Tag: recognition & appreciation

Categories
Engagement

Think Beyond “Giving Tuesday”

I have mixed feelings about Giving Tuesday. It’s timely in reaching consumers and making it convenient for them to engage in the “spirit of giving” at the beginning of the holiday spending season. It also adds to consumer frustration with increased solicitations through direct mail, special events, and online requests (e.g., GoFundMe campaigns, Facebook birthday requests, etc.).

I know fundraising professionals who aren’t excited about Giving Tuesday, yet feel compelled to participate for fear of missing out.

Beyond the Tuesday after Thanksgiving as a designated day for giving, every day presents an opportunity to recognize the value of all who give their money, time, and talent.

Why donors give …

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” Charles Dickens

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Winston Churchill

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.” Anthony Robbins

“A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference.” Winnie-the-Pooh

What makes donors special …

“Donors want to make a difference in the world.” Simone Joyaux, nonprofit consultant & author

“A donor is a special type of person … who is willing to share their usually hard-earned resources to help others in need or to support a cause that is near to their heart … to improve the quality of life for others.” Michael Wilson, Lehigh Valley Community Foundation

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Anne Frank

For all these reasons:

“Each donor, large and small, should be treated as a precious jewel.” Lona Farr, ACFRE

[Special thanks to Lona Farr, Robin Flemming, Debra Khateeb, Bernie Story, and Sarah Yunusov for contributing these quotes.]

Categories
Customer service Engagement

A Client-Inspired Wish

One of the most amazing clients I’ve had the privilege and joy of collaborating with for 25 years recently retired. I wish there were more managers like her because it would mean more engaged and productive workplaces. Let me tell you why.

Peg helped grow a successful university distance education department, having started at a time when distance education was in its infancy. She navigated the changing technology that transitioned from broadcasting live classes via satellite to online delivery of courses. [Because she isn’t comfortable with attention, I only use her first name in this post.]

To inspire others, here’s a sample of what made Peg an impressive manager.

Management approach
All jobs come with some degree of stress from conflicting goals, operational and budget issues, internal politics, etc. Acknowledging this, Peg approached her work as an ongoing challenge: “I simply focus on what needs to be done and how to make it happen. Not just to push ahead, but with concern for how it will affect customers, employees, and everyone involved.”

I saw this play out in everyday situations and in crisis. The latter was a case of “lost in space” when a satellite failed a few days before the start of a semester. Peg rallied her team to find workable options for students and client companies with minimal service disruption.

Customer-focus was another part of Peg’s success. Besides responsive customer service, she believed in client outreach and appreciation as key to building long-term relationships with students and their employers. “Our programs may be by distance, but not our relationships,” Peg was fond of saying.

Internal marketing 
Peg also focused on building relationships with employees and internal partners by:

  • investing in team members by encouraging their professional development
  • engaging employees in staff retreats for strategic planning, transition planning, and marketing planning
  • communicating and collaborating with faculty and staff to maximize program development
  • keeping employees, faculty, and administrators informed and “in the loop”
  • being accessible to and respectful of those she worked with.

Her sense of humor allowed staff to comfortably let off steam in a busy, sometimes stressful environment — another key attribute to creating an effective team and supportive office culture with minimal turnover.

I know my wish for more managers like Peg is not realistic, but I can wish for people to learn from her success.

 

 

Categories
Engagement

Random Acts of Acknowledgment

“What a good helper you are!” my mother would say to a young child carefully handing boxes of cereal from the grocery shopping cart to be placed on the check-out counter. I’ll never forget the smiles on the child’s and parents’ faces when my mother would compliment them.

Similarly, smiling at the cashier and fellow customers while standing in line at the drug store … making polite conversation in an office lobby … sincerely complimenting a person’s hairstyle or shoes … these efforts take little time and energy, yet have tremendous impact.

According to research, engaging with and acknowledging others can actually benefit our health.

“People who engaged in simple pro-social behaviors with ‘weak ties’ — coworkers they didn’t know well, people in their fitness class, and so on — reported less loneliness and isolation and a higher level of happiness and well-being than people who avoided unnecessary conversation.” Scott Berinato, excerpt from a special HBR series about connecting at work.

We need such random acts of acknowledgment more than ever.

“At a time of vast and troubling uncertainty, in a world that is being reshaped by technology, small acts of connection take on outsized importance. It’s strange to think that a winning smile from a cashier or a flight attendant, or a nod of recognition from an employee who has seen you three times that week, might matter to the person receiving it — or to the person doing it. But … it does matter, both in terms of creating better human experiences and building more valuable organizations.” William C. Taylor, excerpt from an HBR article.

Positively acknowledging/connecting/engaging others – what a simple, powerful way to make a better workplace, community, and world.

 

 

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Engaging Workplace Wisdom — Tips on What Works to Engage Others

While I typically speak about employee/volunteer engagement with people currently active in the workforce, the prospect of being with an audience of retirees was too good to pass up.

My recent session for Penn State Lehigh Valley’s SAGE Lecture Series was designed with a dual purpose: 1) share the current state of workplace engagement and 2) tap into the rich reservoir of the audience’s job experiences to be shared with students. Twenty-six students also participated as part of their Intercultural Community-Building class – a first-year experience course that introduces students “to the concepts of identity and multiculturalism, and encourage them to engage in interactive discussions with others,” according to Kristy Weidner Hove, instructor and Institutional Planning Coordinator at Lehigh Valley Penn State.

After discussing the importance of engagement and what leads people to engage or disengage on the job, the audience broke into small groups of retirees and students to share their experiences in the workplace. Each breakout group then identified and shared their top three tips on engaging employees, volunteers, and co-workers.

Here are the resulting tips, compiled and organized by Kristy Hove, that reflect a variety of leadership, management, and collaborative practices based on actual experience.

TOP TIPS ON WHAT WORKS TO ENGAGE PEOPLE
AS EMPLOYEES, VOLUNTEERS, AND COWORKERS
Penn State Lehigh Valley SAGE Workshop

LISTEN

  • Don’t just hear what others have to say but listen to them and retain what they say.
  • At all levels, the person must be able to listen as a sign of respect.

COMMUNICATE

  • Respond to others in a way that indicates you understand them.
  • Communicate among each other and comment whenever the person did well.
  • Find a way that works to communicate with the group; i.e., face-to-face or online.

ACKNOWLEDGE AND REWARD

  • Acknowledge people at all levels, both intrinsically and concrete incentives.
  • Give credit to the person who comes up with the idea; mention his or her name in front of the group or boss.
  • Create an environment for recognizing and rewarding achievement.

KNOW NAMES AND ROLES

  • Learn people’s names.
  • For new employees or volunteers, ask the people they’ll be working with to introduce themselves and what they do.

BE ACCOMMODATING

  • Ask volunteers what they’d like to do. Explain you’ll try to accommodate if you can. Leaders need to be prepared for alternative, unexpected requests.

INSPIRE TEAMWORK

  • Team work makes the dream work.
  • Group activities and communication help with teamwork.

CREATE A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT

  • Create an environment where employees enjoy what they are doing.
  • Attitude – people will mirror what they see.

ENCOURAGE SOCIALIZATION

  • Recognize the value of socialization. Some groups value the “journey” and inclusion as much as achievement.
  • Provide opportunities for social introductions.
  • Social gatherings can help with comfortability/familiarity .
  • Encourage openness among employees.
  • Find a friend at work.

PAY RESPECT

  • Show sincere respect and interest in people.
  • Management should maintain distance and yet be open to employees and their ideas.
  • Recognize abilities and limitations of the employees.
  • Act responsibly.
  • Treat everyone equally (Golden Rule).

Special thanks to Diane McAloon, Community & Alumni Outreach, and Kristy Hove for helping with this special workshop, and to all retirees and students for their active participation.

Categories
Customer service Marketing Training & Development

What Do You Notice About These Three Customer Service Stories?

In honor of National Customer Service Week (observed the first week in October), here are three amazing stories told by customers — all marketing professionals — who experienced and analyzed them. They represent different situations that share a common theme.

Customer experience #1:

“I walked into an Eckerd Drug Store to buy a sympathy card. Before the clerk even rang up the purchase, he took a silk rose from a display at the counter, presented it to me, and said, ‘I’m sorry for your loss. I hope this will cheer you up a little.'” Toby Bloomberg

Toby’s takeaway: “There were no dramatic gestures, no casts of thousands, no high cost involved. Simply an elegant approach to ‘service’ between two people. And when you get right down to basics, isn’t that what “legendary service” is all about — people who go the extra mile to connect to the customer?”

Customer experience #2:

“It was a Saturday around noon at the Hyatt Woodfield hotel in Chicago for an American Marketing Association chapter leadership meeting. Just as our people were sitting down to lunch, the first alarm went off. We were quickly hustled outside by the staff and stayed outdoors for the better part of an hour due to a water emergency.

“A couple of weddings were scheduled to take place at the hotel later that day. One of the brides arrived that morning and, not finding a closet hook high enough to hold her wedding gown off the floor, she hung it on a fire system water sprinkler. The weight eventually broke the sprinkler head, spewing rusty water all over the gown in her room and other rooms on the floor that were linked on that sprinkler water line. The water also leaked through to rooms below the bride’s floor. The hotel could have easily blamed the bride for her misfortune and the inconvenience caused to everyone else in the hotel. But instead they summoned a limousine, took the bride and her mother across to the Nordstrom’s at Woodfield Mall to buy a new dress.” Chris Bonney

Chris’s takeaway: “I don’t know if the hotel was insured for this kind of thing or not. But they knew that it was cheaper for the bride to get a new dress so that her wedding could proceed and worry about the details later. They recovered the situation without embarrassing the bride and her family.”

Customer experience #3:

“My husband and I were traveling to Boston to attend a conference for his work when I had a medical emergency on the plane. Upon landing at the airport, I was immediately taken off the plane in a special ambulance gurney and transported to the hospital. While filling out our medical forms in the ER, my husband and I suddenly looked at each other to ask, “What happened to our luggage?!” since we left the plane in such a hurry.

“While I was in surgery, my husband took a taxi to the conference hotel and explained our situation. The Marriott Copley Hotel front desk clerk called the airport to find and hold our luggage. The hotel also arranged for a staff member to drive my husband back to the airport to collect the luggage, drop him off at the hospital to be with me after surgery, and place our luggage in the hotel room for when my husband returned.” This is my customer service story.

Here’s my takeaway: “In our situation, we were guests who arrived at the hotel with a problem that had nothing to do with the hotel itself. Yet the front desk staff showed their compassion and concern by going the extra step take care of us.”

What these stories share

My colleagues and I had different customer experiences with a common theme: demonstrations of exemplary service by employees who were empathetic and responsive to their customers — all in situations where the service provider did nothing wrong. Nonetheless, front line employees went “above and beyond” to do everything right.

What’s equally impressive is that these experiences took place more than 25 years ago. Extraordinary customer service — good and bad — leaves a lasting impression.

Categories
Engagement

Engaging Conversations with Volunteers

“Volunteers … work not for money but because they want to give back, make a difference, change the world.”  Sally Helgesen

While the need to give of themselves may motivate volunteers to get involved, it doesn’t ensure their continuing commitment. What keeps them involved is the quality of their experience with an organization.

The best way to understand your volunteers’ experience is to engage them in conversation. This can be done in individual conversations or, if you manage a large group of volunteers, through roundtable discussions or surveys.

Engaging conversation starters

Ask these key questions to learn what your volunteers think – and how they feel – about your nonprofit:

• What is it about this organization that appealed to you to get involved?

• What about this organization keeps you involved?

• What do you expect to give and get from your volunteer involvement?

• What do you enjoy most about your volunteer experience?

• What suggestions do you have to improve the volunteer experience?

• Would you recommend this organization to other volunteers?

What to do with volunteer feedback

Listen carefully and acknowledge your volunteers’ value – both in serving your organization and in sharing their thoughts with you. Collective responses to the first four questions provide important insight to reinforce volunteer engagement and may be used in your messaging to recruit new volunteers.

Responses to the last two questions will help you identify concerns that need immediate fixing and those that need to be addressed in the long term. Share and communicate any follow up to let your volunteers know that you heard them.

Volunteers are precious resources. Listen to them and treat them with the respect they deserve.

Categories
Customer service Engagement Training & Development

A Manager’s Guide on How to Cope When Team Efforts are Taken For Granted

I had an interesting discussion with a colleague who manages an internal service department for a medium-sized organization. She’s a supportive manager whose team takes pride in providing quality service to internal clients. However, she finds it a challenge to keep her employees at the top of their game when some internal clients are unappreciative of their efforts. Part of her dilemma is rooted in an organizational culture where administrative support is taken for granted.

She and her team acknowledge the situation and focus on how to work effectively within – and despite – the culture. She also encourages employees to rise to the challenge of working with unappreciative clients. Yet there are still occasions when team members find it hard to muster enthusiasm to serve such clients.

You can’t fake it and other important tips
How does she continue to motivate her team? She knows she can’t fake her own engagement, so she starts by staying positive. She also focuses on how she can best support her team and internal clients with the following actions:

  • Keep the “big picture” front and center by reminding employees how they support the department’s mission and contribute to the organization’s mission in the process.
  • Engage employees in sharing what works to keep them motivated, such as providing peer support and finding the humor in their experiences and ways to safely blow off steam. This is done regularly in staff meetings and when difficult situations arise.
  • Share and reinforce client service success stories with the manager’s boss as well as with the team itself.
  • Acknowledge those clients who are appreciative of staff efforts, while also diplomatically standing up for employees dealing with difficult clients.
  • Maintain a positive culture within the department that values both clients AND team members.
  • Continue to acknowledge and recognize employee efforts with little gifts, food, and ongoing professional development.

Just as importantly, she models and reinforces what Chip Bell describes in his new book, Kaleidoscope:

“We are what we serve to others. It is our signature that sums us up each time a customer is on the receiving end of our efforts. And your customers remember how you served long after they have forgotten what you served! How can you deliver service in a fashion that says, ‘This is me, and it is my very best gift to you?'”

Categories
Engagement

How Will You Honor Your Employees on Recognition Day?

Recognizing and affirming employee value is critical to creating and sustaining employee engagement. And while workplace recognition should be a no-brainer, Gallup research found otherwise. According to Gallup practice manager Annamarie Mann and researcher Nate Dvorak, ” … only one in three U.S. workers strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days. At any given company, it’s not uncommon for employees to feel that their best efforts are routinely ignored. Further, employees who do not feel adequately recognized are twice as likely to say they’ll quit in the next year.”

For managers who need an extra push when it comes to recognition, get ready for national Recognition Day, Friday, March 3, 2017. This special holiday is observed annually on the first Friday in March that 1) serves as be a springboard for those starting to get serious about the importance of recognition, and 2) enables those who value recognition to do something extra for their employees.

Effective recognition is authentic and genuine — it doesn’t work if it’s forced. If you’re serious about recognizing your employees, have fun with it and know that it doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. Your can find many great ideas here to celebrate Recognition Day and throughout the year:

Creative Ideas Abound as Recognition Day 2017 Approaches

51 Employee Appreciation Day Ideas That Won’t Break The Bank

Validation isn’t a once-and-done effort. Everyone needs to know that our work matters … that we matter.  How will you recognize your employees this Recognition day to let them know that they matter?

Categories
Customer service Engagement

Extending Thanks Giving

Regardless of when you observe Thanksgiving, the holiday encourages us to give thanks for all we have … and for all that we don’t have (e.g., difficult circumstances). I’m all for expressing sincere gratitude during the season; I just wish it was given more frequently.

A friend of mine shared her experience with a Salvation Army volunteer bell-ringer, a man she recognized as a bell-ringer from the previous year. As she put money into the red kettle and received his thanks, she smiled and thanked him for his commitment to helping the Salvation Army. He also recognized her and told her she was one of the few who took the time to make eye contact and speak with him.

Another friend, who’s slightly disabled, described how she always thanks the store clerks who help her: “They are lovely in all the stores I go to and always help with opening doors for me or reaching an item on a high shelf or asking how I am if I haven’t been in for awhile. It goes beyond what they have to do so I am writing thank-you notes to let them know I appreciate the service and their help.”

Gratitude is a powerful form of acknowledgment, and it’s as critical today as ever.

“At a time of vast and troubling uncertainty, in a world that is being reshaped by technology, small acts of connection take on outsized importance. It’s strange to think that a winning smile from a cashier or a flight attendant, or a nod of recognition from an employee who has seen you three times that week, might matter to the person receiving it — or to the person doing it. But I believe it does matter, both in terms of creating better human experiences and building more valuable organizations.” Bill Taylor, excerpt from an HBR article written three years ago.

Let’s be generous with our gratitude today and every day. Thank you!

[Image courtesy of Pixabay]

 

 

Categories
Engagement

Favorite Volunteer Quotes

While anytime is a good time to acknowledge volunteers for their dedication to helping others, National Volunteer Week provides a special opportunity to celebrate their efforts.

In support of National Volunteer Week, here are my favorite quotes on the tremendous value of volunteers.

“Volunteering is so pervasive it’s invisible. We take for granted all the things that have been pioneered by concerned, active volunteers.”  Susan J. Ellis

“Volunteers … work not for money but because they want to give back, make a difference, change the world.”  Sally Helgesen

“Volunteers are not servants. Volunteers are partners working together for improving America’s future.”  Mayor Richard J. Daly

“At the risk of oversimplifying, we should make it a habit to treat volunteers like donors. Just as we should be appreciative for every financial gift big or small, we should be just as appreciative for every single gift of time and talent.”  Vu Le

“A volunteer is like a rare gem. When placed in the right setting and cared for, they will shine and give pleasure to all who see them.”  Unknown

“Volunteerism is currency that appreciates.”  Susan J. Ellis

“Volunteers are precious resources. Treat them carefully and with the respect they deserve.”  Sybil F. Stershic

While this next quote doesn’t specifically mention volunteers, it could have been stated with them in mind.

“If you don’t believe one person can make a difference, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.”  Anita Roddick