The world really needs more love and less paper work
By Ph.D. Bob Nelson
Most everyone likes to receive flowers as a form of thanks, but I find people rarely get creative about what they could do to make giving flowers even more fun and meaningful. For example, Dave Baldwin, the manager of management development training for Abbott Laboratories in Abbott Park, IL, tells how he gave a bouquet of flowers held together with a watch to an associate who delayed her vacation and "took the time" to help when needed in the department. The employee wears the watch as a badge of honor to this day.
In another instance, a nurse volunteered to handle an emergency
that arose while she was attending a class and when she returned
was greeted with a gift of a single flower in a vase with a
flexible bracelet wrapped about it and the words: "By the end of
the day you'll know what this means."
Several hours later during the seminar, the nurse blurted out "I
was flexible!" as she realized the significance of the twistable
adornment.
The class all cheered.
Dave feels we need to stop having formal, impersonal reward systems that people feel obligated to use even though they are ineffective and instead start identifying the specific behaviors we want from employees and reinforce those behaviors when we see them in the workplace. "We need to put responsibility for recognition and rewards back in the hands of managers," he says. In the process, more immediate personal reinforcers will help make the workplace more fun and effective.
In another instance, his company honored an employee who set up a management off-site meeting by having each senior executive give the employee a flower at the beginning of the event with a personalized word of thanks. The employee reported that although she had received flowers before for organizing such events, the personalized thanks by the company's senior executives made this recognition event "most meaningful" of them all.
Often it is the personal touch that gives the reward the most
meaning.
When my wife worked for Hewlett Packard she was honored once with
an
appreciation day hosted in her honor. Unbeknownst to her there was
a sign
up sheet in someone's office that had the day divided into
10-minute increments. Any employee could sign up for one of these
time slots and during that time take a single flower to Jennifer's
desk, give it to her and in their own words thank Jennifer for some
aspect of their working relationship. For example, an associate
would say "Jennifer, thanks for always being there when I need your
help. You may not remember this, but several months back I came to
you when I needed some information to meet a deadline on a project.
You were on a deadline yourself for a project you were working on,
yet you put your work aside to focus on my needs. You really saved
me that day -- thanks for being there for me." Now although
Jennifer didn't get a lot done on that day, at the end of the day
she had a beautiful bouquet of flowers and -- more importantly --
an affirmation of her worth in the organization as told by those
individuals she works with most closely.
At Maritz Performance Improvement Company in Fenton, MO, they
have a Thanks a Bunch program in which a bouquet of flowers are
given to an employee in appreciation for special favors or jobs
well done. That employee then passes the flowers on to someone else
who has been helpful with the intent of seeing how many people can
be given the bouquet throughout the day.
With the flowers goes a written thank you card. At certain
intervals the cards are entered into a drawing for awards such as
binoculars or logoed jackets. The program is used during especially
heavy workloads or stressful times.
A similar idea is being pursued in a community near where I live in San Diego. Four Seasons Flower Shop in Poway, CA, is instigating what it calls a "Good Neighbor Day" in which on a given day the store will distribute a dozen free roses to anyone who comes into their store on the condition that the person keep one of the roses and pass the rest of the bunch on to someone else, instructing the next person to do the same.
Barbara Bertran, the store's owner obtained the support of several other local businesses to sponsor this event in which they distributed some 10,000 medium-stemmed roses.
Any recognition theme can be made more meaningful and exciting with a little thoughtfulness and creative energy. Take time to reflect what would give a traditional reward you use a more personal, innovative twist.
Have a great Valentine's Day and take time to tell those you love what they mean to you!
