deal of research shows how gratitude gives far more than it gets. And that itself is indeed something to be grateful for.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Appreciation is due every day, to everyone. Today is officially “Employee Appreciation Day” – a day that frustrates me somewhat. The intent of the day is good and valid – remind managers to recognize and appreciate those on their teams. And yet, it more often highlights the sad fact that all too often recognition and appreciation is reserved for a special “day” or event. This might not be “Employee Appreciation Day” in your organization. It’s more likely it’s the annual bonus event. Every employee in your organization owns the culture of the company.

by Traci Pesch. Recognize This! LeBron’s latest Nike commercial offers three powerful lessons on what we do, why we do it, and how we deliver results. work out of Cleveland, OH. I am Cleveland born, Cleveland bred, and very Cleveland proud. Just ask any of my colleagues. I’m now infamous for always introducing “Cleveland Rocks” into any opportunity.) Like most Clevelanders, I was excited to hear LeBron – King James – was coming home. And that was good enough. Then, the Nike “Together” commercial hit. Have you seen it? What we do. This is our city. We’ve got to do it for Cleveland. We work hard.

by Traci Pesch. Recognize This! Regardless of role or level, we are all responsible for making work more human for ourselves and our colleagues. “We make work more human.”. What’s your reaction to that statement? Do you cheer along in belief we can and are doing just that? Or do you scoff, saying to yourself, “This is business. We’re here to make money, not happy employees.”? My position is simple. Not only can we make work more human, we must make work more human. In honor of the life that was legend, Muhammad Ali, I support his statement, “Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare.”.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – 85% of Germany’s workers are not engaged or actively disengaged, costing the EU’s largest economy €275 billion each year. often write about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and how being recognized is critical to our sense of fulfillment, hence, our productivity at work. In cultures across the globe, this need for recognition unites us as humans. We may not recognize others in the same way, but the need for thanks is there nonetheless. That’s almost double the amount two years ago. Why is this happening? Engagement is primarily driven by managers.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Hidden influencers are the people that keep your organization running smoothly. Tapping into their strengths can deliver great benefits. Your social recognition program can find them. What do I do? I don’t help companies implement employee recognition programs. partner with company leaders to help them create or strengthen a culture of recognition and appreciation across the entire organization. Anyone who has undertaken culture change can attest that is a heavy burden. And it can’t be done by a project team alone. You need on-the-ground influencers.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Social recognition is well suited to enable business success in response to growing trends in globalization, social networking, and mobile technology. The modern organization has been drastically transformed in recent years by the confluence of three major trends, each of which has had a large impact on how employees expect to interact with one another. Global boundaries have disappeared, social connectivity has become easier, and mobile technologies have enabled both greater freedom and access.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Failing to address disruptive behavior by high-performers can actually hurt overall productivity. Leaders should focus on creating a culture that encourages everyone to contribute instead. What should a leader do when one of their most productive employees is also the most disruptive? It’s a challenging question that gets at the costs versus benefits of retaining that employee. Many of the costs might be difficult to fully measure. Rather, it is about creating a culture and employee experience where everyone can work to their full potential.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – The investments that companies make in employees can be difficult to keep top of mind. Recognition is one solution that communicates the value employees have on a frequent and timely basis. The business world seems to moving faster than ever, challenging employees and leadership teams alike to keep up. These changes are affecting a wide range of HR processes and systems as well. For the sake of argument, I suspect that salary, incentives, and benefits are not top of mind for the typical employee on a frequent basis.

by Traci Pesch. Recognize This! Rubbing elbows with management at company outings might not get you as far as making friends with your coworkers. Summer is the season for company outings. company-wide trip to the amusement park or a community service event. These outings are meant to create bonds with colleagues who usually don’t have the time or opportunity to meet or socialize. There are some who view these outings as an opportunity to let loose and have a day of fun. just believe one chance meeting is not the most likely way to propel your career. Make friends. That’s how you get noticed.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! –WorkHuman isn’t an event. It’s an idea, an action, a movement, a result. I’m back in the office after spending the week at our inaugural WorkHuman event. I am very much on a conference high, deeply influenced and affected by everything we learned about how – together – we can be happier, healthier, more motivated, more engaged in matters most to us, and so much more. What does all this look like? It’s about approaching work differently, and approaching conferences about work differently. Highlight Video of the Event.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Your “Steady Eddie” employees are the people who make it possible for your stars to shine. They deserve recognition and praise, too. If Traci Pesch can blog about her beloved Cleveland Cavaliers , then I can about my own Boston Bruins. moved to Boston more than 20 years ago from West Texas. Needless to say, ice hockey wasn’t a sport we followed where I grew up. But from my first hockey season at Boston University, I was hooked. It’s just such a fast-paced, exciting game, it’s impossible to not get a rush just watching it. In this case, happy tears.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Deep, personal connections with others is what makes us human. How connected are you? No, I mean how really connected are you? To actual people, not Facebook friends or Twitter followers. I ask because this is a growing and troubling illusion in our ever more hyper-connected state. We’re “always on” and sharing far more of our personal selves than seemingly ever before. worry because I’m afraid the illusion of connection in this fashion is overriding the reality of true, deep interpersonal connections. To honor them with our words of praise and appreciation.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Corporate values define how an organization will succeed in the marketplace, but the desirable behaviors underlying those values may change depending on local cultural or job-related needs. In the consulting and strategy work I do with global organizations we strongly advise basing a global social recognition program on the organization’s core values such that all employees, wherever in the world they are located, are demonstrating the same values and associated behaviors that company leadership has determined are critical to organizational success. Second, S.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Core projects can lead to greater happiness and achievement, especially when they are encouraged by the organization and aligned to core values. Recently, more and more attention is being paid to the notion of happiness at work. Once considered too soft, a growing body of evidence from WorkHuman speakers, our own research and from leading academic scholars suggests real and tangible benefits that include greater performance and well-being. So what are personal projects, and what makes them core to an individual?

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Distinctive cultures may grab headlines, but shared values are what make them successful. And every company can achieve success by recognizing values. Imagine for a moment that your own company’s culture is run like a professional sports team. Performers are highly rewarded for their contributions. Everyone else is deemed unnecessary and cut from the roster, to make room for future performers to enter the role. Salaries are all in the top 10% for the respective job roles. Sound far-fetched? In fact, I was reading a recent article on Fast Co. Here’s why.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – Not everyone can be on the starting team, but the A-players wouldn’t achieve great success without a roster of strong B-players behind them. I’m a Red Sox fan. came by my fandom honestly – I married a diehard Red Sox fan in 2004, and so started watching Sox games in self-defense. But what a year to start learning the game!) Lately, however, there’s not much joy in Red Sox nation. It’s been a crushingly brutal year. The one bright spot we have to look forward to is the All-Star Game. In the lexicon of the typical workplace, Holt is “B-player.”.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Investments in employees need to account for value, visibility, and level of contribution to maximize their effectiveness. Social recognition is the ideal solution across all three. One of the challenges that some clients bring to us involves getting the right mix of recognition and other investments in their total rewards portfolio. This is an important question because the strength and duration of some of those investments, especially in the form of incentives or bonuses, has been called into question. Visibility. Level of Contribution.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Caring for colleagues as friends and fellow humans is a primary hallmark of any Top Place to Work. For the third time, Globoforce has been named to the Boston Globe Top Places to Work , which recognizes the most admired workplaces in Massachusetts as voted on by the people who know them the best—the employees. The survey measures employee opinions about their company’s direction, execution, connection, management, work, pay and benefits, and engagement. I can’t say I’m surprised by this as I experience why Globoforce is a great place to work every day.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — We can achieve more efficient, effective work days by eliminating the busy, mundane and unnecessary. It seems we’ve been promised shorter work days due to ever more efficient systems and technologies for decades. Yet those same technologies make it possible for us to work more easily anywhere and, therefore, longer hours. Reigning in the work day may have less to do with the work and more do with how we perceive our responsibilities to work and the company. Regardless, Sweden seems to be trying to find the way by instituting a six-hour work day.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! People drive your culture through the behaviors they exhibit every day. Sure, getting an entire company of very different and unique individuals to align behind your mission is difficult. Even more so is getting them all to behave in the specific ways you or the leadership team have identified as most pivotal to company success. But if an entire country can do it, what’s your excuse? Ron Thomas is a blogger I’ve enjoyed reading and learned a great deal from for many years. As he was told, “Mr. Because that’s the way you behave in Dubai.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – You can’t gain the benefits of gratitude unless you are willing to be more grateful in the first place. I am thrilled with the availability of our newest book, The Power of Thanks. It’s a tremendous tool for anyone looking to change their work cultures for the better. Whether you’re of a more philosophical bent or a “show me the data” type, you can glean valuable insight and information from the book. Fundamentally, The Power of Thanks is a practical tool. magazine. So, what am I grateful for? Here are my top 3 things I’m grateful for at work.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Even after a difficult year, giving employees the appreciation and recognition they deserve is an important bonus. Last Summer I followed the Market Basket grocery store saga religiously. I was captivated by the story of non-unionized employees willing to risk their livelihood to keep their CEO. Here are summary posts about the walkout and the outcome.). After a six week employee walkout and customer boycott, it’s fairly safe assumption the company took a pretty big financial hit. But for the divorced mother of two girls, that bonus is Christmas. That’s all.’”.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Writing down what we are most grateful for can increase our feeling of gratitude and appreciation. Thanksgiving – my favorite holiday! It’s a day all about food, family and gratitude. There’s no commercialization of the holiday, the weather generally cooperates for a nice day (though not this year in New England), and all that good food tends to put people in a good mood, too. But the thing I, well, appreciate about Thanksgiving most is the sharing of gratitude. We make it a point to say what we’re grateful for during or meal. What’s on your gratitude list?

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Organizations need to provide strong links between stakeholders to ensure that all can benefit from the business. The Marketplace radio program is running a feature on “ The Price of Profits ” looking broadly at the purpose of organizations. In a recent installment in that series, the host opens with this question: “Whom do companies serve?”. I’m sure that many of you have a gut answer to that question, whether you believe shareholders, customers, employees or the public good to be paramount. Work today is more complex, interdisciplinary, and interdependent.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! WorkHuman highlighted a new paradigm of organizing in which potential can be unleashed through human connection and empowering work environments. It takes an event as powerful and unique as WorkHuman to be able to hear from Shawn Achor about the power of happiness in the workplace in one keynote, and then to hear from Gary Hamel  in another about why we need to become a little angry to “hack” our organizations around more human ways of working. Although the approaches might differ on the surface, both speak to one basic idea. WorkHuman Click To Tweet.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Your employees are your most likely source for data breaches. Engaged employees are far less likely to be a risk factor. What’s on the list of “top concerns” for your organization? I’m willing to wager that security makes the list and likely near the top. Driving recently, I heard a news story about the switch in thinking in tech companies in recent years. Just a few years ago, the idea of hiring “white hat hackers” to find bugs and security weaknesses was verboten. Now, this type of employee is in high demand. Points of contention quickly emerged.

Guest Post by Don MacPherson. Recognize This! – The root of gratitude is noticing and appreciating how others help us achieve that for which we are grateful. Editor’s Note: In the spirit of recognition and gratitude, especially at this time of year, I wanted to “give the floor” to someone who shows us all – by example – what being truly thankful is all about. Bravo to you, Don MacPherson , President of Modern Survey. You set the bar high!). If you’re reading this, you are successful. If you are like me, you might be a little surprised by your success. You might be in a similar situation.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! –. Numbers have come out recently from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on worker productivity, and the conclusions aren’t all that positive. According to the report , productivity has been on the decline in the US for the previous four quarters at an annualized rate of 0.4%. Yet, number of hours worked over the same period have increased by 1.5%. What’s going on? There are a couple of opinions out there, summarized in a recent post I wrote on Compensation Cafe: One argument is that all of that innovation and technology aren’t doing much to help productivity.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — By giving away to others, we reap far more for ourselves. Did you know humans are irrational? Shocking, I know. Seriously, a book I enjoy is Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational.). mention this today to point you to my post on Compensation Cafe where I unpack a powerful statement made by Harvard Business school professor Francesca Gino in a recent Harvard Business Review article. She references research that shows employees are happier and more productive when they “share their bonuses with coworkers and charities.”

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This!—Alumni Alumni employees are increasingly appearing in candidate pools.  Reminding them of the recognition they received for their contributions to meaningful work is powerful to recruit them back into the fold. Former employees (often called “boomerangs,” but I prefer “alumni”) are joining the applicant pool to return to their prior companies at higher and higher rates.   who left in good standing are already familiar with the organization’s culture, processes, and employees, making their onboarding and achievement of productivity faster.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Deep, meaningful connections are created when we become vulnerable to express our appreciation to others and humbly receive it, too. We are returned from WorkHuman inspired, invigorated, and energized for developing this movement to create and support workplaces where we can bring our whole selves to work, support each other in achieving our best work, and honor our very humanity in how we approach work and life together. As I shared in the kick-off of WorkHuman, we’ve spent the last several millennia trying to beat the humanity out of work.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – “Friendships at work” is not a soft topic. It’s a driving factor in employee productivity, retention and wellness. couldn’t say everything I wanted to about the importance of friends at work in my post on this blog last week , so I continued the theme today on the Compensation Cafe blog. This latest post looks at several recent surveys (from LinkedIn, HRZone in the UK, and Globoforce) showing how friendships and deep relationships at work that drive key business factors – productivity, retention and wellness.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – We all could use more romance at work, when we think of romance in terms of celebrating emotion, the individual, imagination, nature and spontaneity. One of my personal career highs was the opportunity to lead a panel discussion at Work Human last month. The panelists were all authors of tremendous books on various elements of what it means to bring our humanity to work as well as how to notice and support our own human needs to bring our best selves to work every day. Quantify Nothing, and Create Something Greater Than Yourself. read my review here ).

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Work can and should be more than a means to a paycheck. The benefits to us as individuals accrete exponentially with such an outlook. For too many and for too long “work” has meant “a place to get a paycheck and leave as quickly as possible.” ” But work can and should be so much more – fulfilling, meaningful and of value personally. No, our jobs won’t be all these things every moment of every day, but viewing our work in such a way gives us many important physical and psychological health benefits. At all.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! — There’s much difference between feedback, attention and gratitude. All are real needs, but serving different goals. In surprising news to no one, this week is the SHRM 2015 conference in Las Vegas. In fact, RecognizeThis! founder Derek Irvine (and VP of Client Strategy & Consulting for Globoforce) is speaking there today at 11:30 (for those at SHRM, it’s Mega Session: The Power of “Thanks”: Bringing Workplace Gratitude to the Next Level; Westgate Pavilion 2 ). Pay attention to us! ” I couldn’t agree more.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Social recognition is a very powerful means of creating and managing culture, when structured in a considered, thoughtful way. Continuing on my last post , below are the remaining questions asked in our recent webinar about our new book, The Power of Thanks. Download a recording of the webinar.). Q10: How should companies balance positive recognition with encouraging people to offer candid criticism, as well? In other words, is there a risk that focusing on encouraging positive recognition risks silencing negative feedback? Agreed? Agreed. Cultural health?

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – Our humanity is strengthened through the support and care of fellow humans. This weekend, I took my mother to the airport at 3:30 in the morning. While a ridiculous hour to be on the road, I’m grateful. On the way home, the TED Radio Hour was on NPR. Just as dawn was starting to break, I got to listen to Boyd Varty share the South African concept of Ubuntu. Who’s Boyd Varty and what’s Ubuntu? Good questions. Boyd Varty is a South African who grew up on the Londolozi Game Reserve where his role was to “take people into nature.” How powerful. How human.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Internal talent mobility can reinvent the traditional career, but will require a shift towards more flexible solutions like social recognition to be successful. Long gone are the traditional employee expectations of having an entire career play out within a single organization or even within the same functional area. Instead, modern careers are much more kaleidoscopic, comprised of transitions between a number of different employers and increasingly, across functional boundaries as well. How do you think talent mobility would work in your own organization?

by Traci Pesch. Recognize This! Video messages powerfully communicate passion along with important messages, especially when delivered by top executives. One of the best parts of my job is the creative work I get to do with our customers around change management, communications and training. As I’m sure you can imagine, that encompasses a fairly expansive suite of potential materials and mechanisms to get out the message about the Power of Thanks to transform an organization. People pay more attention. That’s even more true for video messages because I know the time investment to create them.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Amazing work is being done by brilliant people around us every day, but it’s easy to miss unless we create more avenues for exceptional effort to be seen, acknowledged and appreciated. Here’s a photo that encapsulates the world we live in today. Email subscribers, click through.). The guy never looked up from his phone throughout the entire breach. Two women at the front of the boat were taking pictures but he didn’t notice.” ” Notice how Eric captioned the picture – “A sign of the times.” Indeed it is. We are busy.

Recognize This! – Frequent, timely, and specific recognition and appreciation are integral to achieving personal, team, departmental and organizational goals in 2015. Every new year brings about a time of reflection, especially on what we want, need and desire in the coming months. By the hierarchy is not so, well, hierarchical. Earlier this week, I shared on Compensation Cafe Maslow’s own opinion, “We have spoken so far as if this hierarchy were a fixed order but actually it is not nearly as rigid as we may have implied.”. How do you view Maslow’s Hierarchy?

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Supporting employees’ needs to rejuvenate or recuperate is an important aspect of how we can WorkHuman. Have you ever “pulled a sickie” (or in American parlance, “taken a mental health day”)? It seems likely nearly all have. recent survey out of the UK relayed some interesting findings about why people pull a sickie. The topic of my post today on Compensation Cafe , the survey found a top reason for taking a fake sick day was simply feeling overwhelmed at work. WorkHuman mental health days total rewards

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Frequent, timely and appropriately calibrated awards can be a more effective means of rewarding employees fairly than mediocre merit increase budgets. Without directly intending it, my last two posts on Compensation Cafe addressed how to keep and reward your top performers in a compensation world where raises seem to be disappearing. In “Where Have All the Raises Gone?” “Merit increases” haven’t really exceeded cost of living adjustments in years. As Ms. How do you keep your best employees?

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – All employees contribute to the success of the company, just maybe not from center stage. I’ve been working in this space at the intersection of people, HR, technology, and appreciation for many years now. In that time, I’ve seen, heard and read many different attitudes and approaches for how to motivate others, how to manage talent, how to rank employees based on skills and performance, etc. As a reader of this blog, I’m sure you have, too. Late last year, Thomas J. DeLong , Philip J. Top players do make enormous contributions. Isn’t that a reality?

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Romance at work is about focusing not on the end goal, but the experience in getting there (and the people we get there with). Today, I’m continuing my series of book reviews in preparation for the WorkHuman panel with the authors on “Unexpected Innovations: Changing How We Think about a Human Workplace.” (Be sure to register and use blog code DIBLOG100 for a $100 discount.). It is possible to be both a romantic and a solid businessperson. In my review of his book, I’d like to start at the end – the Acknowledgements. Now, I love them. Are you?

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Differentiating recognition and rewards for top performers is critical while still allowing for all to participate in the opportunity to be recognized for work well done. intentionally stirred the compensation and recognition pot in my last post on Compensation Cafe. With a title like “An Argument for Unfair Pay,” I’m sure you can imagine the post received several insightful and detailed comments. ” Jim Brennan: “ The Pareto Principle still applies. “ E. K. ” How do you differentiate for top performers?

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Every employee should be contributing to your success. All are deserving of recognition. love my job. Every day, I get to help people find ways to make their work environments and culture more appreciative, grateful and purpose-driven. That’s powerful stuff. Arriving at such an important end goal, however, requires involving all employees in the effort. After all, every employee contributes to the culture of the company (whether good or bad). The ramifications of this are quite broad. Many are calling 2015 the year of the retention challenge, with good reason.

by Brenda Pohlman. Recognize This! Help employees have their best days at work in 2015 by fostering a culture of appreciation and gratitude. On New Year’s Eve my husband and I have a tradition that we’ve been practicing for years. It started with a simple question he asked me over dinner one New Year’s Eve, “What was the best day of the year for you?”. The next year we decided to make lists. We each made a separate list of our “top 10″ days and then compared notes. But over the years the lists have evolved.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – How your employees experience recognition and appreciation for daily efforts and results can determine the success of your organization culture. Is there an easy and quick way to judge the culture of a company and assess potential for future performance? According to David Novak , former CEO of Yum! Brands, yes. Simply look for telltale signs of a culture of recognition and appreciation at work. Investor and portfolio manager James Dodson’s Parnassus Workplace Fund bears this out. The fund regularly outperforms the S&P 500 by 4%.). Great job!”

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Social recognition can help ensure that “alumni” employees turn prior positive experiences into benefits for their former companies. Today’s employees will rarely spend their entire careers at a single organization. Instead, they will have multiple employers and potentially even multiple careers. One of the chief benefits of this trend is the expansion of professional networks that “alumni” of a company possess as they move throughout their careers. The most powerful drivers, like moments of recognition, will be able to touch upon both simultaneously.

by Lynette Silva. Image: Wikimedia Commons. Recognize This! When all employees are encouraged to plan, communicate and fight for the ideas they believe in, success goals are more easily reached. Nepotism seems to be the obvious punch line to workplace jokes like this one : “One employee to another employee: ‘When the boss’ son starts working here tomorrow, he’ll have no special privileges or authority. Treat him just as you would anyone else who was due to take over the whole business in a year or two.’”. the founder of NASCAR. It was a great learning experience. In Ms.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Surprises happens. Our connections with others help us better enjoy the good surprises and weather the bad ones. love my job. know I’m lucky I get to say that. Why do I love my job ? Lots of reasons, but at the top of the list is the people I get to work with every day – both my colleagues at Globoforce and the customers who enrich every project I’m involved in. It’s those intimate connections with people and what we learn, do and achieve together that make work fun. That’s why I’m excited about the upcoming WorkHuman conference. June 8-10, in Orlando, FL.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Nonfinancial metrics are increasingly used in compensation formulas; recent research and trends in crowdsourced data may improve the value of these trends. Getting compensation formulas right can be challenging, ensuring that leaders maintain a balanced focus on short-term results as well as long-term value creation. Traditional levers in those formulas have been in the form of various financial metrics. Companies are also increasingly turning to nonfinancial metrics as well, to reflect more of a balanced scorecard approach.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – You don’t have to be manager of people to be a leader of people. To lead, relate to other’s needs and always remember where you came from. recently had the opportunity to speak at the Evanta Chicago CHRO summit. It was an honor to be a part of a tremendous roster of industry leaders and speakers. Case in point – Harry Kraemer who kicked off the event at the governing body dinner. took away 5 key lessons and reminders from both Harry’s talk and his book, summarized here. 1. Understand the Key Characteristics of Leaders. Identify and Avoid “Those Guys”.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – As we prepare for the WorkHuman event next week, I am looking forward to the shared inspiration that the movement has created. As many of you know, next week is the main event of the WorkHuman movement , where we will bring together a full slate of amazing speakers, thought leaders, academic researchers, and industry influencers. personally can’t wait for the rush of inspiration and energy that will come not only from the speakers themselves, but from everyone in attendance actively looking for ways to make work more human. We’d love to meet you in person.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Accountability requires a clear mental map for achieving results. Recognition enables everyone to share that same map. How do I get my people to be more accountable for results?” is the essential question from a recent post over at Harvard Business Review. It’s the kind of question that usually follows some type of failure at work. Someone misses a project deadline or comes in over budget. Forecasted performance goals go unmet. suspect systemic accountability problems actually have to do with a lack of clarity and coherence. Here’s why.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – As work roles become more fluid, compensation needs to transform to include solutions that are more social, dynamic, and engaging. came across an interview with Tony Hsieh the other day, as I wrote recently in this post on Compensation Cafe , where he was describing the experiment of holocracy at Zappos and what the implications were for HR practices. One interesting comment stood out when he described his thinking on how compensation was being transformed. That sounds pretty cutting edge! What is your take on how compensation is or should be transforming?

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — A fundamental skill for any manager of people is how to communicate clearly, honestly, and appropriately. Understanding. Purpose. Meaning. Value. All are critical parts of a creating a WorkHuman environment in the workplace. All are elements of communication. would argue every manager of people must be a proficient communicator or willing to  become so. There are many reasons why communication skills are important, but today I point you to my post on Compensation Cafe and a study of 71,000 employees completed by PayScale.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – We all have a responsibility to pay attention, encourage and support our colleagues as we become excellent together. Above and beyond – that’s a common theme for what types of employee contributions should be recognized. And it’s a good theme. This is so important to some of our clients that they’ve even branded their recognition programs “Above and Beyond.”. But what about “completely different?” Or “entirely outside of the job description?” And then there are people like Charles Clark, custodian at Trinity High School in Euless, TX.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Service anniversaries are so much more than a certificate, crystal or pin. They are the sum of the relationships and experiences of those years. Today is my seven year anniversary with Globoforce. My husband is stunned. My prior record for tenure in my career is half that. But I love what I do, who I do it for, and – most importantly – who I get to do it with. It’s those close, personal, deep relationships with the people of Globoforce that have made the last 7 years seem like 7 weeks, and leave me hoping for decades more. And we DID!!! My poor husband. Years!

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Competencies are one example of how organizations can achieve simplicity by paring down and leveraging everyday practices. I was thinking recently about how simplicity can be applied to improving the human experience at work. The idea grew from Josh Bersin’s report on creating irresistible organizations. In this report, he describes simplicity as fundamental, involving “the removal of formal bureaucratic overhead” while favoring “trust, autonomy, and a focus on cooperation.” As I thought more about it, there is an additional aspect of simplicity to point out.

By Brenda Pohlman. Recognize This! — Does your service anniversary program suffer from low expectations? Set loftier goals as the first step in adopting a modern approach that delivers results. Service anniversary recognition doesn’t typically make the news. So the recent story involving an absentee employee in Spain who was exposed by a long service award got my attention. As reported by El Mundo , the employee had been absent from his municipal job for six years while still on the payroll. The topic of anniversary program benefits is a curious one. Click To Tweet. Consistency.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Trends are often captivating, but it takes a unified vision to see how they all can fit together to work for you. If you are anything like me, you enjoy the articles of trends to watch in 2016, what HR should look like in 2020, and what the blue chips are up to. There are so many interesting ideas, it can be hard to know what to pay attention to, let alone what might be a fit for your own organization’s style, culture, and strategy. In a Perfect World…. Imagine you are given free rein as an HR professional for your company over the next year.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — Pressing pause gives employees time to reflect on their own work and the work of everyone around them. Social recognition brings power and frequency to those pauses. A new year, a new chance to buckle down, focus on priorities and get to work – right? Actually, now may be a good time to pause, sit back and reflect instead. In my post today on Compensation cafe, I explain why. These are the same principles behind everything from mindfulness  to leadership and high-potential development.

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! Trying to do more, better, faster actually leads to accomplishing less, at lower quality. Finding true balance between work, love and play makes us all more productive, happy, and healthy. I can’t remember the last “business” book that made me ride a roller-coaster of emotion as I read, unable to put it down. That’s precisely how Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time (written by award-winning Washington Post journalist Brigid Schulte ) made me feel. Why are these myths so terrible? Indeed, we’ve never needed more the idea of “WorkHuman.”.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — The combination of pay and recognition drives the greatest reward for employees – of all abilities and levels. Is unfair pay a good approach to workplace transformation? Laszlo Bock, legendary SVP of people operations at Google, advocates for it as part of his “10 things to transform your team and your workplace,” which was my topic of discussion earlier this week on Compensation Cafe. On Compensation Cafe, I also draw attention to another tip that takes first place on Mr. Bock’s list – “Give your work meaning.”

by Lynette Silva. Recognize This! – It’s time to deliver on the promise of positive work cultures through the Power of Thanks. Today is the day when pranksters push the boundaries of acceptable office “humor” – from wrapping an entire cube in tin foil (actual photo from our office today) to less funny and potentially more harmful pranks that can negatively impact others (Ex-Lax brownies come to mind). But those aren’t the worst pranks. No, the truly terrible are those that most employees endure every day in workplaces around the world. They are: “Our employees come first.”.

Recognize This! - You can’t give all employees promotions, bonuses, or raises. They become an expectation and it’s a very poor use of budget. Social recognition, however, can be applied to all. My post this week on Compensation Cafe was triggered by it being “the season of giving.” ” Many companies distribute annual bonuses around the holidays, leading me to ponder the best time and use for bonuses as well as the other major reward methods of promotions, raises and, of course, recognition.

By Derek Irvine. Recognize This! Companies that emphasize cultures of contribution rather than hours spent at a desk are better positioned to achieve success. Everyone seems to be much busier these days, rushing between meetings or from project to project, with even less time being spent away from work. It can seem like being busy has become a competition. Recent data has started to confirm some of these perceptions, that the number of hours worked has become a symbol of status and prestige. What exactly is that? As a result, employees are more likely to ask themselves “What value can I bring?”

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – To be effective, recent research suggests incentives are best paired with recognition. Whether or not incentive programs are effective has been a long standing question, spanning multiple academic disciplines. Some point to studies demonstrating the motivational potential of performance incentives, while others point to a “crowding-out” of intrinsic motivation when incentives are present. Given the data that has amassed on either side of the debate, where do we stand today? Some recent research may help shed light on this question.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! – Employees choose to give more and behave in desired ways based on the environment they are being asked to engage in. Employee Engagement Is Dead! Long Live Employee Engagement! What sounds like a non-sequitur may not be. Last week on Compensation Cafe I blogged: “Is Employee Engagement Moot in Today’s High Stress Work Environments?” ” in which I reflected on the seeming stagnation of employee engagement stats in the research across many organizations. argue: No, the error lies in how we are  pursuing  employee engagement.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — No single approach to meeting employee needs serves all employees all the time. Typically, I’m not the type of person to keep score. Then an article in Huffington Post about a SCORE acronym for what matters most to employees caught my eye. Click over to Compensation Cafe for the full post and why I disagree with the author’s assertion that Stability and Compensation are less important to high-performing employees than Opportunity, Responsibility and Environment. Read the post for the rest, and tell me your take in comments.

by Derek Irvine. Recognize This! — WorkHuman, The Power of Thanks, and many more exciting developments from 2015 lead to a promising 2016 to come. 2015 has been a whirlwind year of exciting launches and new beginnings. As we look forward to 2016, I’m pausing to look back at some favorite 2015 RecognizeThis! posts and the memories they spark. WorkHuman – the highlight of my year. This movement marks a watershed in how we think and talk about people in the workplace. As I shared in the kick-off of WorkHuman, the opposite of saying “thanks” is saying nothing at all.