Redefining the Reason for Recognition

An old friend of mine found the 123-Awards.com Facebook page and left a comment for me that was very interesting. He pointed out that his company which employs around 300 people hands out recognition gifts for birthdays and other personal milestones!

I was floored by this. What a great idea. Recognizing personal as well as job-related achievement really sends a message that an employer cares about you. That they are involved in your life, not just your job.

Businesses often struggle with ways to bring their employees closer. While it's typical to recognize business success like sales or project milestones, isn't that just part of the deal? Like a person's pay, you expect to been congratulated for achieving major milestones that are directly related to your work.

But what about personal milestones? An individual is much more than just the person who shows up and does their job. They have lives. And personal achievement can be so many things.

Sometimes there could be a relationship between personal and professional achievement, such as completing a certification or degree, but there are also times when people who work for you deserve recognition for doing something outside of work.

While everyone may have a birthday or anniversary that could be recognized in some small way, many people are actively involved in contributing to society. Volunteer work is something that should be encouraged and there is no reason why an employer shouldn't be the one to do it.

Recently one of the people I work with, after years of practice as a amateur musician decided to join a band and start gigging whenever possible. I think this is a perfect situation for someone to step in and pat him on the back.

Does anyone else have an example of when a personal achievement might be worth recognition by an employer? I'd love to hear from you.

The Employer/Employee Relationship

Recently I've been working on a recognition program for a new client. Typically this begins with a discussion on the company's goals -- is it about retention? Are they looking to give incentives for higher performance? What are their expectations? How will they messure their goals?

But what I suddenly found myself understanding is that a recognition program is really about a company's relationship with their employees. Like any relationship, how the people treat each other depends on how they are treated in return.

Think about your relationship with your significant other. He/she will expect to receive a gift for their birthday, for your anniversary, for the usual holidays. But what happens when out of the blue you come home with a little something, hand it over and say "I saw this and thought about how much you do for me every day -- thanks for being there for me".

Now, suddenly, your relationship has a new sparkle to it. They know that they mean something more to you than simply the other person helping with the dishes and laundry. You are a couple, a team.

That's some powerful stuff. It's a "going the extra mile" thing. It means you really care.

I guess what I'm getting at is that you don't have to look deep into your employees eyes and say "I love you man". But giving them a little something to reinforce the relationship can leave everyone with a warm feeling. And at this time of year, a little extra warmth can go a long way.

Feeding the Flames of Spirit

As I write this post, the San Francisco Giants are up two games to one over Philadelphia for the National League Championship. Very exciting stuff for those of us who live in the Bay Area.

My business partner was at last night's game -- one among 43,000 fans, most of whom were waving orange towels or sporting other Giants branded products. I watched it on TV and was impressed by the show of spirit.

What a wonderful thing spirit is. It is a fire that burns bright in people. And the products they wear or wave is an important part of that fire. It is like the tinder that helps to fan the flames. It is a visual extension of their spirit, a way to announce to the world at large that they are a part of it all.

On a smaller scale, I see the same thing at my son's high school. In his band the kids all proudly wear their band jackets with the Terra Nova High School Band logo emblazoned on the back. At the football games you can buy tee-shirts and socks and sweatshirts and just about anything you can think of -- all sporting the football team colors and logo. I see it in all the schools that we sell these products to. It's a marvelous thing really.

Thinking about it, I am surprised that the concept hasn't migrated altogether to the corporate world. Imagine a staff that proudly displays the company colors and logos on their jackets, or wear tees or polos to off-hour events. This kind of "team" branding should be a standard practice for corporations.

If a company is about branding, then the spirit that is built through branded products is a potential flame that deserves to be fed.

Just look at that sea of orange in the San Francisco stadium -- Go Giants!

Amazing Fleece

This week we are celebrating products made from fleece -- one of my favorite materials.

This stuff is really amazing. It's a soft, napped, insulating synthetic fabric usually made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Lightweight, it's highly breathable and machine washable.

It's been around since 1979 and was created to be a light, strong fabric meant to mimic and in some ways surpass wool. It has some of wool's best qualities but weighs much less than even the lightest wools.

According to Wikipedia.org it's inventor, Aaron Feuerstein, intentionally declined to patent fleece so that the material could be produced cheaply and widely by many manufacturers, promoting the fabric's acceptance.

It worked.

Fleece is a very popular material for a wide range of products -- jackets, hoodies, hats, shirts, workout clothes and blankets. Many of the members of my son's high school band bring the hooded, robe-like Snuggies to wear during down time at competitions. Keeps them nice and warm and are easy to pack away.

Mind you, they look a little dorky.

Camouflage: To See Or Not To See

This week we are featuring camouflage in our weekly flyer. What I find particularly interesting is that something that was adapted from nature to help our soldiers to blend in to their environment has become a fashion that makes people stand out! That's what they call irony.

From the French word camoufl, meaning to disguise, camouflage is technically a method of crypsis (avoidance of observation) that allows an object or creature to blend into its surrounding environment through deception.

While we are most familiar with the military use of camouflage, in fact the natural world has been at it for a much longer time. Both predators and prey make good use of camouflage -- for instance the tigers strips allow it to stock closer to its prey by allowing it to blend with the tall grasses, while many birds, bugs, marine life, and animals use camouflage to hide.

The original military use (according to Wikipedia) was the British in India, when they were forced by casualties to dye their white uniforms to neutral tones. Khaki is a Urdu word for dust and was how they described the muddy tan color they ended up with.

These days camouflage comes in a variety of different patterns and color combinations. Some of the most common are khaki, grey, and blue-grey. They even have a more modern looking version referred to as digital camouflage which uses a pixelated pattern. Hunters will often use a blaze orange pattern which makes the hunter obvious to other humans while making them hard to see to large game animals which see the orange as a dull color.

On the horizon is an interesting twist to crypsis that any fan of Harry Potter or Star Trek will be familiar with -- invisibility materials. Technically referred to as metamaterials, scientists in Boston have developed a way to make a silk-like cloth that literally bends light, making the object covered in the material almost invisible. They claim that with a little more tweaking, it will attain total invisibility.

Naturally this will be a huge leap in camouflage for military purposes (they will literally be able to "cloak" planes and people). Personally I'm more intrigued by the civilian applications and the moral implications of my son being able to slip out of the house without me noticing!

But as soon as they find an application in promotional products you will see them on our site ... wait, how is that going to work?

Highlighters!

This week 123-Awards.com is featuring highlighters on the site. It got me thinking about the ubiquitous little pens that are so much a part of our office lives. Which in turn got me doing a little reading.

According to Wikipedia (eat grain of salt now) these little felt-tip wonders are another gift to the world from the fertile minds of the Japanese. They were invented in 1962 and they have continued to catch on like yellow wildfire every since.

Did you know that most ink colors are florescent and therefore glow in the dark? I didn't. How cool is that? While they were originally yellow, they are now available in multiple colors, the most common being yellow, pink, blue and green. I often use multiple colors to designate functions on hard copy documents.

Some of them are "dry" which applies a strip of tape like the old audio cassettes (which makes them erasable).

And who doesn't have one? Once the domain of students marking their text books for easy reference, they've become an organization necessity for some. And it's not just the color that's changed. They are now in a variety of different forms -- triangular shaped with three different tips, built into pens, highlighters with little sticky notes attached, pens in clever shapes (like syringes for hospital use), and my favorite: little stubby ones that come in a plastic case of four.

A number of years ago I bought a bunch of them to give out as swag at a government trade show. The people loved them. I keep several for my own use, but am still working with the original set. The dang little things really last.

They also make a good substitute for crayons. Whenever one of our staff needs to bring in a little one for a bit, if they didn't bring crayons I break out the highlighters and let them go at a page. Makes for some pretty interesting work.

I just did a quick search and guess what? There are artists out there who specialize in artwork using highlighters!

Why am I not surprised?

The Power of the Plaque

In my opinion, of all of the tools in an employer's arsenal, nothing is as worthwhile as a good pat on the back for a job well done. We all crave a little recognition for our efforts. It lets us know that our work is appreciated.

There are a lot of different kinds of recognition, of course. Money is good, but that's the main deal -- "I'll work for you, you pay me money". During the heady boom times companies would sometimes offer high-end incentives like big ticket items and trips.

But frankly, I don't think anything does the job of a good plaque.

A plaque is like a recurring pat on the back. Every time the employee sees it they say to themselves "that's me" and are instantly lifted by it. On top of that is the peer recognition they enjoy during the original presentation of the award and again every time someone sees the award mounted prominently on their wall or in the office lobby.

And cost wise, it just doesn't get any better. Sure you can spend an easy $100 on a real nice wood plaque, but at 123-Awards.com we have economy plaques starting at only $18.25 -- sweet.