Recognize This! – Some managers need more development, training and tools to help them become the “good” boss their employees need.

If you’re interested in management, improving your management skills or the like, I strongly encourage you to add Wally Bock to your daily reading list. Among others, Wally’s 3-Star Leadership blog is on my daily list. I particularly enjoy round-up posts in which he lists…

Recognize This! – Employee recognition done right is simple – give everyone the ability to “catch someone doing something good” and make it meaningful.

Every so often, I’ll write a post about bad employee recognition practices I’ve heard of or read about. Today’s stories made me cringe.

Don’t Make People Recognize Themselves

The husband of one of my team members (we’ll call him Jim) works for a very large, global organization. He often…

Recognize This! – Don’t settle for employee satisfaction. Push for highly aligned and engaged employees who are themselves pushing your company forward.

Let’s get one thing clear – we do not want satisfied employees. “Satisfied” implies sated, content. Do we want employees to be content with the current state? No. We want employees to always be pushing the boundaries and striving for the next level.

That’s why I get annoyed when people use the words “satisfied”…

Recognize This! – Focusing only on the “what” (results) can lead to unintended consequences.

Kevin Kruse (author of Employee Engagement 2.0) recently presented in Forbes the idea of Feedforward. Instead of constantly looking back once a…

Recognize This! – We cannot separate ourselves from our work, so we must find ways to integrate them in healthy ways.

Our lives at work and outside of work are not easily separated. I don’t know very many people who can truly “leave work at work.” To some extent, what happens at work affects our home lives as well. Recent CIPD research showed the link between…

Recognize This! – Cultures change. Without measurement of how your culture is doing, you cannot tweak it and keep it on track.

In a blog post on TLNT, Tim Kuppler wrote about the four keys to building a strong culture. What most intrigued me about his post was that 2 of the 4 keys are measurement.

“Measure your culture and engage…

Recognize This! –A truly positive work environment must encourage employees to share the bad news (reality) as well as the good.

I’ve written before about positivity psychology in the workplace and the many benefits that can come from it. But there is a risk…

Recognize This! – Leaders must lead – especially in setting the tone and tenor of your organization’s culture.

Out of everything I read on a daily basis, interviews with CEOs tend to be among my favorites. Case-in-point: this recent SmartBrief interview with John Taft, CEO of RBC Wealth Management, in which he focused solely on the importance of…

Recognize This! – You can’t change someone; you can’t engage someone. You can create environments of trust, appreciation and purpose in which people want to engage, grow and develop.

What’s the number one most helpful (or most heard) relationship advice? I reckon it’s to remind people, “You can’t change the other person.” And this is wise advice, indeed. Too many relationships fail because one person thinks they can change the other person’s annoying or downright…

Recognize This! – Appreciation is a more effective productivity booster than fear.

Are you working harder because you’re scared for your job? Or could you potentially be even more productivity if someone simply told you “thanks” for what you do?

Looking across several research reports and economic indicators, the story is quite interesting. Bloomberg…

Recognize This! – Employees everywhere need and want recognition for work well done.

For a couple of years now, Globoforce (my company) has been running semi-annual Workforce Mood Tracker™ surveys, testing the opinions and moods of fully employed US workers. (I’ve featured the results of those studies in past posts…

Recognize This! – 360° reviews are an improvement on traditional annual employee appraisals, but don’t go far enough.

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of the traditional annual performance appraisal, for many reasons, not least of which are:

1)     …

Recognize This! – Understanding how cultures evolve and are reinforced is critical to effecting culture change

On my return from India, I finished a terrific book on organizational culture – The Culture Cycle: How to Shape the Unseen Force that Transforms Performance – by James Heskett, professor emeritus at Harvard University Business…

Recognize This! – To truly lead others, we must never stop learning.

Recently, I received an email from Sudan asking me for my recommendations on top 3 books in HR. I thought this was too good of an opportunity to pass up and open up to you, my readers, for a bit of crowdsourcing as well.

Below are some of favorite books in four categories. I’m lucky in that we have a bit of an informal book club at…

Recognize This! – The power of strategic recognition knows no boundaries.

I recently had the opportunity to travel a bit in India. How excited I was to pick up a Times of India newspaper on my first full day in the country to encounter the article pictured at right.

In “India Inc rewards staff to tide over…

Recognize This! –Don’t limit options for recognition, but combine multiple into one program for easy governance and best results.

Last week, I had the honor and privilege of participating in a webinar (Spotlighting Recognition: How Intuit Has Reinforced a Culture of Innovation and Elevated Employee Engagement, now available for download)…

Recognize This! – We publicly praise the stars. Should we publicly highlight the truly poor performers as well?

Regular readers know I’m a very strong proponent of frequent and public (when appropriate and preferred) recognition of star performers as well as employees who live the…

Recognize This! – After-the-fact recognition delivers better results than if/then incentives, which can be easily gamed.

I’ve written before about the difference between recognition and incentives. This is an important distinction to understand, as is the distinction between incentives and…

Recognize This! – Ground-up efforts for culture change, led with intention, are most effective for long-term success.

The importance of company culture continues to get more and more coverage in the press, in research studies, and an organizational implementation and resources.…

With the June 2012 Healthcare Reform ruling, this leaves many HR and benefit administrators scratching their heads wondering what the coming presidential election will bring. In terms of employee benefit coverage, a vast majority of companies have already put…