Category Archives: employee engagement

Social Media: Ban or Leverage?

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Using social media while at work: raise this topic in a work conversation and you will likely see people quietly scatter, not wanting to be associated with this taboo activity. I’m pretty sure there are employee handbooks the world over that have had to be dusted off and appended to include new policies banning its use during work hours.

I, too, will skirt the topic of the at-work personal use of Twitter, Facebook, etc.! But I would like to raise an important distinction about “social media” at work that is worth considering.

Social Recognition

Most companies look to use social mainly as a marketing tool to promote a product or a brand. But what about taking the best aspects of social and using them as a way to recognize the people who are behind the brand and products? A “micro-social platform,” if you will.

This type of organizational platform takes advantage of the positive aspects of social media that fulfill basic, universal human motivators, and some of the reasons social media is so popular:

  • Giving and receiving encouragement and recognition for good work.
  • Building rapport between colleagues.
  • Awareness of shared challenges across diverse areas of the company.
  • Ideas for how to work smarter – handling difficult situations, going above and beyond for customers, supporting teammates, etc.
  • Feeling like the work you do, even the “little” things, makes a difference to others and the bigger strategic picture.

Our Potential Point™ Experience Management Platform provides this “social engine” centered around communicating the impactful employee and customer experiences that happen every day in an organization that might otherwise go unnoticed or at least only seen by a few. This platform allows instant access to these “Living the Brand” actions and allows people to comment on, spotlight, and share nominations of other employees doing it right.

Imagine that! Rather than fighting against this compelling force, you can leverage “social media” at work to be a brand, engagement, and productivity booster. Read more about how the platform works in Gregg Lederman’s new book, ENGAGED: Outbehave Your Competition to Create Customers for Life. Ready for a revolution?

Imagine Becoming a Great Company

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Good companies recognize the importance of having clear values.  Good companies recognize the importance communicating those values to employees.  Good companies recognize they have to dedicate time, money and resources to build a successful culture and do so in a variety of ways:

  • Employee Satisfaction Surveys
  • Rewards programs
  • Performance evaluation systems
  • Pizza
  • Thanksgiving Turkeys
  • Etc.

Ultimately, good companies are good because they are mindful of the importance of an engaged workforce and are striving to make sure they deliver.  The problem is good companies are just good; just good because for all of their effort, they struggle to measure this amorphous thing called culture.  Therefore, they cannot manage it and don’t really know if all of their effort and expense is actually making a difference.

Great companies recognize culture eats strategy for breakfast and is the most important differentiator they have.  Great companies get entire workforces to share a common mindset.  Great companies are aligned and engaged around the behaviors that are necessary to make branded experiences come to life.  Great companies recognize employees based on those behaviors and don’t need the traditional and potentially counterproductive rewards programs.  Great companies have managers who truly understand that it’s their job to manage the Branded Experience.  Great companies have systems and tools in place that enable Managers to measure their efforts.

Imagine becoming a great company.  Imagine your company was able to measure and manage the Branded Experience with Engaged employees who Live the Brand and Create Customers for Life.

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One day in my life at Brand Integrity

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Software Development is an adventure. It’s why I love being one. Let me illustrate.
I start my day off like most people, I imagine, by skimming through my email and calendar, and getting a general feel for what my day is going to look like. Part of the email feed contains a listing of the errors users using the system faced, and I spend a fair amount of time poring over these, organizing them by priority and tackling them. Now, as much as I would like everyone to believe I know the exact cause of some of these errors, I really don’t, and it’s not dissimilar to how a Doctor diagnoses an incoming patient. Look at the symptoms, look for repeated occurrences, run some tests if necessary, make a best educated guess as to what the illness might be, and prescribe a fix, and monitor it closely. And pray. I am never more religious than when I have just fixed a bug real time. Sometimes solving these issues can take four hours, and other times less than an hour, so my day has a real non linear and disruptive feel to it. However, there is a feel-good portion to it, when I fix an issue.
For the main course, I select the ‘story’ I am going to work on. ‘Stories’ are what we term substantial enhancements to our system, Potential Point . These are planned with great care, and there are many stages before a ‘story’ sees its natural conclusion, much like a Quentin Tarantino flick. This is usually the most fun part of the day, because the ‘stories’ we define generally have a creative component to it, maybe some research and quite a bit of new code, which, as any software developer will tell you, is one of the most exciting aspects of this job. These ‘stories’, as you might expect, take up a bulk portion of the day.
I wind down by looking at some known, recorded issues in the system, which while not exactly tedious, don’t usually demand a large amount of creativity, which is why I try and do them towards the end of the day, when I feel about as creative as a typical Indian filmmaker. I usually balance this out by spending a little time on some fun research projects that everyone in the team here at Brand Integrity is encouraged to spend time on, and which can potentially enhance the quality of the system. (yes, research projects can be fun).
In between, there is the odd game of Ping Pong with the Sales Guys thrown in, for bragging rights. I brag a lot.

The battlefield

The beauty of my job is that even though the general pattern of most days is the same (with the exception of ping pong games, which sometimes get pushed to the morning), the work I do rarely remains the same from one day to the next. So, you can see, that being a software developer is really no different from being a thrill-seeking, live-on-the-edge type person. Now, on to the next adventure !

When you care enough to KEEP the very best.

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I’ve always been fascinated by the fact that we spend roughly half our waking hours at work, more than we spend with most of our friends and family. So the natural question that follows for me is “what workplace is worth half my life?”

Much research exists on what makes up a great place to work. And (not a newsflash) that the tangibles of pay and benefits are a small piece of the puzzle. The Great Place to Work® Institute’s research shows that great workplaces are built through the day-to-day relationships that employees experience – not just a checklist of programs/benefits.

Here are a few of the less tangible factors of a great workplace that rise to the top for me…

  • Feeling like I make a difference to the success of my team, the company and its vision – seeing the link between my daily efforts and the big picture
  • Someone noticing and appreciating that I make a difference
  • Being proud of my company and the work we do
  • Personal and professional growth – opportunity to learn and see progress

These intangibles keep me engaged and motivated to go above and beyond for my internal and external customers, and keep me from looking for another employer that will really care about my contributions.

Another not-newsflash: there are bottom-line benefits from having an engaged, talented workforce.  Employers now more than ever are trying to crack the code on employee happiness and engagement because they want employees to care about customers and consistently demonstrate that. And I think that to keep talented, committed, and “caring” employees, employers must consistently demonstrate they care about their employees (oh, the irony).

Like so many things in life, the employee-employer relationship is subject to “You get out of it what you put into it.” This adage is familiar and sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s something we have to continually dust off and apply to avoid complacency and falling into bad habits. A favorite anecdote of mine regarding demonstrating care is about a couple in therapy…

  • Husband: I’ve told her before that I love her. Really, how often do I need to tell her that?!
  • Therapist: Before someone else does.

What is the state of the employee experience at your company? Are you consistently demonstrating you care about employees by noticing and recognizing their contributions? Or are your best employees not feeling the love? If so, they may already be flirting with the company next door.

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Recognition life.

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Call me Nomination. The other nominations and I collectively make up my company’s recognition program.  Some months ago – never mind how long precisely – having little to no visibility to other employees, I thought I would travel about a little and impart the knowledge and best practice I represented.  Here are just a few of the highlights.

  • I started out a simple digital description complete with behavioral specifics and company results. An example of how one employee delivered upon our company’s experience. 347 characters.
  • My first journey took me to the manager’s office. The manager took one look, a thoughtful message, a badge of approval, and I was off again. Now the fun begins!
  • I arrived in the email inbox of the employee being recognized – wow I must have really made her day.  She clicked print and a copy of me went up on the wall for others to read and learn from.
  • My badge of approval gave me permission to join the other nominations in the activity feed on our company’s web site.  A few views here and there by employees on the first day but then, magic….I was “shared”.
  • A manager in a different department read my inspiring story on the Activity Feed, clicked “share” next to my title, and I was instantly shared with the rest of her department.
  • Employees all over the company were reading me.  Adding comments, adding me as their “favorite” nomination, all the while learning and conversing about the great example I represented of our company’s culture.
  • By the end of the first week I had made it.  Earning the most comments and the second most views of any other nomination that week!  My story was important.  I was published on the company weekly news email and along with all the other top nominations that week, became part cultural history for my company.

My exciting journey eventually slowed.  But my story would not be forgotten.  Always available in the company nomination search and in the hearts and minds of employees. Collectively our stories become a social catalyst for behavior change, employee engagement, and new nominations for years to come.

Imagine hundreds of nominations like this shared each month across your company.  Each nomination represents a small piece of greatness in your company.  These are the iconic stories that employees remember and repeat. Rethink culture, empower engagement, and transform your company with a strategic recognition program.

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