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.

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.

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.

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.

Formally called “strategic recognition” in Human Resources management lingo, the practice and policy of Thanks goes beyond the intangible in benefits for a company.
Consider the following evidence from experts in the field:

Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business says offering formal Thanks in a company generates  higher ROI than bonuses. In his book, The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First, Pfeffer notes that “Companies that manage people right will outperform companies that don’t by 30% to 40%.”

In fact, a McKinsey study published last year showed a $1,000 payment had a 10 times greater ROI when it was given as recognition than when it was given as a pay increase.

In its recently released WorkUSA study, Watson Wyatt, the global HR services firm, quantifies Thanks in an organization this way. In encouraging firms to build and share a system of equitable rewards, Watson Wyatt says, “organizations need to understand which reward programs are most important to engage their critical employee segments.” Their research shows that organizations that have an effective system of rewards have employees 20 times as likely to be highly engaged and 50 percent more likely to perform well.

It’s up to the HR manager to drive the conversation toward programs that make employees feel valued. It’s also quite prudent now to instill these formal Thanks into an organization. It’s more than just the right thing to do.

This is the first in a series describing some of the great ways our customers distribute gThankYou® Gift Certificates to employees. They’re touching, inspiring, thankful, often funny and just plain effective.

When gThankYou does our year-end wrap-up calls with customers we always ask:

1.  “How did you distribute gThankYou® Gift Certificates to employees?”

And

2.  ”How did it go?”

The responses are always revealing. Often they illustrate great creativity, sense of purpose and, of course, gratitude.

One thing customers often ask us: “How do other companies distribute your Gift Certificates?”

We chose to make this our first blog on this topic because it’s simple, easy and effective.

The Background. The Company was closing out a difficult year. Sale were down slightly, but less than the rest of the industry. An exciting new product was about to be introduced; it had huge potential. The Company had also overhauled its website. The new website required the help of all departments and touched everyone in the Company. It may be a big sales booster for the Company.

The President doesn’t like to give awards or gifts to individual employees, relying instead on a team-oriented approach. Still, she wanted to recognize the individuals and departments that had led the new product and website efforts.

How did she do it? Simply and elegantly.

The Payoff. She began by explaining it was a difficult year; that things were worse for competitors; that the sales force had shown its ability to out-hustle national competitors in a down market. And more:

• The whole Company had contributed to out-performing the market and laying the groundwork, in tough times, for a better future;
• That the new product and website were major accomplishments and the leaders of these initiatives had shown what a great, resourceful company can do.
• That the company is fortunate to have a great workforce and that the successful new initiatives wouldn’t be possible without major personal commitments from all departments and everyone’s families.

“That’s why”, she said “we want each of our families to celebrate our success knowing better times that will surely come.” She went on to explain how gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificates work.

Next, she personally handed the Gift Certificates to the two Department Heads who led the new product and website development projects, giving them indirect, but prominent recognition.

After that, the two Department Heads presented the Gift Certificates to their teams.

Finally, the new product and website teams handed the Gift Certificates to remaining employees.

There were lots of hugs, plenty of laughs, a few tears.

All-in-all it was a very successful “gThankYou!”

The Bottom Line. Simple, powerful, emotional, effective, memorable.

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