Take, for example, one boutique ice cream maker here that concocts custom ice cream flavors for big events and special occasions. During a recent charity event, The Chocolate Shoppe came up with a “festive yellow/red cookie dough” ice cream that had the distinct appearance of – you guessed it – sausage laden with yellow mustard. (Yum!) When the city this year wooed Google to bring its fiber optic service here, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Babcock Dairy launched Madfiber ice cream featuring M&Ms in Google’s company colors with sweet granola in vanilla ice cream.

Although it appears that I live in a magical Frozen Dairyland, plenty of other ice cream artisans across the country come up with unusual flavor combinations , too.  Exotic is the niche at In the Mood Coffee and Ice Cream in Woodbury and Magic Fountain in Mattituck. Not to be outdone, the tiny Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco keeps customers current with its 100 flavors including prosciutto, milk chocolate tarragon and foie via Twitter.

Regardless of the number of flavors out there, one flavor stands alone as the consummate favorite: vanilla. There are good reasons why. Vanilla is anything but plain or boring. Vanilla’s flavor profile is complex as the Washington Post notes.

“Such complexity and multidimensionality have made vanilla one of the most sought-after and copied spices. But its use is still fairly limited. We add it to sweet dishes to emphasize their sweetness. And that’s about it. Although homemade vanilla ice cream is one of the most wonderful things I know, I don’t think we should stop there.”

Plus, vanilla pairs well with just about everything. Check these top flavors from a Food Network survey. The top five of 15:

1. Vanilla
2. Chocolate
3. Butter pecan
4. Strawberry
5. Neapolitan

For contrast, here are the top ice cream flavors based on sales listed by the NPD Group:

1. Vanilla
2. Chocolate
3. Butter Pecan
4. Strawberry
5. Chocolate Chip Mint

I see a trend. What’s your favorite scoop?

Some companies have  found a fun and innovative way to engage employees by providing an unlikely benefit: a vegetable garden. This growing trend was recognized as one of the best ideas in Human Resources recently.

Minneapolis PR and branding company Haberman & Associates  spent about $10,000 last year to start a garden for its employees.  “It’s creating that water-cooler effect,” the article quotes company co-founder and chief executive Fred Haberman “People have a greater excitement [about] working at Haberman.”

Haberman’s off-site garden, called the “Dude Ranch,” was recognized by Human Resource Executive magazine editors as one of the  “Best HR Ideas for 2010.” You can follow the company’s growing season, or get tips on how to start an employer-sponsored garden yourself, at the project blog.

The National Gardening Association says vegetable gardening is up about 20 percent, although it’s not clear how much of that is done by companies. But a growing number of firms have taken up the hoe including Google, Yahoo, Kohl’s, PepsiCo and Twisted Limb Paperworks, which began a 1,500-square-foot garden outside its offices to boost engagement, as this Washington Post story relates.

University of Maryland business professor Paul Tesluk says a garden can encourage camaraderie, help in recruiting and differentiate a business from competitors. Perhaps it’s time to plant a row for employee morale and engagement and, of course, to just say Thanks!

Although the certificate (suitable for framing) held no monetary value, it was treasured by the recipient and often displayed for years in cubes and offices. Accolades like this have been proven to be the greatest workplace gift of all. And I would argue that it’s not so much what or when (see Parts I and II of this series), but how the gift is presented that is really key to a successful workplace gift program that will return rewards to your company.

Saying Thank You to employees with meaningful rewards is good. Doing it in a way that recognizes specific achievements in a forum that creates awareness is great. Even if it’s a simple gift, putting thought behind the presentation has been proven to motivate.

It a recent Workplace Wrangler blog the Seattle Post Intelligencier drew attention to author Daniel Pink’s recent speech at the TED conference. The talk, detailing the science of motivation, notes that “when it comes to motivation, there is a huge gap between what science knows and what companies do.” Pink wrote the acclaimed Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. According to the PI:

Pink convincingly argues that once our basic need for financial stability is taken care of, the desire for intrinsic motivation kicks in. Intrinsic motivation is founded upon personal rewards (individual interest or love) rather than extrinsic motivation (money). In fact, many scientific studies have demonstrated that people actually become less motivated when money is tied to doing something we are already drawn to doing. It actually devalues it for us!

Pink advocates employers to adopt a “now-that” approach to rewards and gifts instead of the usual quid-pro-quo “if-then” rewards system to gain motivation.

A recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers and OfficeTeam reported in the Toronto-based Globe & Mail recently  noted that 33 percent of workers in North America believe their manager fails to recognize them.

The certificate and hearty handshake method worked because it was a gift that carried a lot of meaning behind it. The recipient was most often a surprise, and always well deserved.

What’s the best workplace gift you have received? What’s the best reward program you’ve been involved with at a company? Chime in.

But, gift giving experience shows that there’s more to it than that. Following Part I of our guide to the Best Workplace Gifts,  exploring when to give, it’s important to now consider how you decide what to give, To wrap your head around that question, consider that the psychology of gift giving  suggests that “the nature of the gift, not its monetary value, determines the prevalence of reciprocal reactions,” according to researchers at the University of Zurich’s Institute for Empirical Research in Economics who in 2008 published a paper on “The Currency of Reciprocity – Gift-Exchange in the Workplace.”

In field studies, researchers found out that employees offered a gift performed better than if offered higher wages.

“…An increase in fixed wages only has a negligible impact on workers’ productivity. However, a gift in-kind of equivalent monetary value has an economically and statistically significant effect on productivity. Workers provide 30 percent more output on average. Moreover, this effect remains large and significant over the course of the entire working period…. Our main result remains largely unchanged if the price of the gift is communicated to the workers.”

Gifts are personal expressions and should be treated that way. But this suggests that small tokens can be more meaningful than big bonuses. Follow these simple guidelines to best determine what to give:

1. Consider any company policy or rewards program details first when looking at specific employee gifts. (If you don’t have a reward policy, it could be a good time to develop one.)
2. Your mission and culture can give strong clues to good gift fits. Family-friendly firms, for example, will reap great benefits form gifts that will be meaningful to entire families, rather than an individual tchotchke.
3. There’s nothing wrong with promoting your company with gifts, such as corporate logo goods, but stay away from anything that says “gag” gift. That sends the wrong message.
4. Fun is good. Enjoy the process and make the gift choosing and giving fun for managers and employees to create a positive, strengthening atmosphere.

There’s no need to wrack your brain about what to give. It is important to have a rewards program that emphasizes the mission and culture of your organization. Revisit it, evaluate it and tweak it when necessary.

This recent post from Career Builder advises companies how to attract and win over ideal job candidates. The list includes lots of perks that range widely:

• Offering a healthy work/life balance
• Having flexible or alternative work schedules
• Corporate volunteering groups and efforts
• Cross-training opportunities
• A “Green” facility
• Tuition reimbursement
• Health benefits for an employee and his/her family
• Casual dress
• Dogs in the office
• Employee trips
• Candy at the reception desk
• Free yoga
• In-house massage
• Learning opportunities
• Fun contests to promote recognition
• 15 days off during the holiday season
• Profit sharing

Missing from this list, arguably, is the key strategy of engaging current employees and offering them a tangible system that helps them set, achieve and celebrate goals. Employees under your roof now are your greatest asset, and best advertising tool to boost your ranks with top-performing people. Best to start the year right by setting a policy and agenda toward employee engagement for a sustainable organization.

As discussed in this recent post from Jo Confino, executive at the London-based Guardian, employee engagement is not really rocket science, but more a matter of communication. Says Jo:

“We are delighted that our most recent employee survey has shown that our staff engagement programme has led to a dramatic uplift in the scores on sustainability, compared with the same survey the previous year.”

According to Career Builder, the job forecast for the upcoming period is improving. It’s probably a good time  to shore up employee engagement to build a truly sustainable and productive workforce.

To help you through the process of using your gThankYou certificate, I’ve created this handy primer designed to answer any questions. Since I, too, was the recent recipient of my first gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificate, I thought there no better way to help than to share my own experience

Told that my gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificate would cover $20 toward the purchase of any Turkey of my choice from any grocer, I went shopping. Here’s how it worked.

After settling on the exact Turkey I wanted – Kosher this year – I planned where to shop for the perfect size Turkey at a good price. I found the perfect bird at Trader Joe’s, a national specialty food retail chain that caters to the foodie crowd. The bird fit my criteria, and those spelled out on the certificate (it needed to cost at least $20).

Certificate in hand, I advanced toward the check-out. After I presented the certificate, my checker examined it and began reading the instructions. He was a first-timer too, having never seen a Certificate from gThankYou. A manager responded, and after he read the certificate instructions, completed my transaction.

After hardly the bat of an eye, I was done. It worked just like a coupon presented during the check out process. But this was better, because I was fulfilling a reward.

A few tips:

1. Pay attention to the specifics. Details on your certificate will tell you what the gift covers: Turkey, Ham or Groceries and for how much.
2. Certificates will have a good-through date. Use the certificate by this day to ensure you receive the full benefit of your gift.
3. Expect to wait a minute or two for verification from a store manager. Shopping during a slower time of day on a slower store traffic day will minimize your wait.
4. If you run into stores with questions, there’s a toll-free number on the certificate that managers or clerks can call on the spot.
5. Rest assured that the certificates are usable for any specified item at any store, even if they’ve never (as was my experience) processed a gThankYou certificate. It’s the real deal.

It was truly an unexpected thrill to receive a gThankYou Gift Certificate. I felt proud using it, and enjoyed serving the Turkey I purchased with it, which this year had more of a story. Share your experience getting and using gThankYou certificates, and serving the resulting meals.

Thanks to a recent New York Times piece, “In Month of Giving, A Healthy Reward,” by Tara Parker-Pope, whose Well columns have this year has become some of my favorite Google Reader picks, I know a lot more about the gifts of giving. During this season, it’s important to be mindful of those rewards.

There are real reasons we feel good giving people gifts, whether they’re gifts of time, talent or a treasured trinket. It’s particularly interesting that scientific studies confirm that giving is, indeed, good for you.

Quoted in the piece, Stephen Post, who wrote “Why Good Things Happen to Good People”  says that giving and helping provides benefits that last years.

“It turns out that giving — far more than receiving — is a surprisingly potent force whose impact reverberates across an entire lifetime, nourishing health and happiness in astonishing ways.”

Post directs the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University, which  has compiled evidence of the good of giving in 50 studies.

So, as we near the end of the year – the end of the decade, in fact – and thoughts turn toward incremental ways you can change your daily life for greater happiness, health and good, keep in mind the power behind a simple Thank You and other little ways to include giving in your daily life. You could be the greatest benefactor.

Peter Warr and Guy Capperto’s new book “The Joy of Work?” is among the work being presented on this hot topic. We spend one quarter of our lives at work, so it’s important to make the best of it, says Warr, emeritus professor a the UK-based Institute of Work Psychology. It’s important, Warr explains in a New York Times article, to focus on job satisfaction or finding meaning in your work, describing nine necessary elements of happiness in work and life. These include: having some sense of empowerment, using and expanding your skills.

There’s more:

• Consultant and author Alexander Kjerulf (self-dubbed Chief Happiness Officer) offers 10 reasons happiness at work is the top productivity booster. Among the benefits of workplace happiness Kjerulf cites: less complaining, more energy, higher optimism, increased motivation and fewer sick days.

• Performance Coach Arvind Devalia chimes in with his 12 steps to workplace happiness. He cites a  UK survey that found that two out of three people are dissatisfied with thier jobs and encourages workers to “See your work as a game. Life is meant to be fun and if you are going to spend a third of it at work, you might as well enjoy the game.”

• Finally, author Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project shares 16 practical tips for feeling happier at work.

This offers more proof that employees, and companies, gain from thankfulness and appreciation.

Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI.  gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way  savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.

It hit home. People this year and are in need of basics. Being able to provide a Turkey Dinner with all the fixings is a real gift. That’s why today I’m thankful for generosity that has filled family’s tables across the country this Thanksgiving. A special Thank You to those who use ingenuity to get Turkeys on tables this year, like one gThankYou customer that used employee cash donations to purchase gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificates for its food drive benefiting families of a local school.

Writes Wendy Stane, Star-Telegram Special Events Coordinator,

“…employees’ generosity in cash donations far exceeded previous year’s contributions.  These turkey certificates will go to all families in need who submitted an application for assistance compliments of YOU, the Star-Telegram employees. Thank you! In the past, actual food donations required a bob tail truck loaded down and several volunteers to load and unload. With fewer resources this year, we were still able to provide 80 families with a turkey certificate and 31 with a complete dinner kit.”

The certificates were a big hit, according to this from Cynthia Monsevalles, a counselor at Hubbard Heights Elementary:

“The Turkey Certificates to be redeemed at any store were a great idea.  Every family got one.  Thanks.  Through our PTO, a special teacher fund and Star-Telegram we were also able to provide a food box for every family.”

The story is the same, I suspect, most every place. When times are tough, people take the opportunity to shine with acts of gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at gThankYou!

Lynn Welch is a contributor to gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI.  gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies recognize employees’ great work at Holiday Time. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.

Australian psychologist Timothy Sharp, of the Happiness Institute recently asked 50 people what they consider to be the top three things that contributed to happiness at work. Their answers provide very valuable information to HR managers.

While I won’t rehash all five things Sharp outlines as steps to happiness at work, number three in particular struck me as relevant: Give Thanks

Says Sharp:

“Employees want to be valued as members of a team and organization. But they also want to be told, frequently and appropriately, that they are valued, as people. They want to be thanked and appreciated for their accomplishments. When managers and colleagues openly congratulate employees for their wins or efforts, it makes everyone happier.”

Sharp explains that this response is consistent with a great deal of research into what he terms the “social and emotional benefits of gratitude.” University of California-Davis psychologist Robert Emmons discusses this concept in his book, Thanks!.

He explains gratitude as a way of life, and provides tips on how to practice it in our everyday lives arguing that it enhances our sense of self-worth, while at the same time strengthening social ties. Emmons continues his study of expressing thanks, which he calls the “forgotten factor” in happiness research, saying that it increases the happiness of both giver and receiver.

Sounds like required reading for anyone interested in boosting workplace happiness…and maybe the rest of your life, too.

Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI.  gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way  savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.