Create a culture,  in which recognition is ongoing -

A management team was wondering how to recognize their employees and appreciated publicly. It's a great question to be asking, and a company that does a good job will create a wonderful culture.

Let‘s go one step further and ask: how can we simply create a day-to-day work environment which gives that recognition?

Public appreciation is nice, but it's infrequent and often has an aura of "special event" to it. In my experience coaching, I find that people need a boost on an ongoing basis. In the best places in my own career, appreciation wasn't a special event—it was part of our day-to-day living.

How to recognize your employees for doing a great job? One overlooked strategy is simply complimenting the person in the course of day-to-day work.

• Drop by their desk and tell them how great they've been. Public appreciation is great, but in my experience as a coach, I find that people also need little appreciative gestures on an ongoing basis:
• when someone stays late, let them know you appreciate it.
• when someone rearranges their personal life to accommodate work, thank them.
• treat your team to a meal spontaneously.
• give people a day off or a trip someplace cool. (needn't be expensive, just fun)
• buy your techies that fun new software package they want to play with [even though it has no business value].
• listen to your employees' opinions and consider the possibility that when you disagree, they may be right.
• putting a huge stuffed animal on their chair to hug them when they arrive in the morning.
• gift certificates to a movie. end meetings on time [shows respect for peoples' time].
• never schedule Monday meetings before 10 am, or Friday meetings after 3 pm [I would suggest never scheduling ANY meetings before 10 am or after 4 pm, since otherwise you risk having your night people / morning people only half-there

© 2006 by Stever Robbins. All rights reserved in all media.

Stever Robbins is founder and president of LeadershipDecisionworks, a consulting firm that helps companies develop leadership and organizational strategies to sustain growth and productivity over time. You can find more of his articles at www.LeadershipDecisionworks.com. He is the author of It Takes a Lot More than Attitude to Lead a Stellar Organization.