Category Archives: Management & Leadership

25 Ways to Improve Employees’ Work-Life Balance

Posted on September 27, 2011 by | 3 Comments

gThankYou - Work-Life Balance PhotoThey say all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. And do you really want Jack the dullard working for you?

Wouldn’t you rather have Jack the well-rounded employee, engaged in his work because he has time and energy for a fulfilling family life and outside interests aside from work?

At gThankYou!, we think so.  October is National Work and Family Month, as designated in 1993 U.S. Senate Resolution 210, so now is a great time to help employees balance their work lives and home lives.  David J. Thompson, a noted author and speaker on work-life balance, cites a survey showing 70% of CEOs think they couldn’t remain competitive if they didn’t help employees do so.

Employees’ lives are more complex, hurried and filled with responsibilities than ever today, and you, as an employer, can help ease the burden.

As Thompson says, “Examine what you expect from your employees and what you can offer to help them balance work and personal lives. Consider adopting policies and programs that promote the life side of the equation. A little sensitivity and effort on your part can significantly help with morale and company commitment.”  Here are 25 ways you can improve employees’ work-life balance starting today!

25 Ways to Improve Employees’ Work-Life Balance

Flexible work options

Manageable workloads

  • Make deadlines realistic
  • Use employees’ skills wisely
  • Review and improve processes regularly
  • Provide needed tools and supplies
  • Minimize interruptions

Time savers

Quality-of-life-improving education

Family-friendly benefits

Gratitude

About Us
gThankYou, LLC  (www.gthankyou.com) is based in Madison, WI and produces America’s favorite meaningful, affordable and convenient employee gifts.  gThankYou!® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees and customers. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, Turkey or Ham Gift Certificates and Grocery Gift Cards.   Other Favorites include our Ice Cream and Pie Gift Certificates.

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Top 5 Reasons to Send Your Employees Back to School

Posted on September 16, 2011 by | 1 Comment

The last post talked about the importance of recognizing and thanking your employees, and the value of education as a reward.  It’s clearly an investment that benefits both your employees and your organization.

gThankYou Back-to-School PhotoHere are the top reasons to school your employees:

1.     They feel valued

As Beryl Companies CEO Paul Spiegelman explains in his Inc. com article Deliver Value to Your Employees—Your Most Important Stakeholders, “if you want employees to take a vested interest in the company’s future, you must take an interest in theirs—at work and at home.”  When employers care enough to help employees develop professionally and personally, the employees feel valued.  Valued employees are happier and more productive.

2.     An educated employee is a confident employee

Without proper training, employees can’t fully use their skills and abilities and may become frustrated. With mentoring and education they can confidently serve clients, complete high-quality work, and contribute creative ideas. That makes any employee happy.

3.    The work seems more meaningful

The more employees understand about how one workgroup interrelates with other departments, the more they understand their impact on the organization and the value of their work.

4.     It’s fun!

A creative instructor can incorporate games and team-building activities into educational sessions, making even the driest-seeming topic lively and engaging.  You can offer rewards to celebrate successes (ice cream, anyone?).  We spend a lot of time at work; employees want and need to have a little fun.

5.     Education assistance is a popular perk as it can be expensive

Offering tuition reimbursement helps employees prepare themselves for future opportunities, whether it’s a promotion in your organization or a career move.

After all, as business consultant Rick Kilton, President of RWK Enterprises, Inc.,  points out:

“Here’s a familiar question:  ‘What if I train them and they leave?’

There are two answers:

‘What if you don’t train them?  They will leave.’

Or worse:  ‘What if you don’t train them?  And they stay?’”

Education is the best investment you can make in your employees. And they’ll thank you for it.

About Us
gThankYou, LLC  (www.gthankyou.com) is based in Madison, WI and produces America’s favorite meaningful, affordable and convenient employee gifts.  gThankYou!® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees and customers. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, Turkey or Ham Gift Certificates and Grocery Gift Cards.   Other Favorites include our Ice Cream and Pie Gift Certificates.

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Posted in Gratitude Research, Management & Leadership, Showing Gratitude to Employees

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Old-School Employee Rewards

Posted on September 15, 2011 by | 1 Comment

As summer wanes and kids hit the classroom, meeting their new teachers and learning and playing with friends, new and old, why not recognize and thank your employees by sending them to school too?

What?  Education as recognition?  Unlike some kids that bemoan the beginning of school, most employees see the right educational opportunities as a reward.  And as the New York Times online reports in an article by Teresa Amabile  and Steven Kramer,  authors of “The Progress Principle”,  happier people are likely to work harder.

Picture of Team working toward Success

Being Valued Matters

Decades ago, psychologist Frederick Herzberg theorized that people are motivated most by self achievement, the sense of being valued for what they do, as this article reprint from Harvard Business Review explains. The next strongest motivator is recognition.

Translation:  Show your employees you value them.  They’ll be happier and more productive, and everybody wins.

Employee Engagement

It’s something that’s much needed in today’s workplaces.  The New York Times online article cites the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has polled over 1,000 adults every day since January 2008.  It shows Americans now feel worse about their jobs—and work environments—than ever before.

The article also has this to say:

“Employee engagement may seem like a frill in a downturn economy. But it can make a big difference in a company’s survival.  In a 2010 study, James K. Harter and colleagues found that lower job satisfaction foreshadowed poorer bottom-line performance.  Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, or their work quality suffers.”

What educational opportunities do you offer employees and how do they respond? Let us know!

About Us
gThankYou, LLC  (www.gthankyou.com) is based in Madison, WI and produces America’s favorite meaningful, affordable and convenient employee gifts.  gThankYou!® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees and customers. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, Turkey or Ham Gift Certificates and Grocery Gift Cards.   Other Favorites include our Ice Cream and Pie Gift Certificates.

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Administrative Professionals All – Celebrate!

Posted on April 27, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Fans of the cable hit show Mad Men recognize just how much office life has changed in the past few decades. Perhaps most notably gone are the multiple secretaries who toiled over many (many) tasks for the ad men, managers, editors, purchasing agents and many (many) more beneficiaries.

Today — if you’re very lucky —  your office has a bona fide administrative pro or two, along with a whole cast of others who take care of duties big and small, each necessary for keeping business moving efficiently.

No surprise that the International Association of Administrative Professionals changed the focus of this year’s Adminstrative Professionals Week (this week, April 24-30) to Celebrate All Office Professionals.

A bit on their reasoning:

“The recession has hit everyone in the office. Downsizing has forced all of us to pull together and work harder, not just the administrative professionals in the workplace. IAAP recognizes the hard work and sacrifice from everyone. This year, celebrate all office professionals.”

According to labor statistics, there are 4.1 million secretaries and administrative assistants in the U.S. today along with 8.9 million people serving in other administrative support roles. But few “traditional” secretaries still exist. In fact, only 5 percent of the administrative trade group’s membership still has the title. In their place are a slew of administrative pros that perform complex tasks managing projects, putting together budgets, serving as the staff expert on computer software and more.

Blogging on the Small Business Trends website, Susan Payton of Egg Marketing & Public Relations makes some great points just how much we rely on administrative professionals. In 5 Things an Administrative Assistant is Better at than You, she lists (among other things)

  1. Organizing your calendar
  2. Managing travel plans
  3. Removing the paper pile from your desk

I could name many (many) more. Where would we be, for example, without the office Excell expert, or the one guy who knows how to replace the toner? 

We are all, indeed, administrative professionals. Celebrate your success by recognizing the great effort everyone makes pulling together, and take pride in the work you do.

Please share your own examples of can’t-live-without admin duties performed by someone at your office. Happy Administrative Professsionals Week to us all!

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Posted in Gratitude, Management & Leadership, Thank You, Trends

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Engaging Employees as a Strategic Tool

Posted on March 17, 2011 by | 1 Comment

It’s no secret that praise produces better results than criticism. But the way top companies use this tool as a strategy to drive business success is a story not widely told.

According to research from Gallup Inc., engaged employees are more productive, profitable, more customer-focused and safer. Plus, they’re more likely to stick with a job. Says Gallup:

“The best-performing companies know that an employee engagement improvement strategy linked to the achievement of corporate goals will help them win in the marketplace.”

How does it work? Take the example given by Doug Conant, Campbell’s Soup CEO. Blogging in the Harvard Business Review’s The Conversation, Conant explains how he developed engagement as a business practice and why. As is often the case with the best ideas, it grew out of personal experience.

Conant was able early in his career to develop the analytical skills he needed to succeed in business only after initial failure. He succeeded after moving to a division that fostered employee growth through encouragement. It led him to a firm belief that offering a pat on the back is the best way to engage employees:

“Over the years, I’ve worked on acknowledging others for their efforts. I’ve managed to marry tough-minded performance standards with tender-heartedness.”

How does engagement affect the bottom line? According to Gallup research, companies with “world-class engagement” have 3.9 times the earnings per share growth rate compared with those in the same industry with lower engagement.

Creating an engagement program can mean a mindset change, described by Gallup as requiring, “a year-round focus on changing behaviors, processes, and systems to anticipate and respond to your organization’s needs. From the leadership team to the frontline employees, all levels within an organization must commit to making these changes.”

In his journey at Campbell’s, Conant notes three elements that have worked well for him:

  1. Make it personal: Conant describes how he takes a “direct, sincere and authentic” approach to establish trust and build a solid foundation for the relationship from the start.
  2. Seek celebration opportunities: How? “My executive assistants and I spend a good 30 to 60 minutes a day scanning my mail and our internal website looking for news of people who have made a difference at Campbell’s,” he explains
  3. Go old school with Thanks: Your mom and grandma were right — again. Writing Thank You notes make a big difference. Says Conant, “Believe it or not, I have sent roughly 30,000 handwritten notes to employees … over the last decade.”

Conant’s engagement strategy has been credited for turning the company around over the past decade. No real surprise. After all, it doesn’t take a lot of research to know that a pat on the back means more than a slap on the wrist.

Share with us your employee engagement success story.

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Posted in Gratitude, Management & Leadership, Thank You, The Art of Thank You, Trends

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Asian Parenting and Workplace Rewards

Posted on February 23, 2011 by | 1 Comment

If you followed all the recent fuss over how Asian parenting styles produce real results, you may think that it appears to contradict the idea that incentive programs can drive success.

In her now famous Wall Street Journal essay, “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” Yale Professor Chua describes (somewhat tongue in cheek, some argue) how kids in China –  and Korea and India among others – are driven to do so well in school and outperform kids in the U.S., for example.

For these parents, the reward is a good result, notes Chua:

“Once a child starts to excel at something—whether it’s math, piano, pitching or ballet—he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun. This in turn makes it easier for the parent to get the child to work even more.”

Blogging for ZDNet, Eileen Yu, who believes Chua’s sentiment was somewhat misunderstood, concludes that this kind of “tough love” method of pushing results would probably not work in every workplace:

“…the primary objective of any workplace [should be] to encourage and help employees realize the fullest of their potential, even if it may sometimes mean pushing them to their limits. “

How a manager accomplishes that for each employee is the tricky part. Success can breed success. Getting to the initial win could mean creating an environment that fosters success and rewards achievement. A simple thanks has been proven to get results according to reports including a survey by the staffing firm Accountemps, which found frequent recognition of accomplishments as the top way to reward employees.

Chua’s essay has sparked an important discussion about how to best facilitate  success, which includes fun take-offs like this from Edie Larson posted on Awl titled, “Why Minnesota Mothers Are Doing Pretty Good.” The parenting style can be summed up in this statement by Larson:

“If a Minnesota child gets a B, well, good for them! Room for improvement.”

In my mind, regardless of whether you’re a room-for-improvement style manager or succes- drives-success manager, rewards make a difference. Don’t forget to say thanks, no matter your style.

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Posted in Employee Gifts, Fun with Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude Research, Management & Leadership, Showing Gratitude to Employees, Thank You Power, Trends

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Business Gifting Best Practices Revealed!

Posted on December 7, 2010 by | Leave a comment

At gThankYou, we’re  in the fortunate position to learn and share information about how corporate gifts – to employees, customers or friends — impact business. Study after study as well as documented experiences shared by firms we serve reveals that corporate leaders practicing workplace gratitude gain a lot of what we like to call Thanks Equity. It can be measured in engaged employees, loyal customers and a healthier bottom line.

As another year comes to a close, it’s fitting to look back and share the best information we’ve found in the past year plus, a best practices of corporate gifting of sorts.

  1. How to engage employees? Just add dirt! 
  2. Gaining worker buy in by offering an office recess.
  3. Making Thanks easy by lowering the transaction cost.
  4. Timing is everything, except when it comes to workplace giving.
  5. What to give: It’s truly the thought that counts.
  6. Creating awareness with recognition.
  7. Health and happiness through giving.
  8. Recognition helps gain competitive advantage.
  9. Giving builds customer loyalty.
  10. Gifting is the best recruitment and retention tool.

More innovative corporate leaders are recognizing the value of Thanks Equity. You probably won’t find it on any P&L, but it does mean a lot to an organization’s health. Please share with us your stories of how workplace gifting helps your company.

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Posted in Employee Gifts, Fun with Gratitude, Gratitude, Gratitude Research, Management & Leadership, Showing Gratitude to Employees, Thank You, Thank You Power, The Art of Thank You, Workplace Gifts

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A Lesson in Appreciation

Posted on November 24, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Around Thanksgiving each year, teachers invariably urge students to talk and write about what they are Thankful for. (Insert groan here if you remember this exercise.)

This is not an easy task for child nor adult. So, it’s with utter amazement and heart-melting admiration that I learned this year about one 10-year-old child’s poignant expression of gratitude before his class this Thanksgiving.

When asked by his teacher to share what he appreciates, this kid thought and thought. Finally, he told classmates how he really is grateful for how his mom pours milk on his breakfast cereal every day.

What sounded trivial to him turned into a lengthy classroom discussion about how the little things we do for each other daily really add up to make a big difference. And his simple expression of Thanks became not so little anymore.

The simple truth is that small good things we do in our homes, communities and, yes, workplaces, every day add up in ways we probably don’t realize.

Another truth: Thanks is a powerful tool that pays big dividends when shared. It needn’t be a big gesture, either. (Even though I’m sure things like Snowplow Driver Appreciation Day marked this week in Wisconsin is nice, so is a well-worded note.)

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from all of us at gThankYou.

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Posted in Fun with Gratitude, Gratitude, Thank You, Thank You Power, The Art of Thank You

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Growing Engagement: Just add dirt

Posted on May 19, 2010 by | 4 Comments

What’s an instant recipe for growing  morale? Just add dirt.

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!

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How to Gift in the Workplace: Part III

Posted on April 14, 2010 by | 2 Comments

It became a popular fun topic of conversation around the water cooler the same time every month. Who would receive the certificate and hearty handshake? As the ritual went, monthly all-staff meetings concluded with the top executive handing out his pick-of-the-month for the stand-out employee.

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.

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Posted in Employee Gifts, Showing Gratitude to Employees, Trends

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