After all our discussion, the importance of recognizing and rewarding the achievements of your staff should come as somewhat of a no-brainer: You know you need to do it. Duh. The harder question becomes, therefore, how do you do it well? The mistake many leaders make is that they lean back on some kind of cookie-cutter approach to implementing recognition. No matter what you think, there is no onesize-fits-all solution you can buy off the shelf. And turning to something as mundane as handing out employee-of-the-month plaques won’t cut it either. This is something you’re going to have to figure out on your own, according to the needs of your particular organization, and you’re going to have to use some creativity. As Tony Armada, CEO of Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, told us, “If you want to treat people like just employees, they’ll be just employees. If you want to treat them the best, to reward and recognize them, they’ll be engaged.”
You’ve made it this far, folks, so now is not the time to start acting lazy. Yes, perhaps we’re taking a none-too-subtle shot at the canned, turnkey solutions and easy promises offered by the various consulting organizations out there. We know, they can make those solutions sound tempting. But we can tell you from experience that unless you approach the topic of rewards and recognition with purpose and personalization, where you make the effort to acknowledge an individual’s effort in a very personal, nonhomogenized way, you’re almost guaranteed to fail. It’s not something to be done sporadically, either—you’re going to have to commit to acknowledging your people regularly.
And what if you don’t? Put simply, trying to fake praise is a great way to create disengagement among your employees. You have to get it right, or they’ll see right through your weak efforts. There’s no doubt that the process of doling out rewards and recognition is more of an art than a science. But regardless, it’s something you need to be doing—now. Melody Trimble, CEO of Sparks Health System, explained it to us like this:
How do you recognize people who are doing well? First it has to be genuine. Second, it should be unexpected. I ask people when they start with us to fill out a survey to tell me how they like to be recognized. I’m a big card person. Everyone tells me I should have stock in Hallmark.
We know, we know—not everyone is going to buy into this. Remember Britt’s CFO colleague we discussed in chapter two, the one who thought employee engagement has nothing to do with the financials? Not surprisingly, he didn’t believe in employee recognition and reward programs either. “Once you start doing that, people will expect to be rewarded more and more,” this CFO (let’s call him “Mr. Pennypincher”) once told Britt. “When will it ever stop?” The answer, of course, is that it won’t ever stop. This isn’t something where you can just check a box and say, “Whew, glad that’s done.” No, this is a commitment you need to make that will continually tie your organization back to its mission, vision, and values.
We also need to acknowledge that if you are new to your organization and want to bring these kinds of changes to it, you might need to start slowly. We know how difficult it can be to parachute into an existing organizational culture and try to bring big new ideas into play right off the bat. That means taking it one step at a time and building slowly based on what works. You want to build the kind of engaged workforce most leaders can only dream of, and getting a vibrant, effective rewards and recognition program in place is a big piece of the puzzle.
Let’s take a step back and make a key point: Most people aren’t motivated by money alone. This means that simply handing out bonuses or some such is not the only way people want to have their hard work rewarded. Let’s face it: We’re all hardwired to crave a pat on our shoulder for a job well done. But when you actually combine that individual recognition with an object—something as simple as a trophy or a plaque, embedded with some connection to your organization’s purpose—the recipient of the award can then bask in the recognition he or she receives from peers and coworkers by displaying that trophy in the person’s office or cubicle.
Case in point: Every time he holds a senior leadership meeting, Britt hands out what he has come to call Berrett’s Carrots. These are three small Beanie Baby–like toy carrots he gives out to acknowledge people who have engaged in small acts of kindness—an idea inspired by the book The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. The central theme of the book is that organizations perform better and achieve better financial results when managers offer frequent, constructive praise and meaningful rewards that motivate employees to excel. What’s interesting about this concept is that bestowing such awards doesn’t always have to be linked to the things we’re accustomed to recognizing in the business or the health care world, such as meeting budget or completing projects.
There’s room here to be creative and reward even the smallest achievements with your own version of Berrett’s Carrots that can mean more than you can ever imagine. Britt finds random opportunities to express appreciation for some efforts that may seem at first glance to be insignificant but that are, in fact, the small acts that make up the fabric of the organization. On one occasion, when a payroll clerk received an award accompanied by some comments of recognition from the president, she burst into tears, not realizing that her efforts were so greatly appreciated. Another time, Britt was walking down the hall of the hospital when he noticed one of his senior managers bend down and pick up a piece of garbage that was lying on the floor. Sure, maybe most people would have done the same thing. But at their next meeting Britt took the opportunity to acknowledge the good deed by handing this gentleman one of his carrots—something, for what it’s worth, that manager proudly displays on his desk to this day.
And that brings up another interesting point: If you, too, want to find a powerful symbol of recognition to hand out, take a look at how your people decorate their offices and cubicles. If they love hanging their diplomas and certificates on their walls, that might be a clue as to how they like to be recognized. The same goes for tchotchkes and knickknacks; it’s amazing the effect a stuffed carrot can have on employee motivation. Make the time to assess how your direct reports like to be recognized, and you’ll find that those rewards bestow much more personalized recognition than you might ever imagine.
Take notice, too, that it often means a great deal to an employee to receive an accolade like a Berrett’s Carrot in front of his or her peers. BerylHealth uses its annual holiday party to celebrate the winner of two major awards the company bestows each year. One is called the Barry Spiegelman Spirit Award, named for Paul’s brother and Beryl-Health business partner, who passed away in 2005. Barry was a fun-loving guy who brought an unbelievably positive spirit with him every day of his life, including throughout his fight with cancer. BerylHealth employees nominate their peers based on these values. The other major award is called the Face of BerylHealth, which recognizes someone for living the company’s core values in a way that stands out from everyone else. This award is a beautiful glass sculpture that is prominently displayed in a case at the office for one year, to remind everyone who won the award and why, before the winner takes it home.
Remember, it’s not the size of the award or even whether it’s made of precious metals or a stuffed sock. It’s the notion that the award means something special and all your people know it. Unfortunately, this is a notion that many of today’s leaders can’t wrap their head around. For instance, Paul met up with a fellow CEO who runs a large call center company. “I read your book, and our company is different, just like yours,” the CEO said. Then he talked about how he created a bonus program that rewards his call advisers with a free lunch at a restaurant of their choice whenever they meet a certain quota of sales calls. All Paul could do was nod his head politely while he silently seethed, thinking, that is exactly not what we do at BerylHealth.
The idea is not to construct financial rewards based on some operational data, like the number of calls somebody makes. If you do that, your employees can see that you’re just paying them to make you more money. People don’t just want more money—they want to feel valued. That’s our message here, our challenge to you leaders out there: Break free from what you think leadership means, and think differently about what it means to nurture long-term financial sustainability. To stay on board for the long haul, you need to get out of your short-term focus on reaping immediate ROI and begin to see the bigger picture—the reality that only when you have successfully engaged your employees can you really experience long-term success and viability.
We can’t stress enough how important it is to make your reward and recognition program meaningful and purposeful in some way. For a while now we’ve been talking up rewards handed down by your boss or upper management, but there’s one thing that trumps this sort of recognition: receiving acknowledgment from your peers. This isn’t referring just to peers and coworkers handing out the occasional “Thanks!” for a job well done. You as a leader can help institutionalize that kind of recognition by creating a program similar to BerylHealth’s PRIDE program (Peers Recognizing Individual Deeds of Excellence), which we discussed in chapter two. The idea behind this program is simply to give employees a chance to recognize one another in a very powerful and public way. The way it works is this: BerylHealth employees use the company intranet to nominate coworkers who live up to one of BerylHealth’s five core values. The process is easy; they simply have to type in the person’s name along with a few sentences describing how the individual exemplifies one of those values. Then, at every quarterly meeting, which for us has the feel of a town hall meeting, all the nominations are placed in one of five hats (one for each core value) and a name is chosen from each. The prize for winning is $250.
We know what you’re probably saying: “But that’s a financial reward!” True, but it comes with a catch. Before the drawing, each nominee has to write down what he or she intends to do with the money if in fact that person wins the prize. The point is, we want the winners to do something special with that money, not just fill their gas tank or pay their rent. The stakes are raised even further because winners then have to take a picture of whatever they buy, like a new outdoor grill or dinette set, and post it back on the company intranet as a way to share the celebration and have some fun with the award.
Putting an organization-wide program like PRIDE in place is also a way to empower your employees to recognize the accomplishments of their peers in—get this—other departments. Let’s face it: Most organizations are built with internal walls, and we mean this both literally and figuratively. In a large hospital there might be, say, thirty departments that can influence a patient’s experience. The truth is, however, most departments don’t really know what the other ones are doing to positively influence the nature of a patient’s stay. Wayne Lerner, CEO of Holy Cross Hospital, put it like this:
In health care, we go through our education in silos. Then we graduate and they throw us together in a patient care environment and ask us to go work together. That’s why you need a unifying theme.
With programs that encourage employees to be aware of and take an interest in what’s going on in the organization’s other “silos,” we can be sure we are doing all we can to foster our company culture and improve the patient experience.
At Britt’s hospital, for example, they have implemented a program called the Traveling Trophy. Each department nominates someone from another department for performing an exemplary deed. The winners of the award get to display the trophy in their department. Often the winning team members are so delighted about their accomplishment, they add a little extra flair to show off how proud they are. It begins with a ceremony announcing the recipients in front of the leadership team, followed by a brief expression of recognition. But some recipients are so excited that they take the microphone and practically gush with enthusiasm and appreciation for the award! By putting the power to reward and recognize into the hands of his department heads, Britt has found a way for cross-functional teams to highlight and recognize all the important tasks and actions each department takes in creating those amazing patient experiences.
Presby reinforces this principle by holding a Support Services Fair every quarter. The idea here is to give those departments that aren’t always seen on the patient-facing front lines—security, quality control, housekeeping, and such—a chance to explain what they do for their peers in other departments. This paves the way for these groups to get credit for doing a great job at what they do.
When recognition of your people comes from outside the walls of the organization, with local, regional, even national acknowledgment, showing your support can be the icing on the cake. For example, the annual program 100 Great Nurses brings winners of this prestigious distinction up on stage at a big gala event to receive their reward. Britt’s organizations have always made it a point to bring as many people as possible to those events, so when one of the winners from their hospital walks across the stage, they can unleash the cowbells, air horns, and clappers to create all the noise they can muster. Can you imagine how good it feels for someone to have their peers celebrating their award by going berserk for them in front of a packed auditorium? Wow.
At Britt’s organization, the hospital staff also take pains to acknowledge the efforts of its physicians. Okay, okay—you’re probably saying something like, “Doctors get thanked by their patients all the time. They’ve got support from all the other hospital workers. How needy are these people anyway?” Ah, but there’s the rub. All too often, as we discussed in chapter six, physicians seem to be in conflict with the very colleagues—nurses, orderlies, staff—who are charged with supporting them. Think about the power of an award of recognition, therefore, that comes directly from those peers. That’s why Presby holds an all-star reception every quarter, where two physicians who have been nominated by the hospital’s employees are recognized for exceptional work. What’s amazing about these luncheons is that almost without fail, the physicians receiving the awards bring their spouses and their office staff along with them to the event. Receiving this kind of recognition from their peers across the hospital means a lot to these men and women, so naturally they want to share the honor with their loved ones and coworkers. Can you see the power in this culture of appreciation and respect? Can you see how this might impact how that physician reflects on his or her relationships with the rest of the staff and with the organization as a whole?
The same principle holds true for any position in the health care field, of course. That means you have to think holistically when it comes to whom you involve in your reward and recognition programs. For example, at Beryl-Health, there was clearly a need to recognize the efforts of the patient experience advocates—the men and women on the front lines, fielding all the phone calls that drive the business. These folks are so important to the success of the company that Paul has turned the entire organizational chart upside-down, so these people sit at the top while he is at the bottom, because it’s his job to support them in their efforts. In this case, recognition is built into the everyday structure of the organization.
The problem BerylHealth ran into, however, was that the people in between—the support staff, the human resources department, the sales teams, and so forth—began to feel neglected. Heck, the bulk of their job may involve sending e-mail and tracking numbers, but that doesn’t mean these people don’t want their hard work acknowledged as well. So the PRIDE program has helped BerylHealth support the employees who support the frontline folks. It works for Paul and his people: You’ll need to figure out how best to spread the love within your own organization.
The key takeaway is this: It is critical to develop reward and recognition programs that touch everyone in the organization in meaningful ways. No, you shouldn’t give someone a trophy just because she sends e-mail. But when you can find a way to reward your people for extra efforts—like when they help organize a bake sale for an ailing coworker or take the time to notice details like trash in the hallways—well, then you’re really onto something.
Of course, regardless of how expansive you try to make your reward and recognition program, you’ll always end up with someone who feels as though he or she didn’t get the appreciation he or she deserved. It might even be you. After all, it can be easy to overlook the efforts of a leader, especially if that person is attempting to till new ground.
Well, if you find yourself in this predicament, or you are approached by one of your employees who feels this way, take a deep breath and give yourself a brief time-out. The solution is right in front of you: Simply find a way to recognize the efforts of someone else instead. Yes, pay it forward by appreciating the effort made by someone else and—poof!—your own hard feelings will magically evaporate. Counsel your managers in the same way. Do they feel unappreciated? Well then, make a list of which team members are performing the best on their team and find a way to recognize their efforts. Not only will this make you feel better in the short term, it also has a funny way of coming back around to you over the long haul.
Here’s something else to consider: People also respond in powerful ways, as we discussed in chapter five, when they get recognized for things they care about outside the four walls of the organization. For example, one hospital executive told us about a program he had dubbed Mission Time Off: everyone in the organization is given one week a year, with pay, to give back to their community in some manner. Then, when they get back to work, they give a presentation to their peers, celebrating what they’ve accomplished in their time away from the office. How powerful is that—to not just give back to your community but also to get all your peers hooting and hollering as they celebrate what you have accomplished?
Recognizing your people for a passion they have outside work can be a powerful way to encourage engagement with the organization. For example, one hospital executive told us that she posts an eight-by-ten photograph of every employee along one hallway of the hospital—and each employee gets to choose his or her own photo, as it’s supposed to represent whatever the individual’s passion is. So, as you walk down this hallway, you might see people ballroom dancing or completing a marathon or holding up the blue ribbon for their homemade apple pie.
The folks at the Medical Center of Plano take a similar approach when it comes to posting photos of the hospital’s past presidents. Rather than those standard, all-too-serious head shots with some guy or gal in a suit, you’ll see twenty years’ worth of presidents posing with their piano, their fly-fishing gear, or their cowboy hat. (For what it’s worth, Britt’s photo would be of him driving his 4x4 Jeep through a mud pit, while Paul’s would show him serving up an ace to his tennis opponent.) What a cool way for people to show their peers who they really are—to help them connect with and admire one another for their various passions and accomplishments. That’s especially true when you compare this practice to the boring employee-of-the-month photos you see from time to time. Sure, it’s a way to recognize someone, but it’s not all that inspirational. Step it up, folks! Have some fun with this whole recognition thing.
Now that we’ve explored some of the do’s and don’ts of driving internal recognition for your team, it’s time to look at the power that comes when your team receives external recognition—especially from the communities that surround you. It’s important not to neglect this aspect of acknowledging your people. Getting recognized by people in your community has real value and brings a tremendous amount of pride to everyone involved. Imagine you run into an old friend or neighbor at the grocery store, and he or she asks what you’re doing these days. You tell him or her that you work at BerylHealth or Medical City or Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, and the friend says something like, “Oh, yeah? I’ve heard of them—that’s a great place to work. I’m so jealous!” Believe us, it gives you a real boost to hear such words. Quite simply, it feels good.
So why not create a process that spreads the word about your employees’ accomplishments and victories? Finding ways to share these stories with your colleagues reinforces everyone’s sense of pride in the organization. When BerylHealth holds its employee forum every month, one of the agenda items is Kudos, and people get the chance to acknowledge good deeds performed throughout the company. Just as important, though, is another agenda item that allows people to take the time to share their stories about customers praising the company and the brand throughout the community.
We’ve found that the most fun stories to share involve cases where people ended up getting a job at BerylHealth because of non-BerylHealth employees touting it as a great place to work. A guy working at a local Kinko’s, for instance, was talking to a UPS guy during a delivery and mentioned that he was looking for something better, the next step in his career; after the UPS guy told him about BerylHealth, he was hired a few weeks later. We got great service from a guy in the Verizon store and hired him on the spot. We even hired an employee whose mother was in the hospital and heard from the other patient in the room that Beryl-Health was a great place to work. We get a real kick out of hearing stories like that; they build pride in what we’re all trying to do together: create a workplace that is second to none.
Up next, we’ll discuss the key role that training and development play in building an engaged workforce and making sure that special workplace becomes a reality.