Recognize & Thrive: How Prioritizing Recognition Drives Engagement and Success in the Workplace

[00:00:00.110] - Emily Smit

All right. Good morning. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Culture Community. We are so thrilled to have you all here. I know we asked this earlier, but just throw your hands up or throw a little emoji if it's your first time here. Welcome. We are so excited to have you all here today. So who is Culture Community? What do we do? Here at Culture Community, we are a group of people passionate about being great leaders, intentionally building great cultures at our organization and community, making those amazing connections. So this is a space to really learn, develop, and grow. It's a time to connect with each other or make these connections. We've had so many people meet through this group and meet outside of it, and it's just so awesome to see those relationships grow. This is also a space to be inspired, activated, and make a positive change in the world. So when and where we meet, we meet online monthly, mostly. You'll see why, because next month you'll not be meeting online. And we cover topics that help us become better leaders and build better cultures. So, spoiler alert alert, our event for next month, we are actually meeting in person.

[00:01:11.460] - Emily Smit

We are so excited about this event. It will be at Ford Fest in Madison. And the topic will be a story panel and social hour. So fempreneurs, bold narrative, and what it takes to make your break. There's going to be a couple of awesome entrepreneurs on there, and I can't wait to hear all their stories. So hopefully you can see us in person. We can't wait to see so many of your smiling faces in person. Then...

[00:01:42.750] - Leah Roe

Sorry, I just want to say, Diana, really quick. You are moderating this panel of this amazing event. What is one thing you're excited about for that event?

[00:01:51.240] - Participant

Oh, I'm excited to embarrass all the panelists. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, this is going to be really fun.I just was looking at the questions this morning and I think it's going to be good. You know me, I'm a challenger, so I'm going to hopefully challenge people a little bit and get some good stories out of people.

[00:02:16.360] - Leah Roe

I'm excited. I'm on the panel. So I'm excited to be challenged by Diana and share the good, the bad and the ugly of entrepreneurship. So hopefully.

[00:02:25.520] - Participant

Turn the tables.

[00:02:26.330] - Leah Roe

Yeah. Turn the tables a little bit. Yeah. All right. Are we ready to go? Also, just so you know, I'm looking over here. All of you are on my second screen. I can see all your beautiful faces. I'm not distracted by something going on over here. All right. We are here to talk about recognition, recognize and thrive. I'm Leah Roe. I'm the founder of the Perk. I am super excited to be presenting today with Steph and Emily, who are my teammates, my partners in crime. They are leadership coaches and culture consultants here at the Perk. And the Perk, what do we do? What is it that you do here? So at the Perk, we are a premier leadership and culture development studio. And today we're here to talk about recognition. Let's start with what it is. What is recognition in the workplace? So here is a handy dandy definition that we love to use. So employee recognition is the act of showing appreciation and acknowledgement for employees for contributions to the business that links to the company's purpose, mission, and values. Now, let's break that down. Employee recognition is the act. It is a behavior.

[00:03:29.320] - Leah Roe

It is something that you do. So it is the act of showing appreciation and acknowledgement for employees for contributions, things that they do, things that they bring to the table, things that they achieve, maybe the energy they bring, maybe it's the way they treat a client or the way they treat a teammate. So a lot of things can go into contributions. So it's acknowledgement for the employees for contributions to the business that links to the company's purpose, mission, and values. So you're not recognizing people for doing things that are taking away from your company's mission, purpose, or values. So when you recognize your team, you are showing them that their hard work, dedication is noticed and highly valued. When you take the time to recognize your team, you are encouraging the behaviors, the enthusiasm, the energy, the results, the things that you want to see on your team. You want that person to continue doing those things, and you want others to do them as well. And when you take the time to recognize your team, this is how you build a high trust, high performing team, and ultimately how you cultivate an extraordinary culture.

[00:04:33.450] - Leah Roe

So why else? Why else is recognition important? Let's look at some numbers. Love me some stats. Based on the work that Gallup and Work Human has done together, they found that through their research, you are 56 % less likely to look for other job opportunities when you feel recognized at work. Who here wants their people to stay with them and not look for other job opportunities outside of their organization? Anyone love their people? Yes, we do. When you feel recognized at work, you are five times more likely to feel connected to the culture, and you are four times more likely to recommend your company to friends and family. This is known as the NPS score, the net promot score. It's really, really important. So recognition is a huge factor in boosting your company's NPS score. And I love this stat right here in the middle. Recognition. Creating a culture of recognition can save a 10 % employee company up to $16.1 million in turnover costs annually. So if anyone tells you that recognizing your people celebrating their achievements has no effect on the bottom line, they are wrong and they need to read this report or send them to me and I will tell them otherwise.

[00:05:50.360] - Leah Roe

So why else is recognition important? Through our years of experience, extensive research, collaborating with other experts in this field, we have been able to take the complex concept of leadership and break it down into six key ingredients. And that is a leadership mindset and five behaviors curiosity, listening, expectations, yes and recognition. So recognition is a core element of great leadership. We've distilled it down. It is one of the things that great leaders do. And they don't just do it every once in a while. Recognition is a daily behavior of great leaders. So if you want to be a great leader, and I know you all do, recognition is something you need to start doing daily. It needs to become part of your daily operating system. So that's a little bit about what recognition is and why it's important to us. But I want to hear from you, from your perspective, why is recognition important to you? And we're going to use the annotate feature here. And Steph, if you could jump in and explain how to do that, since I'm terrible at technology, that would be great.

[00:07:00.970] - Steph Llano

You got it. So there's two ways now that you can annotate. Zoom has upgraded a little bit. So in the bottom left hand corner of your screen, you'll see a little pencil. You can hit that and that will take you right to the Annotate screen or menu at the top of your screen. Then you'll just want to hit text. Then you can use one of these little text bubbles that you see on your screen here to type in. If that doesn't work for you, at the top of your screen, there's View Options with a little drop down carat. You can click that. Then there's an Annotate about three fourths down on that menu, and then you'll get that Annotate menu button as well. Again, just select text and then type in. And once you're done typing, click away and then we'll be able to see all of your wonderful responses.

[00:07:44.040] - Leah Roe

Makes me feel seen. Yes, I love that. I love people seet. I love helping people see how important they are. It feels good. Positive reinforcement makes me feel valued. It's good for the soul. Tells me I'm on the right track. That's a great one. Keeps me motivated, strengthens engagement, feel valued. Yes. Love that. And in addition to writing in the bubbles, does anyone want to say out loud what's important to you about recognition?

[00:08:29.390] - Participant

When its authentic.

[00:08:31.510] - Leah Roe

It's authentic. You don't want it to be forced or feel disingenuine. It's important feedback. Absolutely. Hi, Michelle Venturini, by the way. So good to see you. Hi, Lero. It's so good to be here. Love it. Makes me feel valued and connected to the work. This is fantastic. Nice job, team. Everybody everyone is on today. Everyone has had their caffeine and they are good to go. All right, let's keep going. Thanks, team. All right, so that's a little bit about what recognition is and why it's important. Now, let's talk about how. How do we recognize our people? How do we operationalize it at our organization? And we're going to go over six tips today, our six top notch tips for recognition. And I'm going to start with number one, and that is personalize your praise. And there's a tool that we love to use here at the park to help us to personalize our praise. And that is the FBI model of recognition. Has anyone used this tool before? I guess, Steph, I know you have. Our team is. Like, yes.

[00:09:47.800] - Leah Roe

So what I love about this model is it is simple and it helps you to focus on the specific behavior that the person is doing. So it takes you from saying you're amazing, which everyone knows I love to say that you're amazing, it takes it deeper. Why? What is that person doing that you think is amazing? And what's the impact if they keep doing it? So it creates a more positive feedback loop. So let's go through this. And just so you know, I'm already going to break the rules. So FBI stands for feelings, feelings, behavior, impact. But the way that I like to use it is BFI. So I like to start with the behavior. So you get it clear on you look at this person, you're like, Gosh, they're so amazing. Now pull it back. Why? What is the behavior? What is the specific thing that they're doing that you think is amazing? Then once you get clear on that behavior, think about how it makes you feel. How does that person's behavior make you feel? And last but not least, then you look at impact. What's the impact of that behavior? Explain how that behavior is affecting the current situation.

[00:10:52.850] - Leah Roe

You can also talk about what's the impact if this person continues to do this behavior. Let me give you an example. And this is an actual example that I did for Steph. This is me recognizing my teammate. I didn't just create this for the presentation, I promise. So first I got clear. I was like, Gosh, Steph is so amazing. And I was like, Why? What is she doing that I think is so amazing right now? And so I told her, Hey, Steph, one thing that you do that I really appreciate is that you don't just agree with my ideas right away. Even if I think I have the best ideas in the world, Steph is really good at not agreeing with me right away. I told her, you ask really good questions that help me see different perspectives that I hadn't considered before. So the behavior, the thing that she's doing, she's not agreeing with my ideas right away, and she's asking really good questions. How does that make me feel? It makes me feel seen and heard because it's evident that you're listening to me based on the questions that you ask. Now, what's the impact?

[00:11:53.520] - Leah Roe

What's the impact if she continues to do this behavior that I think is amazing? Ultimately, this makes my ideas and our team even better. It's good to know that you won't just jump on board with things, but you're going to take the time to help me make the idea as good as it can possibly be. Now, I'm curious, for all of you, I could have just said to Steph, you're amazing. Or I could take it deeper and tell her, what's the behavior? How does that behavior make me feel? What's the impact if you continue that behavior? And from your perspective, what's the difference? What's the impact of you're amazing versus using this FBI model? No right or wrong answers. Just your perspective. Someone's going to jump in. I can just feel it. Could you ask the question again, Leah? I'm sorry. Yeah. No, totally. So what's the impact of... I could just say to Steph, You're amazing. Or I could take it deeper and I could tell her, This is the behavior. This is the thing that you're doing that I think is amazing. This is how it makes me feel, and this is the impact if you keep doing it.

[00:13:15.680] - Participant

Well, people are going to know exactly what they do and how it makes a difference, and they're going to do more of it.

[00:13:23.380] - Steph Llano

Leah, we have a couple in the chat, too. I'm going to read those off. Brittany said it helps to keep doing what's right. My idea of amazing and your idea of amazing could be so different, which is caught on. Elicia said it gives validity to the statement and it gives more meaning. Mary said it reinforces her behavior and shows her the why behind why you think that I'm amazing. It's so weird to read the she's when it's about me. And then the other one, Steph said it's more authentic.

[00:13:54.630] - Leah Roe

And Steph, from your perspective, what was the difference for you being the recipient? I'm not going to lie, I throw around a lot of your amazings, but I'm trying to do better of taking it deeper using the FBI model. So from your perspective, what was the impact for you as the employee receiving the recognition?

[00:14:16.220] - Steph Llano

Yeah. For me, this one was really impactful for me because I didn't know if I was being annoying with the fact that I wasn't agreeing with your ideas and asking you questions. It was a really good reinfor of, yes, continue to do these things, and this is why. And so it helped me just not question my curiosity and my not maybe jumping on board or yes anding to your ideas. So that just really helped me because I was in my head about like, Oh, gosh, am I pushing back too much? And so it was just really good and nice to hear that it was something that you wanted me to do and wanted me to keep doing.

[00:14:55.250] - Leah Roe

Nice. Thanks for letting me put you on the spot.

[00:14:57.090] - Steph Llano

For sure.

[00:14:57.730] - Leah Roe

So I want us to practice this. So I want you to all take out a piece of paper, or if you want to do it on your phone, and I want you to think of someone on your team that you are grateful for. So I'm sure when I say think of someone on your team you're grateful for, I'm sure somebody has popped into your head right now. And I want you to think about what is the specific behavior? What is something that they do that you're grateful for?

[00:15:23.310] - Leah Roe

And I want you to use the FBI model. So write out what's the behavior? How does that behavior make you feel? And what's the impact on the team, on the company, on your working relationship if they continue that behavior? So we'll give you a couple minutes to practice that. And if everyone on the Perk team wants to do it about me, that's great. Emily, was this the part where you were going to sing while everyone did their exercise? She would be singing if she could unmute.

[00:16:29.920] - Emily Smit

That's so weird. I couldn't figure out where it was because I'm controlling your screen, so I can't get to the unmute button from my end.

[00:16:57.920] - Leah Roe

If you've been a cultured community before, you know I'm going to ask someone to share. If you haven't been here before, I will not force anyone to share, but I'm very good at holding space and luls in conversation until somebody jumps in. So that being said, is there anyone out there who wants to share their FBI model? You don't have to say the person's name, but a teammate, what is the thing that they do that you're grateful for? How does it make you feel? What's the impact? All right, your silence got me.

[00:17:55.350] - Participant

I'll give it a go. All right. So thinking of a girl on my team, she's always very thorough with her work, which always gives me a sense of confidence in her work, which therefore makes us look like a really trustworthy team with our stakeholders as well as consistency.

[00:18:15.890] - Leah Roe

I love that. Darion, is that how you pronounce your name? Yes. Darion, my challenge to you is to tell that person on your team that today. Will do. I do it enough.

[00:18:27.350] - Participant

But I'll do it some more.

[00:18:29.280] - Leah Roe

I have been challenged. I am going to accept the challenge. How about one more person?

[00:18:52.060] - Steph Llano

Have one in the chat, Leah, if you want me to read it.

[00:18:54.650] - Leah Roe

Yeah.

[00:18:55.200] - Steph Llano

Go ahead. Mary said, someone on my team, they are always willing to answer my questions and help me out. It makes me feel validated, supported, and heard. It creates a team dynamic where questions are welcomed in a safe space where it's okay to ask for help.

[00:19:09.370] - Speaker 2

I love that. Amazing. Okay, all of you are challenged to go and tell your people today. The people that you used for your FBI model, go recognize them today. It's going to create so many ripples of impact. All right, that's step one. Emily, I'm going to turn it over to you.

[00:19:29.330] - Emily Smit

Yeah, that sounds great. So step two, we are going to ask our team how they like to be celebrated. And it's going to take a minute. Here we go. All right. So taking the time to ask your team how they'd like to be celebrated, how they'd like to be recognized. Recognition is the most important when it's personalized to the person that's receiving it. And through our research, only 10 % of people report being asked their preferences about recognition. And this is so important because you learn as their leader, not only in what ways to recognize them, but you also might learn some other things about do they like to be recognized publicly versus privately? How often do they like to be recognized? How often do they like to hear this feedback from you? And you can make this question part of your common language. Some ways that you can do this is in your one on one meetings, ask them, how do you like to be recognized? What ways do you feel best supported here on this team? And not only ask your team how they like to be recognized, but remember it. That is how you're going to build trust.

[00:20:40.130] - Emily Smit

Remember those important details for them personally and then put it into action. You can also send a quick message. You can say, Hey, John, I'm working on being better about recognition on our team. I would love to know, in what ways do you like to be valued? You can also put this in part of your onboarding. So as people come onto your team, you say, Recognition is a huge part of our organization here, and I'd love to know from your perspective, what ways do you feel most valued? There is a book called The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. And a book that you may have heard is the five love languages. So in a relationship, what ways do you like to give love to other people or receive love? And this is translating that same concept into ways of showing and accepting appreciation in the workplace. So through this book by Gary Chapman and Paul White, they have broken it down into five different categories. So people like to be appreciated at work through words of affirmation. They also like it through quality time, acts of service, tangible gifts, and physical touch. Let's break these down individually and just look at an example of each so we can understand what each of these means a little bit better in the workplace.

[00:21:59.570] - Emily Smit

The first one is words of affirmation. And this is actually a message that Steph sent Leah earlier this year. So I'm going to read it out and then I'm going to put Leah on the spot and ask her to share just what it was like to receive this. So Steph sent this message and she said, hope you... I should back up. Leah was on a trip. She was in Disney World, I think. Steph said, hope you truly feel on top of the world right now as you are living out your dreams. We are crushing it with the company that you and Dan created. I hope you're celebrating the crap out of these recent wins, the scalability we have achieved that we were searching for, and indulging in the moment. And so, Leah, what was it like to receive this really personal realized words of affirmation from Steph?

[00:22:50.190] - Leah Roe

It was the worst. It was awesome.

[00:22:54.520] - Leah Roe

A words of affirmation person and Steph knows that. And so it's hard for me to even explain. It's so visceral. I love words of affirmation. And again, she didn't just say, you're amazing. You're a great leader. It was like, you are living your dreams. She has taken the time to understand what my dreams are. She's let me be vulnerable and share those. And she gives me reminders and she makes me pause. You're living your dreams right now. Pause, indulge in this. So it felt amazing. Thanks, Steph. Thanks, Emily. Glad to be talking about it. Absolutely.

[00:23:35.300] - Emily Smit

Next one, quality time. So what does that mean to have quality time? I'm sure you're thinking, I spent all day with these people. We spent a lot of quality time together. But quality time is taking the time to intentionally have one on one time, stuff that's not the team meetings that you have every Monday together. Ask them to lunch, invite them out and ask about them what their life is like outside of the office to learn about them a little bit more personally. Then Then we have Acts of service. So a way to offer Acts of Service is offer to help organize the file cabinet so your teammate can focus on a client proposal. The way that I like to describe this is what ways can you help them with their secondary tasks so they can focus on their primary tasks. Next is one that we hear so often, those tangible gifts. Those $5 gift cards to Starbucks, but also just bringing in breakfast one day. Some people love to actually get a little token for the work that they're putting in. Last is physical touch. This can be as simple as offering high fives in the workplace.

[00:24:41.730] - Emily Smit

We're going to do another annotate. I would love to hear from all of you, what ways do you like to be recognized? I'm sure you're like, Oh, I love all of these. But if you could pick just one, what one of these would you choose? Using the Annotate feature again, that's either in the lower left hand corner of your screen clicking on that little pencil or going up to the top of your screen and clicking on the View options and Annotate, there's a little icon you can see someone popping up on the screen and you can just put a little sticker next to the way that you like to be recognized. Lots of words of affirmation. Love that quality time. So many words of affirmation. And it's great to see that so many people like to be recognized in different ways. Remember this with your team. Your team may all like to be recognized in different ways. So ask them, ask them what ways they would choose out of these five.

[00:25:43.520] - Leah Roe

Emily, can I share something really quick? So I learned a lot about this when I was VP of People and Culture at HealthF itch. And I would make assumptions. I'm like, oh, my gosh, everyone is going to love getting these $5 Starbucks gift cards. And there were people that loved it. And there were other people that were like, I feel I'm almost offended that this is my recognition. And so it's where I really learned that people like to be recognized in different ways. And there are some people who I would publicly praise, and they would be so disappointed in it. They wanted that personal praise. So people are different. And so this is a really human way to lead our people is recognizing that they're different and celebrating that they're different.

[00:26:27.270] - Emily Smit

That's me. An awesome way to recognize people is from... This is a program that we have and it's called Perk Up Someone's Day. So if you have somebody on your team that likes tangible gifts or they like words of affirmation, this hits both of them. It's completely free. And so if you have somebody in your mind that you're like, I want to make sure that they recognize they're such a valuable team member, you can go to this barcode and we'll also put the link in the chat and you can nominate them. It's super easy. You just put their name, their email address, and then a little blurb about them about why they're so amazing. Then each month, we choose one person to receive this recognition box. It's worth over $500, filled with so many goodies. We email you to let you know that they were chosen to be the recipient of this box. Then we will let them know who nominated them, the nice words that they had to share about them and send them this box. This is a great way to nominate your team if you're looking for ways to do some recognition in a different way.

[00:27:40.960] - Emily Smit

All right, tip number three is make it timely. Recognition is great and it's even better when we give that feedback in a timely manner. Don't just save recognition for those annual reviews. That one time of the year where you're like, Okay, why is this person so amazing? What did they do over the last year that was so great? When you give your recognition in a timely manner, it's more impactful. And a couple of reasons why giving in a timely manner is so impactful. Because one, it reinforces that behavior. When somebody does something and you tell them right away, this is what I really appreciate you doing, this is how it impacted our team in a positive way, it easily builds that connection. And it acknowledges that we want more of that on the team. When you do that, it's more likely that they'll be able to do this in the future because they are able to make that connection and see right away the instant gratification that it had. It also has more of an emotional impact. Timely recognition has a stronger emotional impact because people feel more valued and appreciated in the moment. When you verbally give this timely recognition, it also creates a culture of appreciation, which I am sure you are all striving to build with your team or increase if you already have it on your team.

[00:29:01.270] - Emily Smit

So some ways to give timely recognition. One is just set a goal. Every single week, I am going to recognize one person for my team. And if week after week, you're finding it hard to be able to hit this goal, maybe it's time to take a step back, reset expectations, and provide feedback. Why is this hard? Why is it hard for me to find one person each week to give recognition to? Another thing you can do is buy appreciation sticky notes. These are actual notes from Amazon. It's less than $10, and you can get 360 notes. Just keep them out on your desk and write little notes to your team as they do great things throughout the day. Stick them on their monitors or on their desk. Just let them know that it's top of mind for you and giving that timely feedback to them. Lastly, putting a reminder in your calendar to recognize your teammate. Again, this is a muscle that you're building, so it's so easy to just drop off the to do list. So making it super easy for you to remember to recognize your team. I do want to note, usually when we give these tips, people are like, Oh, it's not very authentic.

[00:30:08.790] - Emily Smit

If I have to nominate somebody every week, or if I just have this reminder in my calendar, then it feels really forced. And that's not what we're recommending at all, because the impact of recognition is only when it comes from being genuine and authentic. But we also want to recognize that this is a muscle that you're building. It's something that you're not used to doing every day, every week. And so until you have that part of your routine, make these little things easy for you to remember and keep it front of mind for you to give recognition to everybody. All right, tip number 4, celebrate the personal and professional stuff. So your team is so amazing. They're so amazing and they're accomplishing so many great things, both personally and professionally. And it's easy to call out those professional things because it's front of mind. It's right there. But it's so important to celebrate both. Their personal lives are such a big part of who they are. When you celebrate the things going on in their personal lives, it helps you build trust with them. It shows that you care about them as a whole human and you just call it out.

[00:31:15.230] - Emily Smit

You make sure that they can show up as their whole selves at work. So a couple of fun examples. So this is an example, actually, for my husband. A few weeks ago, I was traveling for work and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The flight got delayed, there were storms when we were about to land, so we just circled. It was four in the morning and I couldn't find a cab. You name it. So I show up on Monday morning and I tell my team the saga of my travels from the day before. And I said, my husband was awesome. He was there every step of the way. When my flight got delayed, he was finding a new seat for me so I could be next to the window and sleep on the flight. When I got to the airport and I lost my luggage and the flight was delayed because of the storm, he called the hotel to let them know that I'd be late for check in. When I had a hard time finding a cab and I finally did find a cab, he stayed on the phone with me the whole time to make sure that I felt comfortable in a strange city at 330 in the morning at this cab.

[00:32:18.400] - Emily Smit

And so my team made this little certificate of appreciation and sent it to him with a little gift, just calling it out. I mean, he had stayed up until four in the morning, helping me, making sure that I could be comfortable my travels and show up as my best self and be able to deliver an amazing product to a client. And so it felt so amazing to... I laughed so hard when they put this together. And my husband was like, Your team is so fantastic. And just going a little out of their way to put this together just really turned a crappy situation into such an amazing one. It made me so grateful for where I worked and so proud of who I worked with. Here's another awesome example. This is a personal example of mine, but my husband and I, we built a house this year. And when you buy a house, build a house, any of those things, it takes a lot of time. It takes a ton of effort. And it's all that you're thinking about outside of the office. And so when we did our final walkthrough, my team saw this on my calendar.

[00:33:19.850] - Emily Smit

They put together this fun little graphic and put it in our confetti channel. And just calling it out, just bringing it into the professional life, it made me so excited. It made it so real. This is something that we have been working on for so many months, and just having their celebration support around it made me feel so good inside. So it can be as awesome... It can be sending a gift. It can be calling it out in your team celebration channel. But just making your team feel seen, heard, and valued makes such a big deal professionally and personally. Now I'll turn things over to Steph.

[00:34:01.790] - Steph Llano

Mary, I know I see your question about what's a confetti channel and that you're intrigued. I will get to it. I have a slide about it, so just hang on. One second. I'm going to dive into the last two tips that we have. We'll start with number five, which is celebrate in a way that feels authentic to you and is easy. Maybe. Hey, there we go. Everyone gives recognition differently. Everyone receives recognition differently, and everyone gives it differently. We really want to focus on with this tip, answering the question of how do you give recognition in a way that feels is genuine. Again, all of these tips that we have, if you're doing it in a forced way or a way that's just feeling maybe not like something that you would do, your team is going to know it's going to feel just probably not the best for you, and you're probably not going to have the impact that you want. It also might decrease trust with your team, it'll reduce morale, and it'll decrease productivity because you're trying to figure out how to recognize someone. You're not doing it in the most authentic way.

[00:35:10.690] - Steph Llano

So remembering to do this in a way that feels genuine and authentic to you. And so while you don't have to throw confetti to celebrate someone, this is how we do it. We even have gifts of it of us throwing this confetti. If that doesn't feel authentic to you, please don't do it. You don't have to throw confetti to recognize people. So you just need to figure out how do you celebrate best? And it does not have to be hard. So how can you make it easy on yourself? When it feels easy, when it's not another thing added to your to do list, you're going to have so much more fun doing it, and it's going to just be so much more impactful. So we need to make sure that it's easy and genuine. So a couple of ways that you can do this, some examples. So Mary, here is our confetti channel. So this is a way that we do it at the perk. If you use Slack, if you if you use Teams, you can just create a recognition channel. You don't have to call it a confetti channel. We have a client who calls it their kudos channel, but you can name it whatever feels best for you.

[00:36:10.650] - Steph Llano

This is where we're throwing virtual confetti at each other on the perk team. So if you can read the description, it says, Let's celebrate the big things, the little things, and everything in between. So that house walkthrough that Emily had, that was posted in this channel. We celebrate our clients, we celebrate each other, we celebrate just personal things, professional things. We'll send videos, voice mems, screenshots of emails. This channel is probably our most active channel, and I love seeing whenever I have notifications in it. It's like the first one that I go to because it is so fun to just see us throwing confetti at each other and being able to recognize each other. So this is just a really easy way to do it virtually if your team is virtual or hybrid. Another way that you can do this that can feel genuine to you is using a Jamb ord. So this actually does come from one of our clients and they use this. They're in person, but they do use this virtually so that people can just always see it. They're in different offices, so it would be hard to do it tangibly in person.

[00:37:17.400] - Steph Llano

So this is a Jamb ord on Google. They tie this to their culture, to their core behaviors that they have. One of their core behaviors is we see the good in others. And so then they just put these little sticky notes on this Jam board and type in some recognition, some kudos to each other, or to people that they're working with, vendors, clients. So this is, as you can see, a very full board. They usually have three different pages that go along with each core value or core behavior to be able to recognize each other. Again, just a way for everyone to be able to see that recognition in a really easy way is just using this Jamb ord. Then the last example that we have is, again, from us at the park. We start our meetings with wins from the week. Again, making this genuine and authentic to you. If you couldn't tell by now, we love confetti. We have confetti time. It's the first thing that we do in our Monday meetings. So we focus on two different things for this. Who are you throwing confetti at? So a teammate so that they can get recognized.

[00:38:24.510] - Steph Llano

And then what are you throwing confetti for? And so with this, this is again just creating a way for at least once a week for us to recognize each other. We have that confetti channel, so it's happening a lot more. But if you have a weekly meeting, you could start it with the wins from the week. And again, if throwing confetti doesn't feel genuine and authentic, you could just change these questions to just being, who did something amazing that you want to recognize from the last week? What's something that you're excited about right now? So you can change the verbiage. The impact is just that you want to be able to recognize people on your team or things that are going on that are amazing that you just want to be able to recognize. So you've heard all of our ideas. These are all the ways that we like to recognize each other. This is how some of our clients do it, but we want to hear from you. So I would love to hear you can either put it in the chat or you can unmute yourself. How do you recognize your team in a way that feels authentic and genuine to you?

[00:39:23.580] - Steph Llano

Don't be shy. I know you're all doing great things. Like Leah, I will hold the space. This is what we're trained to do as coaches. Hey, it's Elicia. Hi, Elicia. I can I comment?

[00:39:59.650] - Emily Smit

Thank you.

[00:40:00.070] - Participant

So we have what we call our. Standards of excellence. So we have 12 standards. That we've All agreed upon in prior years that should be upheld. And so whenever we quote unquote, catch someone doing one of those standards we have a team chanel we post in and then every month we have a contest. There's a group of three folks that chooses the best three stories and then they have a drawing for a gift card I loved hearing Leah's comment about gift cards aren't for everybody. So I'm going to dig into that a little bit more.

[00:40:34.790] - Steph Llano

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Looks like we have a couple in the chat, too, that I can read. So Haley, you said we have a shout out board in each of our markets or venues. Once we reach our goal, we celebrate with a shout out lunch. Yom, that sounds awesome. And then Steph, you said we award fringe points of rewards platform for teammate awesomeness. And then Lars, we have a reward co points awarded to employees for triumphs and a rewards recognition channel. Yeah, you should petition to rename the Slack channel. I love it. Amazing. See, you are. You're doing such amazing things. I love it. I love to see it. Okay, so our sixth tip, the final tip that we have for you is to celebrate the steps, not just the results. And so with this, if you were looking to have our permission, you definitely have it. You definitely don't just have to save your celebrations for those end of the year revenue goals or those big, completed projects or finishing a client engagement. We really should be celebrating the steps that your team is taking to get there. And why is that important?

[00:41:46.260] - Steph Llano

There is a principle called the progress principle, and that states that employees are the most engaged when they're making progress in meaningful work. Sometimes you don't know if you're making progress, though, so you can show them the progress that they're making by using recognition, using these tips to help them see that progress. Then they're going to see their progress. They're going to feel more engaged because at the end of the day, the big change that we're going for, that big win or that big project, it takes a lot of effort. There's a lot of small steps that go into that. And so if you're halfway up the staircase, it would be really nice probably to receive some recognition so that you can keep going and refuel yourself to keep on that progress to get to the top of the top where you're going to see that big change or hit that big goal. So again, just focusing on not just celebrating the big things, of course, celebrate the big things too, but celebrate those little things in between as well. An example of this, how we do this in action at the Perk. So one of our goals that we have is the number of deals that we create for our sales deal board in HubSpot.

[00:42:52.320] - Steph Llano

Each week we have a number that we want to hit and we report out on if we reached that weekly goal or not. And on the left side of the screen here, you see our little Perk P. And if we hit it, it's green. So that's when we know that we're winning. We celebrate when it's green. And then if it's red, we talk about what do we need to change? What are we doing that we need to maybe change or tweak so that we can be green next week? And so we have a annual goal that we're going to, but we don't just want to get to the end of the year, either hit that goal and celebrate or maybe not hit it and not have had any conversations about why. So this just helps us break it down into those small steps. And we're talking about it weekly so that we can make sure that we're celebrating that progress, we're just able to talk with each other about what we can do differently to be able to celebrate progress the next week. Okay, you made it. You learned all of these tips. And so now we want to hear from you with the little annotate stamp.

[00:43:51.190] - Steph Llano

What one do you want to work on? I know it's so hard to pick one, but if you had to, which one would you want to work on? When you leave here, you hit close on Zoom, which one is it? Good range. Love it. Damn, love the arrow. Yay. I love seeing all these stamps.

[00:44:29.000] - Leah Roe

Oh. Amazing.

[00:44:37.960] - Steph Llano

Nobody liked my last two tips, but that's okay. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. I'm sure that we will be celebrating authentically and the steps along the way. This is so fun. Okay, any questions about these tips? We have a little bit left, but I just wanted to pause. I know that these are a lot of things to take in. Are there any questions that anybody has about these tips that we shared?

[00:45:03.430] - Leah Roe

And also, what's coming up for people? You've just consumed a lot of content on recognition. What's coming up for you?

[00:45:17.380] - Participant

I'm finding myself really challenged to come up with a way to do the spontaneous multiple times a day recognition with my team, not just from me, but between each other as well. I think that's really valuable. The ideas are turning about how to do that for us. The ideas are turning. I love that. I just have to say, you all, you three are so amazing. I know you're so amazing, but this is my self care for the day is to attend this. And it has been so impactful. And thank you all for putting your heart and souls into this.

[00:45:58.160] - Leah Roe

Thanks. Michelle alventrini, you are just a dream. I hope you know, I want to recognize you. One thing that you said when you presented, it had to have been probably over a year ago, you said you firmly believe that everyone has something to teach and everyone has something to learn. And we have adopted that in all the workshops that we do. And we always quote you, we're like, from our good friend, this is the intention we want to bring into the workshop. Everyone here has something to teach and everyone here has something to learn. So I'm recognizing you because you're brilliant. We are taking it and spreading it all over the world. That's amazing. What else is coming up for people?

[00:46:43.730] - Participant

I think for me, since I don't have a team right now, I've been thinking about this in a slightly different way. And how do I show recognition to clients? How do I show recognition to family or friends or just all these different places in my life? And I think it all applies. Think at its core is building relationships and it's showing people that you're grateful for them, that you want to continue a relationship with them. So I think even without a robust team or an immediate network, all this is still very applicable. So thank you.

[00:47:25.760] - Leah Roe

You're spot on. Recognition is something that it's a trust building thing. It's something you do to build trust to build relationships. And so it's not just for your team. This is using these tips to recognize your children. In what ways do you like to be valued? What ways do you like to be celebrated? Making your praise personalized for your partner, your spouse, or for your other family members, or for your friends. So yeah, this is absolutely... And like you said, spot on for clients, figuring out what ways they like to be celebrated, telling them specifically really what they're doing at their company or in the world that you think is so amazing and the impact it has. It's huge for relationship building.

[00:48:07.960] - Participant

Well, I think about most of my work with clients is within conflict, right? So how do you recognize somebody within conflict? How do I use this FBI model during a conflict to encourage those positive behaviors that I want to see? Even within a mediation, you could say, This is what I want, and this is why I want it. This is the feelings. This is the impact to start modeling these positive things that people can move towards during a mediation is super, super important. And I do that in some ways, but this is much more clear.

[00:48:43.550] - Leah Roe

And thinking about celebrating the steps, not just the results and working with clients on conflict, you can recognize, I know this is hard, but I want you to see the progress that you're making here. I know these are hard conversations to have, but look at where you are. Look at how far you've come.

[00:48:59.480] - Participant

Yeah. I think even when things aren't perfect and great and not wonderful, recognizing can help bring people up. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

[00:49:11.980] - Leah Roe

I will reshare my screen because like Steph said, we had just a couple more slides. Yeah.

[00:49:19.360] - Steph Llano

All righty. So we do this workshop. Sometimes we do get some push back, so we just like to put it out there, be proactive in case you're thinking some of these things so that we can just talk a little bit about it. So whenever we do this workshop, sometimes we hear that people are here just to do a job and their paycheck is their recognition. Or not everyone deserves a trophy just for showing up. Recognition is coddling and people will stop performing at a high level. Or just that this is too soft and we need to keep it out of the workplace. So let's get clear. When you're clear on your why, though, when you are really understanding why you're doing recognition, why it's important to you, why it's important to your team, that's when this can really put some of those pushbacks and put them to the side. So no, we are not saying that everyone gets a gold star just for showing up. And we are definitely not encouraging, you've heard us say this multiple times today, we're not encouraging you just to force or fake recognition just because you now know that it's important in the workplace.

[00:50:24.850] - Steph Llano

We are saying, though, that people need more than a paycheck to feel valued, recognized, and proud at work. And so that's why we gave you all of these tips to find these different ways that you can do it in a way that doesn't feel fake or force, that feels genuine and authentic to you, as easy as fun. You can get this impact that you're looking for. And we don't just believe this because it's something that we enjoy and we enjoy celebrating in confetti, right? This is backed up by research. So this comes from Forbes. This is what your team wants. They want to be recognized. 37 % of those surveyed said that the more appreciation would motivate them to produce better work more often. 65 % of respondents said that they would work harder if they felt like their contributions were noticed by management. And so these numbers, it really does show that recognition is not about being soft. It's an approach to acknowledge efforts, contributions, and achievements of others to help create a culture of performance and accountability. So it's not just a feel good thing, right? You're going to be more productive. People are going to be more engaged.

[00:51:29.350] - Steph Llano

You're going to probably hit goals faster, and it's going to feel better to do that because you're going to be celebrating those steps along the way. So if you're getting any push back from anybody about recognition, there are these stats that you can use. You can send them our way. We will talk to them all about it. But it is important. It's not just something that is soft for the workplace. So hopefully our tips help show that as well and help make it a really easy way to be able to put recognition into your process and into every day. All right, Leah, this is you. Oh, hang on.

[00:52:11.710] - Leah Roe

I was muted. I said go back to the happy people, but now they're not cheering. Now they are. Yay. Everyone, give yourselves a round of applause. You made it. You made it through your recognition boot camp today. Yay.

[00:52:27.060] - Leah Roe

So just one more time. Recognition, it is a core element of leadership. To be a great leader, you should be doing this on a daily basis. And you want to do it today. You want to find a way to recognize someone, we do have our perk up someone's day. What is it? Is it a program? What are we calling this? I don't know. But it's totally free. All you need to do, think about one person who's working alongside you that you think is amazing. Again, maybe it's the person that you use the FBI model feedback for earlier. So just think about that person, go to this QR code, fill it out, say, This is who I want to recognize. This is what they're doing that I think is amazing. And then we're going to pick a winner and send them this awesome box. It has ring pops and gift cards and so many fun things. And you are all amazing. That is it. That is what we have for you. Just some final thought before we open it back up. One thing I did want to note is just I do think it's important to reemphasize the difference between feeling force recognition and strength inning a muscle.

[00:53:31.320] - Leah Roe

A lot of times things can feel like, oh, I'm forcing it. But if this is what you want and if this is who you want to be, then maybe you're just strengthening a muscle. So maybe it doesn't feel natural in the beginning, but you're strengthening it. For example, I wish I was someone who just woke up in the morning and was like, I love going to the gym every morning. I'm not that person yet. I would like to be. I'm strengthening that muscle. So it does feel a little forced right now, but it's to become the person that I want to be. So I am strengthening that muscle. And one day it'll be easier to get up and be super stoked to go to the gym. So that's what we have for you. What else is coming up for people? What questions do you have? Any ideas that have come up for you in listening to us talk about recognition today? Well, I'm just going to recognize all of you then. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for doing the work. And I know you're all going to go out and just recognize people and see so many wonderful ripples of impact because of it.

[00:54:55.690] - Leah Roe

Who's going to do that? Who's going to take on that challenge? Yes. D an, you can come up from the basement and recognize me right after this and tell me how awesome I am and why. You're doing great. Dan, what's one thing you're going to take from today? Just being timely with recognition. Even yesterday, Lynn and I went out to dinner and there was a server and I like to do it as much as I can. I was like, make sure I ask their name. And I was like, you're doing an awesome job. I can see you hustling around here and crushing it because it is a hard job. I don't do it every day. And it's important that they're doing a good job. And they're always really appreciative of hearing that. It's weird when they for an hour walk by our table and we're just awkward really silent, taking our food. But it's like, you're doing awesome. You're doing a great job. That's a really good point because you could tell our survey actually was flustereded and he probably thought he was failing every one of his tables. And we were like, just so you know, you are crushing it.

[00:55:59.890] - Leah Roe

You are hustling around here, and we are very ecstatic and happy. And you could tell he was very appreciative to hear that. So he could at least be like, Okay, at least one of my tables is pleased right now. It's a good example. Anything else before I release you out into the world? Well, thank you, everyone. This was great. Thank you. Have a good day. Yeah. Everyone, have a great day.

[00:56:31.060] - Leah Roe

See you soon. See you in person next month.

[00:56:33.820] - Emily Smit

Bye. Bye.