Leaders often ask me “what makes for a sustainable employee recognition program with consistently high participation?” Of course what they really want to know is “How can a recognition program help me make my company be more profitable. I already pay employees – isn’t that enough?” Regardless of their motivations for asking the question or their opinion of recognition as a management discipline, the simple answer I always give them is… “conversation.”

Conversation creates an exchange of ideas that impact human perception and ultimately human behavior. Consider the last new restaurant you ate at – most likely you tried it because someone told you about it or you read about it in the local paper. Both of which I consider part of an overall public “conversation” about the restaurant.

Recognition programs are just like new restaurants. The initial “buzz” about the restaurant brings customers in the door, but the experience and the stories that people tell about their experience keep new and old customers coming back. Recognition programs need the right amount of upfront marketing and communications to build awareness and interest. But they also need an amazing user experience where recognition “stories” can be shared and talked about in an ongoing “conversation” within an organization. This means that it important to create conversation not just ABOUT the program but also sustained conversation WITHIN the program.

• Good recognition programs create conversation between employee and manager.
• Better recognition programs create conversation among employees within an organization.
• The Best recognition programs create conversation with customers.

Imagine a recognition program at an organization of 1000 employees. Each month 100 recognitions or “stories” are written by employees – one employee recognizing another employee. Each story is strategically written, tied to a company value clearly indicating the impact on results. Each story is the start to a strategic conversation that positively influences employee behavior toward company goals. Imagine:

• Recognized employees read their story as captured by a peer, feel appreciated, and discuss further with their manager or the employee who recognized them.
• Managers collect stories for an employee and discuss them as part of his or her annual performance review.
• A selection of stories are printed in a weekly news summary sent across the organization – creating a sense of cultural connectedness.
• Stories prompt informal conversations in the hallway where co-workers congratulate the employee(s) being recognized that week.
• Leaders choose stories that directly impact their department and share them with their in their weekly meeting.
• Employees read stories and add comments to re-enforcing the story’s impact or elaborate on how the story has affected them.
• Prospective or new employees read the stories and immediately feel part of the conversation and know how they can help make a difference.
• Customers participate by submitting stories of great experiences they have had with an organization – they share with their friends.
• Prospective customers read employee stories decide to do business with this type of organization.

The most successful recognition programs create thousands of sustained strategic conversations that influence employee behavior, customer perception, and impact your bottom line.

Talk is cheap…and very profitable. What are you waiting for.

• Employee Satisfaction Surveys
• Rewards programs
• Performance evaluation systems
• Pizza
• Thanksgiving Turkeys
• Etc.

Ultimately, good companies are good because they are mindful of the importance of an engaged workforce and are striving to make sure they deliver.  The problem is good companies are just good; just good because for all of their effort, they struggle to measure this amorphous thing called culture.  Therefore, they cannot manage it and don’t really know if all of their effort and expense is actually making a difference.

Great companies recognize culture eats strategy for breakfast and is the most important differentiator they have.  Great companies get entire workforces to share a common mindset.  Great companies are aligned and engaged around the behaviors that are necessary to make branded experiences come to life.  Great companies recognize employees based on those behaviors and don’t need the traditional and potentially counterproductive rewards programs.  Great companies have managers who truly understand that it’s their job to manage the Branded Experience.  Great companies have systems and tools in place that enable Managers to measure their efforts.

Imagine becoming a great company.  Imagine your company was able to measure and manage the Branded Experience with Engaged employees who Live the Brand and Create Customers for Life.

INCREASES SUPPORT

Did you know that if you smile at someone on the street they are 50% more likely to help a person in need further up the street? It’s true. I read about it and so can you. I like smiling at people, and now I wonder what amazing acts of kindness my smiling may have inspired. I’m no longer just friendly, now I’m a hero. Smiling at your co-workers can impact their willingness to go above and beyond and eventually productivity. That always felt true to me, and now I know it is.

REDUCES STRESS

Another study done at the University of Kansas indicated that the physical act of smiling actually reduces heart rates and helps people feel better. Even if you don’t mean it, smiling has an impact on you. Imagine if you leave a stressful internal meeting and are on the way to meet with a high profile client. The best thing that can happen is that a few people smile at you, forcing you to smile back. That simple occurrence could actually better prepare you up for a successful client meeting.

INCREASES CUSTOMER CONFIDENCE

For this one, think about your personal experience. When you are on a flight and there is bad turbulence, who do you and your fellow passengers look at? The flight attendant. If he/she is smiling, all is good. If he/she looks concerned, time to get a grip on that floatation device you’re sitting on.  An airline customer’s confidence feels more about the facial expressions of one or two front-line employees than the pilot’s skill or the plane’s safety record. When customers need to feel comfortable, when they need to trust your company, having someone smile can be just the reassurance needed. Your company may not deal with life and death situations, but I’m sure it would benefit from more confident, trusting customers. Smiling conveys that reassurance.

Just one, simple behavior has that much power. No wonder it is so often a part of a company’s branded experience that they want employees to be focused on. Think about those people around you that naturally and consistently greet co-workers and customers with eye contact and a smile. Think about the impact you have as you smile and greet others as they walk by. Who wouldn’t want managers encouraging such a powerful behavior?

Now go have a more helpful, less stressful, more confident day.

A convenience store chain began its quest to create a superior guest experience in the summer of 2010 with the launch of a Mystery Shopper program to grade how their employees were doing on delivering their core values. Management followed up with the employees to give them timely coaching and feedback.  Guest service scores increased 14.33% over the first 14 months of the program and there was a measurable positive impact on their business metrics.  The guest service experience improved, but was not exceptional.  They knew we had to do more to engage their employees and shape the business culture so that they could deliver consistently outstanding service in order to stand out from the competition.

To take this step they engaged the assistance of Brand Integrity, to help align and involve employees, and create greater accountability for delivering consistently positive guest experiences.  Based on their research and experience, they concluded that the best way for their guest service program to reach the next level would be to engage employees at a grassroots level.  Their employees needed to own the guest experience and drive it.  They integrated the use of Brand Integrity’s Potential Point Experience Management Platform to achieve this.   As a result, they have experienced a significant increase in their Mystery Shop scores as well as increases in Average sale, Gasoline revenue, Food service sales, and tobacco sales and a reduction in Employee turnover. Recently they have also seen a significant increase in assessment participation from 76% to 100%.  This shows that the employees are becoming more fully aligned and engaged in their guest service culture.

So how do you even begin to take on the challenge of changing such an ingrained culture? You do it the same way you eat an elephant — one bite at a time.

Here are some of the “bites” Company E has taken out of its goal to become more profitable by improving its culture (becoming a better place to work) and raising its level of service (leading to more loyal customers).

(1) Leaders established a vision and brought in Brand Integrity to help them achieve it with the Living the Brand System (define, remind, quantify).

(2) DEFINE: Through a structured process facilitated by Brand Integrity, representative employee groups gathered to define the non-negotiable behaviors that people in their jobs must do in order to deliver an optimal experience both to their coworkers and to customers. (This was done last summer and fall).

(3) REMIND: Those non-negotiable behaviors were communicated by company leaders to everyone and by managers to their teams throughout the company, and a series of reminders were put into place. The reminders consisted of but were not limited to: recognizing people strategically for doing good work; asking employees for their feedback on how consistently others are doing the behaviors; starting every meeting with a story of someone delivering the company’s desired experience; and focusing on specific behaviors for improvement. (This part of the process has just begun).

(4) QUANTIFY: Company leaders identified the data they were most passionate about tracking as a measure of success over time. They started connecting behavior consistency scores, employee engagement stats, strategic recognition participation, and customer feedback (all available to leaders through PotentialPoint’s customizable dashboard) with financial results. It’s too soon to tell, but managers told me in the recent session that things are “already beginning to feel different.”

Company E’s commmitment to improving the Company E Experience is high, and the system is in place to keep it front-and-center at all levels, from executive leadership to front-line staff.

Does Company E’s situation remind you of your company? Even elephant-sized problems can be tackled. Like Company E, your company can be set up for success, one bite at a time.

March Madness Experience logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re probably well aware of the madness that’s going on right now, a little something called March Madness. The office lunch room tables are probably filled with NCAA brackets and I would be willing to bet that a few office mates are trying to stream the games on their laptops.

March Madness has evolved into a huge national social event that lures in millions of fans every year for a weekend of non-stop sports action. Have you ever stopped and wondered how this happened?  How did this weekend manage to grab the attention and calendars of millions of basketball fans around the world? I think the NCAA could teach businesses a thing or two.

Let me start to paint a picture for you .Think about a basketball team, let’s say Syracuse Orangemen.  They are a team, a company if you will, that is made up of players (employees) and a leader (Coach Boeheim) and we as fans are the customers.  Coach Boeheim has cultivated a culture where each player has a set of behaviors and a common mindset that these players do every day they come to work.  From Point Guards, Shooting Guards, to Forward Centers each position has a set of behaviors that should be performed each time they hit the court.  These players have a common mindset that guides behaviors which in turns creates the branded experience. That’s the experience we, as fans, have each time we watch.

Coach Boeheim’s role is to engage his players, hold them accountable for their actions, and set clear expectations for the team. When a team of engaged players work together to perform these behaviors and expectations, they provide fans the ultimate experience and this is when we fall in love. For this reason we intently watch every March to see our favorite team work together to win the championship and provide us with a weekend filled with brackets, bantering, and beers. It is the experience the teams provide their fans that keep us engaged….. so engaged that vacation days are used , friendly wagers are placed, and people turn to social media as a means to express their emotions through out each game.

If I haven’t totally twisted your view on March Madness and you’re not completely disinterested in this weekend now; think about how they quantify that experience. How does the team measure and manage the experience they provide their fans? Ticket sales, TV ratings, and even recruiting are ways they can measure and manage. Successful teams fill seats, get people to tune in, and recruit players who understand the mindset and behaviors of the team and fit the culture.

The reason I feel like businesses could learn from these teams is because the experience I talk about above is actually the experience we help design for our clients and their customers. Its a system and it works.

In our upcoming book ENGAGED! Outbehave the Competition and Create Customers for Life, Gregg Lederman outlines a specific system that can prove successful in any company, a Living the Brand System.  The Living the Brand system is an approach for defining, reminding others about, and quantifying the experience employees and customer have.  No one person owns this system – it’s a system that works across all departments and every job function can own it. In order to implement a Living the Brand system, a company must do 3 things:

1. Define the branded experience
2. Remind employees about the delivery of the experience setting clear expectations and holding everyone accountable
3. Quantify the experience and link it to financial results.

So think about the companies or teams you love, the ones that fully engage you, that make you want to come back again and again, why is that ? These companies and teams (whether they know it or not) have a Living the Brand system in place and they know how to outbehave their competition and create customers/fans for life.

Happy March Madness! Go Orangemen!

Much research exists on what makes up a great place to work. And (not a newsflash) that the tangibles of pay and benefits are a small piece of the puzzle. The Great Place to Work® Institute’s research shows that great workplaces are built through the day-to-day relationships that employees experience – not just a checklist of programs/benefits.

Here are a few of the less tangible factors of a great workplace that rise to the top for me…

• Feeling like I make a difference to the success of my team, the company and its vision – seeing the link between my daily efforts and the big picture
• Someone noticing and appreciating that I make a difference
• Being proud of my company and the work we do
• Personal and professional growth – opportunity to learn and see progress

These intangibles keep me engaged and motivated to go above and beyond for my internal and external customers, and keep me from looking for another employer that will really care about my contributions.

Another not-newsflash: there are bottom-line benefits from having an engaged, talented workforce.  Employers now more than ever are trying to crack the code on employee happiness and engagement because they want employees to care about customers and consistently demonstrate that. And I think that to keep talented, committed, and “caring” employees, employers must consistently demonstrate they care about their employees (oh, the irony).

Like so many things in life, the employee-employer relationship is subject to “You get out of it what you put into it.” This adage is familiar and sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s something we have to continually dust off and apply to avoid complacency and falling into bad habits. A favorite anecdote of mine regarding demonstrating care is about a couple in therapy…

• Husband: I’ve told her before that I love her. Really, how often do I need to tell her that?!
• Therapist: Before someone else does.

What is the state of the employee experience at your company? Are you consistently demonstrating you care about employees by noticing and recognizing their contributions? Or are your best employees not feeling the love? If so, they may already be flirting with the company next door.

Let me set the stage:  It’s Saturday morning in Rochester, NY.  I wake up to sunshine and birds chirping for the first time in what feels like an eternity.  I get out of bed, put on the coffee, and go check in on my little Caleb, who is still asleep in his bed.  As I sit down to enjoy my cup of Joe, I start thinking about what I need (want) to accomplish on this glorious day.  1. Get a work out in  2. Clean the house 3. Go shopping at Trader Joe’s.  Yes, one of the first thoughts of my day was not that I needed to go grocery shopping (that dreaded chore), but that I WANTED to go grocery shopping…at Trader Joe’s.

Now, the first day that we get “warm” weather in Rochester is a BIG deal. Everyone comes out of hibernation wearing shorts, t-shirts, and sunglasses, even though it’s only 40 degrees out.  People are out walking their dogs, running, headed to the markets.  Traffic is crazy.  People are smiling for the first time in 6 months, seriously.  I am fully aware that when I go to Trader Joe’s it’s going to be a mob scene.  Sure enough, we get there and it takes a good 10 minutes to find a parking spot. As we walk through the parking lot, I see there is cart-to-cart traffic inside the store.  I take a deep breath and look at my 5 year old who does NOT want to be there and start to second guess my decision, just for a minute though because as we are walking in, we are distracted by this sign:

Less than 30 seconds later, as we start to make our way through the sea of carts, a smiling gentlemen in a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt comes up to my Caleb, kneels down and asks him if he saw the sign about finding the bee.  Caleb excitedly shakes his head Yes as the employee gives him a clue about where he might find the bee.  “Do you know what bees make?” he asks Caleb.  HONEY, Caleb shouts excitedly!  The remaining 40 or so minutes we spent in the store was not the typical “How much longer? Are we done yet?” type of shopping trip. No, it was an exciting adventure!  Each aisle a new opportunity for discovery.

When he finally found the bee (yay!), we went to the Captain’s Desk (service desk) and a second very animated employee awarded him a sugar-free lollipop in a fashion that I imagine the President might award a war hero the Medal of Honor.

The point of my story is that when an organization provides THIS level of customer service, it does create an addiction.  The sacrifice of waiting in long lines doesn’t seem so bad anymore.  You feel a fondness towards the people who go out of their way (even on a busy day) to make your child feel so special. TJ’s is not only creating loyal customers, they are creating future customers, however tiny they may be right now.