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When you work in a department with a fixed budget for people processes it can be difficult to get granted more of what you need without a good argument. Recently we were speaking with a client who, in part, said: “…originally we had thought we didn’t have the budget for our employee recognition program, but after careful consideration, we realized we couldn’t afford NOT to have the program in place.”

What exactly did he mean by this? This got us here at Qarrot thinking, what are the reasons it makes more financial sense to have a program for employee recognition? Are rewards not enough?

Employee recognition when done well can have an extremely positive return on investment. Here are 5 areas of your business that can be negatively affected without recognition.

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Engagement

Employee engagement, or the commitment your employees have to your organizational goals is the biggest area of concern. The topic of employee engagement gets a lot of attention in HR departments, with team leaders and management in general. When employees become disengaged, their productivity lowers, meaning they don’t invest as much effort into their work. This can have a costly impact on revenue generation, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. When you focus on recognizing employees for their contributions and accomplishments, you boost morale and motivate better work creating a healthier overall work environment for employees.

Retention

Your ability to retain good employees is critical. Not only is recruiting and onboarding expensive, but high turnover impacts the morale of the remaining employees, causes lost productivity and organizational knowledge. If employees don’t receive regular recognition, chances are they will feel underappreciated. An unappreciated employee could feel they don’t offer value to their organization and eventually move on to somewhere they are recognized for their efforts. Manager recognition and peer-to-peer recognition should be an ongoing practice. Similarly, if an employee doesn’t receive regular constructive feedback from their manager, they may think their time and effort isn’t appreciated, or worse, worth it. Employee recognition fosters appreciation and can go a long way to retaining the employees you have.

Recruiting

Recognition programs do more than just recognize the value an employee offers through their work, they also reinforce how an employee lives the values established by your company culture. This creates a sense of loyalty amongst your employees and makes them more likely to respond favorably when opportunities for advancement are offered. This works well with your succession plan. What’s more is that when you encourage a culture of appreciation, the importance of behavioral recruiting becomes evident. Hiring the best candidate based on both performance and culture-fit helps ensure they will enjoy working with your company longer.

Motivation

Lack of recognition can dampen motivation and is a factor in employees becoming disengaged. Employees who have been recognized for their positive behavior are more likely to exhibit those behaviors again. Incentivizing achievement through recognition can go a long way in motivating an employee to bring their best efforts to work each day. Employees appreciate when their efforts are recognized. This open dialogue also encourages communication, inspiring employees to offer their ideas and suggestions. Innovative and collaborative cultures are breeding grounds for enthusiasm. Enthusiastic employees are highly motivated to set and achieve goals, both for themselves and the company as a whole.

Sales

Employee recognition programs with leaderboards play directly to the competitive nature of the sales environment. Offering incentives such as prizes or rewards to motivate sales teams is a common practice in many organizations but fiduciary recognition isn’t the only motivator in a sales department. Anyone can sell some of the time, but successful sales departments have to perform consistently. One bad month can kill overall company profits and send your shareholders into a tailspin. Recognizing sales achievements and employees that meet or exceed their goals is the best motivator there is.

In short, not recognizing your employees’ milestones can affect an organization's bottom line in a variety of ways. Disengaged, unmotivated, uncommitted employees who do not feel valued will never give you their best work no matter how much you reward them. While rewards can certainly provide short-term motivation, they do not generally drive long-term engagement.

Your best option is to develop a recognition program that combines both rewards and recognition. Ready to see how our Qarrot can help boost your organizational success?‍

Book a demo or download our Guide to Launching Your First Employee Recognition Program.

Recruiting, onboarding and training is an expensive endeavor for all those involved. Some studies predict that the cost of employee turnover can be as high as twice the annual salary of the employee, depending on their role. When you lose an employee, you lose their knowledge and talent, plus your organizations' productivity can suffer from the loss. So how do you reduce turnover? By developing and implementing an employee retention strategy.

Building A Retention Strategy

An employee retention strategy will never entirely stop employees from leaving your company as a certain percentage of turnover should always be expected. What an employee retention strategy can do is prevent, or control, employees from leaving in an untimely manor due to disengagement, monotony, or out of sheer frustration.

A good retention strategy includes all aspects of your hiring process, your compensation plan, and your engagement strategy which includes your employee recognition programs and encouraging better manager-employee relationships.

Here are a few areas to look at when building your retention strategy:

Recruiting

Many companies treat their retention strategy as an afterthought to recruiting, but thoughtful hiring will prevent resentments about the job from starting in the first place. Qualifying candidates on more than job experience alone can better ensure the right candidate is hired. Career paths and development for long-term growth with the company is also a factor. Many candidates will leave a position once they realize there are no options for advancement.

Compensation‍

It's true that compensation is a factor in retention, but it is also important to note that it is not the most important one. A good compensation strategy includes everything your company offers as payment in a total rewards package: benefits, bonuses, rewards, career advancement, and training opportunities. Being paid in line with what is competitive with your industry standard is also an important influence in employee retention.

Engagement

‍Ultimately employees stay at a job they enjoy. Work environment contributes to this, but so does company culture. Consider cultivating a culture of inclusiveness, transparency, and offering opportunities to build relationships amongst employees. Good onboarding and training practices can also encourage engagement. Employees who don't have a good understanding of their responsibilities, or job expectations, can easily become frustrated and confused and will ultimately disengage with their duties and leave.

Recognition

‍Recognition programs are more important than ever. The millennial workforce is particularly sensitive to feeling invisible. Build a culture of “Thank You” and appreciation for your workforce while giving considerate thought to providing ongoing feedback. Show employees how to contribute to the overall goals of your organization and communicate that they are part of a bigger whole. This big-picture perspective can increase retention of your employees when they realize the value their part has on company success.

Management‍

Management plays a big role in retention. Managers should emphasize acknowledgement, and offer rewards to employees for a job well done. This too aligns with a good recognition strategy, but more importantly, it’s about ensuring managers are well within reach of your workforce. Balance between visibility and mentorship opportunities will ensure good manager-employee relationships are developed. Steer clear of micromanagement. Telling employees what to do and when prevents them from engaging with their role. This often breeds contention and can lower overall workplace morale.

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Promoting Your Retention Strategy

It’s important to disclose your intentions to your management team and employees. Successfully rolling out any new employee retention initiative takes good communication as to why the program is being implemented and what employees can do to participate. Awareness campaigns and training can spread the word of your new strategy. Employees need to be aware of the benefits for it to make the biggest impact.

Internal marketing can only go so far, it’s just as important to measure the impact these strategies are having on your company. Disclosing these statistics to your employees to reinforce the importance of these strategies and can become the catalyst for a good reputation. Never underestimate the value word-of-mouth has on recruiting and retention. Simply giving an employee something to boast about can be the very reason qualified candidates want to work with you, or good employees want to stay.

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Qarrot to the rescue!

A good rewards and recognition program should work with your retention strategy aligning company culture and workplace engagement. With Qarrot, reward points can be earned for a completion of tasks, meeting goals or simply be awarded for a job well done. These points can be redeemed for gift cards incentivizing employees with the promise of additional compensation.

Employee engagement is encouraged with performance and opportunities for meeting objectives, aligning your company goal strategy with tangible milestones employees can readily meet.

Managers play a huge role in rewarding employees as well as offering feedback to their employees over our social feed. Coworkers can instantly see these acknowledgements and offer additional encouragement.

Qarrot is fun, easy to implement and cost-effective for companies to use. Plus, it’ll give your employees something special to talk about! So what are you waiting for?

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To learn more about Qarrot and how it can work with your overall employee retention strategy, book a demo!

When we discuss transparency in the workplace, what we're really talking about is trust. Just as consumers expect a level of transparency about the products they purchase, employees also expect transparency from the companies they work for. Lack of trust between employees and business leaders can influence an employee’s decision to leave their position or to seek out alternative employment.

Embracing a culture of transparency and building trusting relationships by showing appreciation, giving constructive feedback and showing mutual respect for one another goes a long way in boosting morale and can foster overall job satisfaction.

In 2018, The Work and Well-Being Survey found that 89% of respondents who said they trusted their employer reported being satisfied with their job and were motivated to do their best work. (This compared to a mere 46% who said they didn’t trust their employers.)

‍So how can we build trust in the workplace and foster a culture of transparency?

By constructing a proper business strategy around recognition that encourages Communication, Feedback, and Achievement.

Building trust with communication

Employers can help build transparency and trust with open, honest, continuous, two-way communication. A program, like Qarrot, can provide the medium in which we build these lines of communication with an open social feed to recognize employees and encourage an open dialogue. This transparent approach to feedback allows managers to comment on the achievements of their staff where everyone can see it. It also offers the opportunity for peer-to-peer feedback and support. When given this opportunity, employees are more likely to foster positive feelings towards their work, and the work of their coworkers resulting in higher levels of performance.

Help employees thrive with continuous feedback

Younger employees have accelerated this demand for continuous feedback. They expect an ongoing relationship with their supervisors, and they demand responses to every inquiry. It’s true! When you think about the fact that this generation has been brought up in a digital age, with extreme connectedness through the use of mobile devices and social media, it’s no surprise that they have these expectations for work as well. For years business owners and management have ignored the requests of these employees. For years we’ve been reading about the 20/20 workforce, and how the millennial workers will surpass existing workplace populations, but here’s a newsflash for you: That day has come and gone. That’s right! The youngest of the supposed, “Millennials” in June of 2019 will be graduating from a 3-year University program, many of which have already finished college, and those that didn’t attend post-secondary education have been in the workforce for a few years already. If you haven’t already given consideration to their requests in the past, it may be time to discuss a new strategy to engage younger employees. Collaborative social feeds and feedback mediums are an excellent place to start.

Give employees goals to meet

People feel comfortable when they know what is expected of them and when they can see what others are working on with an obvious measurement of their performance. By creating goal-based award campaigns for employees and their teams to participate in, you encourage motivation through friendly competition. When people can see the goals others in their office are meeting, and are given the opportunity to support them along their journey, it motivates them to participate and meet their goals as well. An awards program can offer an excellent opportunity to reward employees for these achievements. Making the entire process come full circle in a continuous support loop.

Make it simple for people to participate

If leaders want people to engage with their rewards platform they have to be given a flexible and supportive environment in which to do that. Modern rewards and recognition programs are no longer considered "perks" they are essential elements to encouraging a transparent and trusting workplace.
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Discover how Qarrot can support your culture of transparency - Book a Demo today!

By most accounts, around 3 years ago we crossed the Rubicon. Millennials, who had been rising up the leadership hierarchy and already knocking on the door, started taking over the corner office, sometimes even at very large organizations.

For a Gen-Y CEO to be at the helm when millennials are entering the workplace in record numbers is only appropriate. However, the current moment is also a major transition, with significant members of Gen-X still part of the workforce, and often in senior positions. This brings about unique challenges for a Gen-Y CEO and helping organizations navigate this transition successfully, while empowering leaders of the future, will be critical to the success of an organization going forward.

With a lot of existing management literature on managing performance being made obsolete in the current scenario, and not many experienced CEO’s of the same cohort to draw on for advice, it becomes incumbent to chart one’s own course by following these simple employee engagement and performance strategies based on first principles:

1. Move away from a view of performance review or appraisal as something done sporadically, in fixed mediums, and in a one-size-fits-all format. The same ease that millennials have in communicating across social media and blogging platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, etc.) when building a personal brand, needs to be put in service of being the organization’s principal spokesperson across all relevant channels. This includes not only regular feedback on work, open conversations on career goals, standard updates on achievements, company performance, etc., but giving the world a closer look at the culture and identity of the company itself. Recognition that brings a personal perspective to things, lauding employee efforts in a genuine way, sharing photos and write-ups about team outings, all serve this broader goal.
2. Bring empathy into every interaction with millennial employees who will look up to you as their guiding light, as they themselves navigate a critical early phase in their careers where they are looking at personal fulfillment as well. The broad objectives of the organization, with a mission bigger than your individual goals, that drives you, needs to be shared honestly and transparently. You are in the best position to communicate why what someone does matters, and you must, incessantly and obsessively. This can be done at all-hands, in team meetings or even a casual walk-in at someone’s desk spontaneously - all you need is a genuine desire to make sure everyone is on-board with you as you chase your lofty goals.
3. Experience is not a taboo word, and don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater when dealing with Gen-X employees. Just like millennials, this moment is a challenging one for Gen-Xers. A lot of the paradigms they grew up with are now obsolete (including, but not limited to, a standard career trajectory), and they are having to learn new things just to keep up. Encourage learning and up-skilling, and be a partner with them as they adjust to this new world, but also value what they bring to the table. This includes a culture of discipline, rigor, and in general, a long-term view of customers and other stakeholders that are an asset to you.
4. Encourage and embrace non-traditional career paths for employees. One of the hallmarks of Gen-Y, sometimes viewed negatively, is a perceived impatience in search for an entrepreneurial career that is aligned with their own personal narrative. As a leader building the organization of the future, your goal is to match a fluidity in role definitions, while making sure the organization is driving towards its long term goals. A developer with a talent for writing and communication who wants to make the leap to product marketing, or a QA specialist who wants to make the leap to a developer? Make it work, and make sure processes don’t stand in the way.
5. Practice and develop a culture of employee assessment, as you want to be assessed yourself - as the creator of long-term value, going beyond only a quarter-on-quarter incessant focus on numbers and deliverables. This ties into point 2 above, where an employee's holistic contribution to the broader vision and their part in shaping the culture holds as much value as traditional metrics. You need to realize that one of the things you are selling is a narrative, an extremely critical intangible, and people who help drive your message by action or otherwise are assets you need to empower and help grow. The product manager who went out of the way to create a fun hackathon for high-schoolers around your platform ‘gets it’, and so should you.

Take Away

Finally, it all boils down to bringing the whole of yourself as a person to work, and recognizing and encouraging the same in others. The old narratives that were successful in the past, driven by rigid hierarchies and a long list of taboos, have crumbled. In its place, there is an opportunity to create a workplace that mirrors a good life - healthy and focused on long-term personal growth.

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Strengthen workplace culture while driving better engagement and performance - book a demo with Qarrot today!  

The face of the modern workplace has changed dramatically over the years, primarily where the pursuit of work-life balance is considered. A healthy quality of life is dependent on balancing career, family, health, and wellness. Flexible schedules and the ability to work remotely are 2 ways in which companies are providing these opportunities for their employees.

Recently Gallup published an article that stated, the results of a study they conducted on "benefits and perks" they found that 37% of employees would switch to a job that allows them to work off-site at least part-time.

‍Now before you get the idea that working from home is just a perk that benefits the employee, consider that studies have found financial benefits to the company as well. Global Workplace Analytics released their State of Telecommunicating in the US Employee Workforce findings in 2017 and found that employers saved over $11,000 annually, per employee, who worked remotely part of the time. Savings were found mostly in the areas of real estate, absenteeism, and turnover.

‍Advances in technology have made much of what an employee can do at the office available for them to do anywhere they like; whether it’s at home, at the cottage, or at a local coffee shop. Things like cell phone plans, high-speed availability and cloud-based software have led this revolution, but it's still the desire of the employee that is driving this trend upwards.

Telecommuting amongst full-time employees has increased 140% in a little over a decade! Though this has mostly been the case for companies with more than 500 employees, many small and medium-sized companies are starting to offer this as an option.

‍As if engaging our workforce wasn't difficult enough, engaging a remote, or dispersed, workforce poses its own set of challenges. What we’ve discovered in conversation with business leaders is that they can struggle with employees that may not be as strongly driven by the company's vision, and are more difficult to motivate than others.

If you currently have employees who sometimes work off-site, or are considering offering remote and/or flexi-hours to your workforce, it is critical to think more strategically on how to involve your workforce in engaging activities that make them still feel connected to the organization.

How do we engage our remote workforces? Here are a few suggestions:

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Set up a medium for regular communication

Providing tools in which managers and team members can regularly communicate with each other is key to cultivating a culture of collaboration. We know that a collaborative environment supports employee engagement, and engaged employees provide their best work, no matter where they are located.

Let them create their own schedule

Giving control back to employees to manage their own work schedules lets them fit in the things that matter the most to them. Employees with children, for example, may struggle with pick-up and drop-off schedules for school and sports. Flexible schedules give them the opportunity to balance family and work so they can continue to provide meaningful contributions to the organization.

Recognize their efforts… Publicly!

It's been previously stated that a genuine THANK YOU can go a long way to showing an employee that they are a valued part of the team, but a common problem with employees who aren’t in the office, either regularly, or at all, is their feeling of not “being connected” to their colleagues. This can make recognition difficult or seemingly less effective since there is nobody there to witness it. A modern rewards and recognition program, like Qarrot, can provide the ability to engage and interact with an employee, publicly recognize their efforts, and offer peer-to-peer recognition that is visible in a social feed. This can foster a sense of belonging and create a greater feeling of working together.

Continue to provide learning opportunities

Quite often, simply offering professional training and development can increase an employee’s feeling of importance to a company. When an organization is willing to build the skills and qualifications of their workforce it shows the employee that you truly value their contributions. Modern learning initiatives give management the ability to track what learning content their employees are engaging in, and keeps track of what they accomplish when they are not in the office.

Simplify the process

Qarrot is the all-in-one software solution that makes employee engagement easy, fun and effective with peer-to-peer, milestone, and goal-based recognition. When you use a rewards and recognition program that is visible, transparent, and inclusive, you’ll simplify the process of motivating and engaging your employees, no matter where they are.If you have an established team of telecommuting employees, or are considering offering flexi-schedules, or even if you have a full team of dispersed, remote employees, Qarrot can help eliminate some of the employee engagement challenges.

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Recognize and reward your people on your own terms with Qarrot - book a demo today!

Your workforce is the heart of your business, but if they are not properly motivated to be sales and service minded, you could be losing opportunities and potential revenue.

One way organizations are motivating their staff is to create rewards and recognition programs. It may seem that awarding top performers should be a no-brainer but many still do not, or if they do their rewards and recognition program remains, primarily, a manual process. Companies without a solution are using email and spreadsheets to manage these services, but identifying top performing employees, and keeping them motivated to do their best work, is a big job, and can quickly encumber be abandoned by those running them if not thought through.

So, how do we build a better reward campaign and make the entire program easier to run?

Ask yourself why!

There are endless resources to suggest that an engaged workforce is a more productive workforce, but knowing the precise business objectives you are trying to achieve is something of a different story.Since every industry has its own policies and procedures, and each company is as unique as the people in them, there is no one-size-fits-all for defining business objectives.

Starting with the question why, will help you to design a process that supports your outcomes.

• Are you looking to raise sales volume throughout your organization?
• Would you like to increase your overall company morale?
• Do you want to raise the productivity of your workforce?
• Have you considered a program to promote your company culture?
• Do your employee engagement levels need work?
• Did you say yes to all the above?
• Setting your performance targets ahead of the game will take the guess-work out of rewarding staff for their accomplishments.

Ask yourself who?

Once you know the benchmarks you need your workforce to strive for, you need to find a reward that can motivate them. Never underestimate the power a genuine “Thank You” can have on morale, but it is also important to note its delivery.

Awarding your staff with rewards is a good way to acknowledge the effort your employees have put into achieving the goals you’ve set for your organization. When determining what you will offer as the incentive, you can be creative, thinking outside of the box, but it’s best to keep employee values top of mind.

‍As the millennial generation overtakes their boomer parents in the workforce, business owners need to realize that these new generation workers have been known to value incentives over salary.

Rewards should be something that matters to the employees earning them; time off of work, preferred parking, travel bonuses, and gifts are amongst the popular choices. But we’ve also heard of handwritten notes, new equipment for the office, and charitable contributions made on an employee’s behalf, as well as any form of public recognition to be highly motivating.

Find a solution that works!

Even the best thought-out strategies can be tedious to manage without a proper solution behind them. Investing in a program that is easy to use, quick to set up, and is customizable is a personal decision, but a product like Qarrot is a flexible employee recognition platform designed to be used as an engagement and motivation tool.

The dashboards are easy to use, and alleviate administrative effort by centralizing recognition in one place, eliminating email clutter, automating most processes, and removing time-consuming manual processes, resulting in less friction when earning and cashing in on rewards.

Qarrot is more than a rewards system, it operates a SaaS-based employee motivation and engagement platform for all industries. Its platform enables users to recognize employee accomplishments, launch goal-based campaigns and to celebrate milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries.

Get buy-in from management!

Truthfully, once you’ve implemented a system that removes the manual processes, and offers real-time reporting tools to help set and meet business objectives, it’s pretty easy to get managers to use it. If you are still using a legacy system, coming up with creative ways to get leaders to engage with your employees is key to motivating them.

‍Helping employees to understand the impact their performance has on the organization’s goals is essential to helping your workforce see the value they bring to the company. By providing clear expectations of behavior, performance and outcomes you can have managers communicate these expectations to employees. This way there is a clear connection between what managers say are important attributes and what behavior is actually rewarded

Simplify reporting!

A good solution will provide targeted reporting for you. Setting and meeting goals to establish a link between effort and value is crucial to determining a real ROI for the program. Stakeholders will require these reports regularly and your system should take the guess-work out of providing them.

Don’t forget to measure the impact on both employees and the company. Everything from revenue, absenteeism, productivity, engagement levels, and retention can be affected by a well-executed rewards program.

‍Understanding what information is important to which stakeholders will help make reporting easier too. The sales department may want your recognition and performance reports to identify employees deserving of a promotion, for example, where your finance department may want the overall expense report.

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Request A Demo

An employee recognition program, like Qarrot, can help you to leverage your workforce to increase sales, customer service and overall employee satisfaction. Keeping it simple, but useful, with your workforce’s values in mind will not only help you get more out of your rewards program but make it easier for you to manage overall.

‍Request your free demo of Qarrot today!

I was recently speaking with an HR director exploring ways she could better equip her managers with tools to motivate her company’s staff. Her focus on managers was interesting. She understood what a growing number of HR professionals have come to realize: The importance managers play in attracting, motivating, and retaining talent within organizations.

According to Gallup, companies stand to increase revenue per employee by as much as 59% by employing four key human capital strategies. Having a great manager accounts for nearly 50% of this potential revenue increase. Great managers have the ability to develop employees’ strengths and get the best out of each person.Speaking with Marina Byezhavova, a human resources professional in our hometown of Montreal, only reinforced this perspective further:

“I conduct culture audits of companies and I see that most hiring managers and HR professionals who are interested in a happier workforce focus a lot on work conditions, social atmosphere and team building. However, studies show that 80% of employees leave because of their managers! Happiness is important but a long-term strategy ensuring employees are loyal and content should focus on leadership training instead of the bells and whistles.”

Marina’s comments ring true for me, not only because of the various conversations I’ve had with other HR professionals and business owners alike on employee motivation, but because I’ve managed people for years. And, I have to say I think she’s right.

With that in mind, here are 3 three strategies to help your managers develop their abilities and to improve their employees’ motivation.

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Train your managers to be better leaders

As Marina puts it, “bells and whistles” are nice but on their own aren’t substantial enough to develop long-term employee engagement. Rather, companies should focus on leadership training. Developing your managers’ leadership skills provides your organization with a much more robust basis for attracting, motivating, and retaining talent.

When I was first promoted to a managerial position (many years ago), I got a hearty congratulations, some coaching, and then a nasty trial by fire.

Thankfully, I soon was able to get formal leadership training. So, it wasn’t too long before I began learning about performance reviews, setting goals for my employees, managing conflict, removing barriers for my staff, leading team discussions, how to listen and resolve issues, and so much more…

I also began to learn about creating a sense of urgency and rallying my team behind a vision. But it certainly didn’t come by magic. I was coached by a mentor and participated in as much leadership development training as I could.

And while many individuals are “naturally gifted” managers, the majority of people promoted into management or leadership positions (even those ‘naturals’) would benefit from formalized training to help them understand the ins and outs of managing others.

Key areas to consider include: communication, performance management, and managing conflict.

If your organization doesn’t have formal leadership training, consider informal or formal mentoring programs where more experienced leaders can help newly minted managers navigate their first year or so in their position.

Encourage managers to use SMART goals

When I was first introduced to “S.M.A.R.T.” goals, I remember thinking the acronym sounded too clever to actually be of any use.

As it turned out, the SMART methodology for goal-setting is critical for effective performance management and a key tool for managers of all stripes. Whether the acronym itself is explicitly mentioned isn’t relevant. Employees are more motivated when the goals they are working to achieve have the following “SMART” components to them:

Specific‍

The SMART approach encourages managers to set goals with their staff that include a specific target or destination.

Measurable

‍For a goal to be SMART, it must be measurable in that it can be tracked and quantified.

‍Attainable

‍The SMART methodology also requires that the goal be realistically attainable within the timeframe given to the employee.

‍Relevant

‍Of particular interest to me (and my personal experience), is goal-relevancy. To me, this is about linking the goal to the broader mission and vision of the organization. It helps employees understand how they’re contributing to the bigger picture.

‍Time-bound

‍Finally, SMART goals always have a defined timeframe for their achievement.

No manager should be without this approach or, at least, a good understanding of it.

Empower managers to recognize their staff

Recognition done well can be the secret weapon of an all-star manager. Often, however, it is left to managers to figure out how to effectively use this incredibly powerful tool.

Recognition plays into performance management, feedback, employee development, and much more. And, I think organizations are increasingly aware of the power of recognition to improve employee morale, motivation, and performance.

According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, giving your employees feedback about their “performance improvement opportunities” is fraught with the potential for error and puts people in a negative state of mind not ideal for learning and improvement.

Instead, catching an employee doing something well and taking a moment to constructively praise their accomplishment is a much more effective alternative. Instead of shoving your opinion about what they need to improve down their throat, you’re shining the spotlight on a strength they can build on and further develop.

This helps employees better understand what they did well and to build on those strengths and repeat them in the future. In this way, recognition not only serves as a powerful tool for boosting morale, but also for employee development.

I’m a big believer in these three strategies for empowering managers, especially as it relates to attracting, motivating, and retaining talent.

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Uncover more ways your organization can benefit from a recognition process - book a demo with Qarrot today!

Despite conflicting opinions, employee engagement doesn’t only mean employee happiness. Employee engagement is also the connectedness an employee feels to their job, the understanding of their personal contribution to the process, and the motivation they feel for growth within the company. It all starts with defining your mission, vision and values. For starters, ensure that the “who, what, why” trifecta of your mission statement is answered, your vision statement provides motivation for the future, and your values define your company’s organizational culture and beliefs. Of the three, your company’s values are most connected to employee engagement by being anchored in your company’s culture. This will have a huge effect on productivity and make the most of your mission, vision, and values.

"Your Mission creates FOCUS. Your Vision provides DIRECTION. Your Values define BEHAVIOUR.” ¹

Breaking the Mold with Company Values

Values such as integrity, teamwork, and customer service encompass the top three most common Fortune 100 company values. Nonetheless, they are exactly that, common. These values won’t set your company apart from competitors, nor will they attract and retain top employees. Core company values need to be implemented into everything, especially all processes involving employees. From start to finish, your company values should be the base of every company decision. This can be particularly difficult because strong values are tough and often controversial, but in the end, they will keep the company unified. When implemented properly, strong values will actually cause pain before they do good, as strange as that sounds. This means that some employees will feel cast out or constrained by behavioral boundaries, in fact narrowing the operational freedom of your business. On the bright side, when an employee’s values do align with the company core values, higher employee engagement and productivity will thrive.

Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” answer for this, as every person has a different perspective on values. Creating clear definitions for your company values, whether they’re core values, aspirational values, flexible values, or accidental values, will help clarify the meaning of every term your company stands for. This will avoid confusion and only attract the warrior employees who strongly believe in your company. It’s important to remember that values aren’t about people-pleasing. Rather, they place core beliefs at the forefront of your company. Just as you wouldn’t implement a survey for an overall consensus on financial or strategic issues for your company, the same concept applies to values for them to succeed.

Give Them Culture and Performance Will Follow

A study from 2015 involving automobile sales challenged the question, "Which comes first, organizational culture or performance?" The results strongly proved that if an engaged culture is implemented, more consistent and adaptable performance will result. Categories such as sales and customer satisfaction increased, while absenteeism and employee turnover substantially decreased.

Company culture defines a social order that grounds behavior and clarifies what is accepted or rejected amongst a group of people. Ultimately, it culminates in a shared purpose that energizes a company to help it grow. Depending on your company values, your culture will likely thrive under one of the following eight shared company culture categories:

‍Caring

‍A caring-based culture focuses on helping and supporting one another. Teamwork is highly emphasized, alongside loyalty and positivity.

Authority

‍An authority-based culture emphasizes competition, drive, and personal advantage. Confidence and constructive criticism are highly encouraged.

‍Purpose

‍A purpose-based culture comes together by focusing on global sustainability. They are striving for a greater cause and an ideal world.

Results

‍A results-based culture is goal-oriented and success driven. They strive for accomplishment and winning to get ahead.

‍Learning

‍Creativity, curiosity, and cultivation of new ideas are highly characterized in a learning-based culture. Exploration of new knowledge is made into adventure and open-mindedness is embraced.

Enjoyment‍

Happiness, fun, and excitement are emphasized in an enjoyment-based culture. A sense of humor is welcomed and stimulation is found in play.

‍Order

‍An order-based culture thrives on punctuality, structure, and rules. Employees are cooperative and looking to conform.

‍Safety

‍Planning ahead is a big value for a safety-based culture. Risk-taking is set to a minimum, and thorough preparedness and caution are taken in any business strategies.

A recent Harvard Business Review study showed that the success resulting from a company culture is again not a magic formula. Factors such as region, industry, strategy, leadership, and organizational design all play a part in the calculation of success due to company culture. Therefore, it’s not possible to say that what works for one company will necessarily work for the next, but clarifying which category of company culture your core values align with will help you to make the most of your values. Clear company cultures help employees to feel involved, connected, and supported. Guess what that sounds like? Employee engagement. In fact, it’s a direct domino outcome of clearly defining your company mission, vision, and values.

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Harness the power of appreciation through peer-to-peer recognition - book a demo with Qarrot!

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Sources

• Cmc-canada.ca - Who's on first? Mission or Vision?
• Hbr.org - Make Your Values Mean Something
• Forbes.com - If Culture Comes First Performance Will Follow

A recent Harvard Business Review article looks at the three myths of feedback. Sometimes referred to as the “Feedback Fallacy”, it’s interesting to learn that subjective feedback - from a manager to her employee, for example - often doesn’t produce the performance improvements most of us have been taught to expect.

In fact, it may be that improving employee performance is best achieved by focusing on their existing strengths and key accomplishments. Wait, what?!

That’s right: According to HBR, focusing on correcting gaps or deficiencies impairs learning. Whereas, focusing on what your employee is already good at catalyzes learning. Moreover, praising an employee for a strong performance or a great outcome focuses their attention on what worked, helping them further strengthen that ability.

Show your employees more appreciation this year

What better time to start applying this approach to employee performance improvement than on Employee Appreciation Day?

This year, National Employee Appreciation Day falls on March 1st. Since first introduced by Dr. Bob Nelson in 1995, this day provides an excellent opportunity for employers to create a culture of appreciation and express their gratitude towards their hard-working employees. After all, employees are, arguably, your most valuable asset.

Critically, appreciation should not be limited to one or two days a year. The more you build appreciation into your company culture, the greater the outcomes you can expect. Start by using  Employee Appreciation Day as a  “preview” or “trailer” for the types of behaviors you want your organization to employ all year round. Of course, March 1st is the “big event”, but there’s no reason it can’t be a springboard for a larger, long-term initiative.

With that in mind, here are recommendations for a great Employee Appreciation Day:

It's the small stuff that counts

It’s easy to take note of bit accomplishments like closing a new deal or launching a new product. Often times, it’s all the little steps it took to get there, and all the extra team members who contributed that go unrecognized. When you “don’t sweat the small stuff” someone else usually does, and wouldn’t it be lovely to be recognized for that?

Whose reward is it anyway?

Sure, it’s always nice to order in food or take the team out for lunch, but what’s new about that? Reach out to your employees and let them choose. Brainstorm ideas that combine two rewards like an outing and food, or an activity and drinks. As a bonus, this can easily double as a team-building activity with fun challenges, leaving your team closer and talking about the event for years to come.

Shake up the pattern

A recent study done by the Huffington Post showed that the average person spends 13 years and 2 months, or 4,821 hrs, at work. This doesn’t include the extra time spent checking emails, prepping for meetings, and planning weekly to-do lists. This Employee Appreciation Day, consider rewarding employees by giving back some hours. Offer a paid day off, whether it’s this Friday or a different day of their choosing.

Keep it personal

Nothing is more meaningful than personal recognition. Employees can get caught up in their day-to-day work, allowing anxieties to brew. The moment someone shakes them up with a genuine ‘thank you’, any self-doubt is reduced and new confidence is sparked. This can be done in many ways, whether it’s through individual thank-you cards, in person with a grateful handshake, or an announcement to the team, you can bet it’ll go a long way.

Keep the party going

If you’re feeling cramped by a 1-day event, why not celebrate all month long. This leaves room for contests, multiple outings, and company-wide inclusion. Whether it’s one-by-one or all at once, showing appreciation to your employees leaves them motivated and productive. In turn, the rewards your company will receive will be higher morale, productivity, performance, and retention. This Employee Appreciation Day set the bar high for a productive year and see where it takes your team - the sky’s the limit! If you missed this year’s Employee Appreciation Day, don’t worry! You can show appreciation all year long with Qarrot. Connect with us to learn more about how to make recognition a part of your company culture.

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Strengthen your workplace culture and values using Qarrot - book a demo today!

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Sources

• ‍Forbes.com - 5 Ways to Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day
• ‍Entrepreneur.comBlog.hubspot.com - Employee Appreciation Day Ideas