Encore Employee Recognition to Drive Fulfillment and Engagement

What's working on Purpose anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want. Working on Purpose now. Here is your host, doctor Elise Cortez. Hello, Welcome back to Working on Purpose Program. Thanks for tuning again this week. I'm your host, doctor Elis Cortez, joining your I from Dallas, Texas, which is home based me. By way of introduction, I'm a manage by consultant specialize in the meaning and purpose, organizational logo, therapist, inspirational speaker, social scientist, and author. There are many ways we've work together. Check us out at at leastcretest dot com, Orgusto dashnow dot com. I've also got some free resources read to download on both of those sites. If you've been tuning in for a while, you notice program is a thought leadership platform that enlightens and inspires listeners and viewers with insights from distinguished business leaders, authors and subject matter experts. By listening in, you're part of the movement to create inspirational leaders and enlightening workplaces where we can thrive and do business that betters the world. Glad you're here with us today. Is Michael Levy. He is the CEO of work Proud, and he has helped over fourner and fifty companies greatly improve their engagement scores and reduced turnover through their design and development of award winning employee reward and recognition programs. We'll be talking about the importance of employee recognition, how it can be done effectively, and it's ROI Michael, welcome to Working on Purpose. There he is ill, Michael have one of my favorite Aussies. I'm fantastic today. All the better for you asking you're right here at the beginning of twenty one. Thanks for having me on your show. You are the first program of twenty twenty one. You have the distinguished ability to be able to say you're you're the first of twenty twenty one. So and you are episode number three hundred and ten. So I let's just call it special. I'm feeling special because this is the way you pee. Oh. I like it, Michael, I like it. I like it. You can go right, even even though the latter versions are becoming progressively more fashionable. Yeah, and sexy. Let's just say it correct. Showed up with this black number. It had gold chains. I'm like, okay, with two. That's the way to do it. That's the way to do it. Well, I can't quite do you do? Do you justice? By introducing you, I gave you. I gave our listeners and viewers a little bit about you. But would you say just a little bit about who you are, where you came from. Obviously you came from Australia by way of by way of Australia, should say, But who is this crazy Michael the guy? Oh? A growing and evolving work in process, part Frankenstein, part human being. Past father. So born in Sydney, Australia, and stayed there until I was given an opportunity to spread my wings and come to the Great United States. And I didn't really have a particular agenda, vision, or otherwives on what was supposed to happen. Only, like many immigrants, we come here to this wonderful country and then get engaged by all of the fantastic opportunities personally, professionally, emotionally that this country has. You know, that's why America is such an amazing police to be, not that Australia is a bad place, but anyway, so I came here twenty one years ago, married my then girlfriend now wife, also from Australia, had three lovely children. That's the personal side. Ended up in Dallas randomly, I'd almost say, proud to be texting now, but what a great place Texas is, and ended up getting involved in building reward programs. If you want me to give a little sort of introduction and segueing into that building some reward programs with some fine gentlemen I met from Cincinnati, Ohio, Mark sleeg On, John Nordle, and we met some twenty one twenty two years ago, and I said, you know, can you build rewards programs because my wife thinks reward programs are fantastic. The airlines have them, and that's how we get back to Australia. And they said, sure, we can build rewards programs for you. And that began a journey which will you get into during the course of the show, but a journey that said, well, it's not all about the rewards. Actually a lot of it is about that recognition and feedback. So so there's a bit about bitter background and being a bit of background introduction on how I come to be on your show, splendid, and I think you remember that I have been to your lovely city, to Sydney in twenty eighteen. I did climb the bridge against my better judgment and trying to get over my fear of heights, and it did help, just to Smitch. So thank you for that, Michael. Okay, so let's get into the actual content. You know better than most of us do. And if I were to ask anybody on the street this question and give a different answer, but why from your perspective, it is employee appreciation so important. So it was not something that I inherently knew. And that goes to pick up from the journey of this business to build points programs, you know, to the present day and its manifestation and a service called work prow and that was the original programs were being we were being asked to build. Was similar to the airline points programs give out points to doing different behaviors, let people lean, accumulate these points, and redeem them for different things. So we were being asked to build programs in a market, research capacities, participate in surveys, own reward points. We were asked to build programs associated with wellness activities. Do your wellness things, get your check up in home assessment, get your flu shots, and redeem those points for things. And then a lot of employers were getting us to do programs for their employee populations. One client program in particular was a big retailer plus one hundred thousand employees in the US, and they had sort of, let's just say, had some budget constraints at some point in their history, and they pulled the points based monetary aspect out of the program. And I had this great fear that the programs value to the employee population would be proportionately diminished by the amount of money that they pulled out of it, which is, they pulled most of the money out. But what I was surprised to see was that actually the recognition activity in the program sustained. Granted, there was some dimensional change in the totality of activity, but not proportionate to the money that the company and client was investing. I said to myself, that's interesting. So people were participating in this program for more than just a monetary aspect. Why would they participating? And so began a journey to begin some decade ago with this particular client towards an orientation that says, actually that recognition and feedback is a powerful driver. It doesn't replace money. People can't feed their families, pay their bills, fuel up their cards, or go on trips with recognition. But conversely, the question of are people satisfied with their job if they get paid ten cents more per hour or at the end of each year, depending upon what kind of you know, job, you have a corresponding bonus or otherwise, and you know, the data supports conversely that view that money doesn't drive the satisfaction. Money is a portion of the professional work experience. We work to achieve some things, but that recognition pulls at a different type of parts frequent so, you know, Thus we got into the business to saying, well, how do you make recognition valuable, meaningful, frequent enough that it is present, not too frequent that its value is diminished by the frequency of it, you know, And so we started to uncover this wonderful world of systematizing employee appreciation, recognition, and feedback and the corresponding overlaps, because what really is the difference between a feedback and a review and a recognition and appreciation beyond the consistency, frequency and format that it takes place, They're all driving at a similar experiential objective, which is to make a person feel acknowledged for the things that they're doing within a commercial corporate setting that gives them personal satisfaction. So that's how we're seeing it, and you know, the impacts that we're having on companies substantial, especially in the context of NARO one. Okay, two things, Michael. First, I have got to acknowledge you for just what I hear, the way that you roll in the world. It just sounds like to me that you have this this tremendous ability just to put one foot after the other in your whole entire life and where were that foot lands? You figure out how to make the world around you work, And I think that is exceptional. That is something to celebrate. I didn't know that about you before, but I think that's fantastic. What I would call that is presence I would call that the ability to be present, and I just want to celebrate that. So that's that's number one. You're all right with that, Okay, you're sort of blessing a little bit. Okay, Okay, your wife is not going to like that if I do that. But now the second thing too, that I want to get to is just how wonderful you discovered this idea, right so as you know, because we've done some work together this last year, that my jam is meaning and purpose and so that you're you have found your way into a way of elevating meaning in the workplace and thereby increasing fulfillment. And I just really, of course that's why you and I are. We we worked together, that's I think we could probably finish our sentences each other of the other. But I just want to recognize that the way you did that was so organic and natural and beautiful. And I would say that it seems like an unfolded in a way that was of service to the client, but also it really gave you something new and a new way of looking at the world and employment and connection and many and here you are the goog are Now I don't know about that, you know, I mean a few things. Necessity is the mother of all great inventions, which is something my father used to say, and so clearly the need for what we're doing in the services we're providing has been there. It's somewhat if you consider a natural extension at the development and evolution of HR practices over time, and if we look back, HR practices have continued to grow and evolved to meet their customers who were their customers employees and employees have continued to evolve and grow their own individual capabilities, their strengths, their ability to contribute, as well as the sophistication of the companies themselves. Payroll used to be a big thing. Now payroll is managed HRI systems that organized a centralized database for your employee populations, so you knew who worked for you and who they reported too and how many days off. Some time ago, that was sort of being managed by Xcel spreadsheets. Now take that all for granted. So as that trend and evolution of the HR practices continue to evolve, it allows HR and organizations to consider what they're trying to do and what their objectives are within a business. Their business objectives are to enhance and elevate and involve the practices that produced the outputs of what is arguably, for many companies, the most expensive cost compontent. Not factories, not big plans, not capital equipment, but human beings. So you ask yourself, well, you know, if you were a manufacturing plan and you had this machine, you're very interested in how do you make the machine operate its best? You position it in the right way, you have its service consistency, You make sure it's oil. You make sure that whatever adapters and accessories come on to that works so that the machine works the best. And what happens before the machine and after the machine in the process, and now you've got optimization. So now let's talk about that in a human being context. We're not like machines, so we don't have quite as easy inputs and outputs. But what we do have in common. And here I'm going to quote, you know, one of my favorites, which is you know, Oprah Winfrey speaking to the graduating class of Harvard or forgive me if it was Yale, I hope it was the correct college. But she does this so beautifully in her wonderful Star Wars Kick and natural humanistic approach, which she says I've interviewed the Bushes, I've interviewed a bar, I've interviewed firefighters, I've intered Beyonce, I've interviewed housewives, And every time the interviews completed, as I may, do you know with your elites? After this, she puts the microphone down and they go, hey, Oprah. I wonder if they said it, hey, miss Winfrey, you know how did I go? But I okay, all right, Well, why would the Bushes, or Obama or Beyonce for that matter, or all of the housewives or otherwise asked that question? But they're looking for that affirmation. Just tell me I did good? How the things that I'm doing a meaningful and contributing So it's all within that context and construct. The evolution and growth of HR as a business practice to the acknowledgement that the human capital of not all, but a large proportion of US businesses are driven by human beings. Customer service, entertainment, hospital, CALI, maybe even innovation in manufacturing, et cetera. Still a huge human component to it. Well, human beings obviously over a comment like that validation and appreciation. Why do they like it? What does it mean that they like it? Well? If they like it, they want it, and so they're gravitating naturally towards things that will give them that satisfaction. Right, And so for that reason, I didn't really invent any of this naturally, as we go deeper and have been going over the last ten twenty years into this world while interestingly observing Facebook and Instagram, and wait till you see what happens with a generation of kids who grew up with the ticktock every day now point yet during the thing, well you know, I mean, what's going to happen when they get to the next stage. So we're like, great, well, maybe we've got to systematize these ways in which recognition and appreciation or feedback are happening. So they speak to the audience, the customers, the human beings, the employees of most of corporate America, which is will bring it to them, because if you build it, they will come. If you build great companies and cultures that people want to work and give their best, well then they're most likely to want to give their best, all other things being equal, of course, beautifully rendered and beautifully said, and a perfect way to sent us into our first break. Michael, I'm your host, doctor Elias Cortez whom in there with Michael Levy. He's the CEO of We're Proud and he's helped overword and fifty companies greatly improve their engagement PROP scores and reduced turnover through the design and development of award winning employee reward and recognition programs. We've been talking a bit about how he got himself into this and just what it means after the breaker and to learn more about how to design these systems and their ROI stay with us, We'll be right back. Doctor release Cortez is a management consultant especializing in meaning and purpose and inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortez. To reach our program today or open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise Alis at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I want to share something with you. Something magical happened over the last few months in the pandemic, and that that is that I had a baby. Did you know that, Michael, I had a baby. It actually comes in the form of this thing. It's a book called Purposingnited. This is my baby, my pandemic baby. But for listeners that end viewers, it's called Purpose Ignited, How Inspiring Leaders, Unleased, Passion and all night Cause. And I wrote it really to turn on the readers to their own passion, purpose and inspiration. And I'll do that for you as well. So I love doing that. It's out, it's a bailable on Amazon. I'd love for you to read it, and i'd love your feedback if you're just joining us my guests. Michael Leabe, he's the CEO of Work Proud. I'm your host, doctor Elie's Cortense. So, Michael, here we are talking about employee recognition and the importance of that. But one of the things I've heard you say and some of the work we've done together and the presentations that we've co facilitated and led. Is you say that there's a study out there that finds it nearly half of employees feel under valued. So if we know this, it's important to people in your experience, Why do you think this percentage is so high? Why do we keep doing this? So it's not it's it's a challenge to know how to answer and respond to the question at a scale that most organizations find themselves. It is challenging enough within a family unit or a very small company to express to both express emotion and express emotion in a construct of a commercial setting in a way that doesn't necessarily diminish our own value as a leader when we're conveying that, and to do it in a manner that is business like. Considering that they're still supposed to be a delineation between the way we act and behave in a familial personal setting to the way that we do it in a corporate setting. To that line or that delineation has become progressively more what should we say sort of cloudy and talk about how cloudy it can be for all of the listeners that have had their pets poop during the webinar, they kid come out, pull out the monitor, some ups where they bring it, the door and the barking, and the trees and that stuff going back and roll the lawn row up. Right, it's like that all that stuff's kind of happened. To answer the question, it's a challenge because it's not easy. It's human beings and we're not sure always how to interact with them, let alone how do we do it at scale? And then how do we do it at scale within a commercial setting, and how do we do it in a commercial scale without diminishing ourselves trying to keep a processed personal and professional demeanor. So that's why it's hard, right, And it hasn't been a priority. That's another thing. You know, things happen at a point in time when they're ready to happen. Whether we want to call this innovation. Innovation at the wrong time doesn't work. Innovation in a manner that can't be executed correctly also doesn't you know work. Consider maxwell smart days used to have talking phones and so forth, and all of us growing up from that period thought that was a joke. Nobody would ever do that. Well, we sort of had to play with it. You know, the phone television things with people dressed up from the sixties and I but this thing, well, that's perfectly normal. I mean, who remembers those first discussions. I'm like, you're going to have the video phone conversation. You know, wow, man, my rotary dial thing and my like fifteen foot long extension cord where we you know, have those telephone calls. Well, that's the world that we anyway. So it's contextual, right. So that's where the struggle as being in a combination of you challenges associated with what you're trying to do, knowledge of how to do it, and then a contextual sort of place in time moment. And one of the interesting things I think about what we're going to find post COVID after the party, so to speak, dust mess is all cleaned up that we're like, wow, we changed, And some of the change was accelerated. You know, it's probably changed on its way anyway, but some of it has certainly been accelerated. And this area that we're talking about, which is creating purpose and explaining to people that they are meaningful as a as a business agenda, is coming to the surface because people want purpose and ending well, as you were speaking. One of the things that I was thinking about is, you know, I asked you the question to why do people feel so undervalued? And then I'm reminded you and I in last last year twenty twenty I did some work together where we were out interviewing CEOs, asking them about the importance of employees feeling proud about their work and being especially with the company. And one of the people that, of course we interviewed, who's also on my radio show is Bob Chapman, who is the CEO of Barry Waymuller Excellent human Being. He's out to really evangelize truly human leadership. And one of the things that he really talks about, which just drives at home, is he talks about how eighty five percent of the global workforce doesn't want to go to work. That's also a Gallop has that same stat and he says a big reason for this because they feel used when they leave and they get home, they actually feel like they've been used for somebody else's purposes. So what he really is putting forth is the importance of teaching individuals and leaders to be to care, to actually care for people, and start only one way to care for people is to express your appreciation of them. So he was. He was such a beautiful contribution to our to our our conversations. And by the way, let me just say quickly for those of you who are listening, we are certainly interested in more perspectives from CEOs and leaders about this topic of why it's important for employees to be proud and engaged. So if you're interested in having that conversation with us, contact me and we'll make it happen at least at least cortest dot com. So your perspective on that, on Bob's on Bob's view and what you saw in his interview, So what a great man loved you know, the interview, And it's wonderful to have executive leaders who do not see that and the chinda that says, let's bring meaning and value into individual employees lives is count up to shareholder and stakeholder value attainment. Not only has Bob as that business leader helped the organization continue to grow, I believe he said it was a ten percent plus year over year growth rate, but it's an acknowledgement that actually it's not profitability and growth not I mean not for all companies, but for a lot of companies is driven by value creation margin creation, and you're doing that through your human beings. How do we make our business either product and or service more valuable to people as opposed to how do we drive down the costs so we can make this, you know, as cheap as possible. Granted, for some businesses, that's a reality. So it's not to say that businesses who are in that agenda should not be looking at ways in which to drive down costs, but looking at it from the perspective that says people are one of the biggest cost factors, and people need some level of connectivity to the work they do in order to produce the best results and outcomes. And I think you know, Bob really articulated that there's a responsibility. So that's a dimension to the people to work for the business. But conversely, your people, as Jack Welch used to say, look after your people, they'll look after your customers and that will take care of the business. And so it's nice to hear CEOs beginning to put on their agenda the importance of the people experience, the employee experience, and then the corresponding business outcomes that can be realized as a result of that, as opposed to it being historically a soft component. Now it's becoming a progressively harder tangible component. It's harder to measure some of these, no doubt, partly because there are so many factors that are going into a business simultaneously to be able to separate what were the inputs to drive the corresponding outputs our year? If we change an employee satisfaction survey, do we change the turnover rates? Or was the turnover rates driven by something else that was happening in the economy. Amazon moves into the marketplace and takes a whole lot of our retail staff out because they offered another five dollars, So what really did it make a difference or not? So? In some ways, CEOs, as Bob has done, needs to sort of scand above that cloud of morass of inputs and outputs in a total given organization and just go do I have a lot of people that work for me? And if I have a lot of people, do I believe that people need to be appreciated for their work and contributions, And that if people who are appreciated for their work and contributions are more likely to wake up in the morning and go, I like working here because people appreciate and acknowledge me. The pay could be more. Who's not going to say that the pay could be more? Okay, fine, can you affect the pay, CEO? No? Not really? Okay, what else can you do? I'll have free water or a coffee machine. Well, you know many of the people took that sort of stuff away during the COVID an anyway, but I'm like the one thing that you can consider as a strategically generous creating to your point purpose and value and meaning so that people wake up in the denk. I like working here, and I like working here because the work I do is good. How do I know that? Because people tell me, because they give me feedback, because they appreciate me, because they see me grow and develop as a person inside the organization. And as I grow and develop and make greater contributions, other people go, nice job, well done, You're doing better. So a CEO that cannot see that and can only see the quarterly results and not thinking about how did those results actually come to be? I believe it's missing a great opportunity for their organization. Now, whether it's the CEO's responsibility, or the CEO's responsibility, or the frontline manager's responsibility or HRS. Now that's an interesting, more complex question in the big dynamism that is large US corporations. Where does this responsibility lie? Who should be taking the lead on this, who has capacity to do it? Who has the budget? Granted, as the captain of the ship, you always have some level of responsibility. But to label them and tag and say it's the CEO. No, But it's a question that CIS could easily ask, and I think should begin to ask their leadership team if do we think this is important? That is, so, what are our steps and actions? And that's kind of what I want to get to next. If we can just briefly, Michael, you know, for our listeners are like, Okay, I get it, I got it. Yeah, this makes sense. Where do they even start? You mentioned the word strategy, which is so important to have an employee recognition strategy. Where should they start? I think that it begins with an understanding and assessment of currently what do people think about it within the business, Because because executive leadership like data fair enough, the ship is being things are happening, so assessment and whether that's an engagement survey it's a gallop Otherwise, it's pretty well guaranteed that you'll see as part of any gallop survey that recognition or lack of recognition comes up as one of the key elements. But it's good to ask that, and some of the information could be anecdotal, some of it can be inaggregate in a survey format to know what did the frontline think? Many executives so, hey, we do great recognition here, We've got our special pin thing, We've got our annual lunch, we've got our fifteen year service anniversary pluck, We've got it. What are you talking about that? Have heard those statements before? Yes, I love it. I hear that. I'm like, guys, are you seriously so out of touch with what the frontline wants? A need now not to say that what everybody does is no good, right, It's to say there are things that in every organization is part of the culture and the legacy in history, and that those things should be retained. But we should at least ask the questions of, well, one of those things were good, right, one of the things that people really like? How many people as are touched and please don't go ask the committee that does the birthday cakes committy at the birthday Cakes. I think the birthday cake program that you do is really appreciated, but of course they get to say it's this, it's their job. In fact, there are some organizations that we've come to and they've got like whole department committees that fiddle around with like the ribbon colors for the birthday cake and the balloon things. I'm creating value here at this organization because i was the one that selected the ribbon color and I'm like, okay, we've gotta again. It's not to say they know, but it's orientation, you know, sort of who's driving the train, who's creating these experiences, who's assessing that your experience up and generational and contextual? And that is how long has this program been in place with the balloon birthday bake thing, like it's been since like nineteen seventy two. I think they did the first one. I'm like, yes, very current. I'm sure that. I'm sure that I'm sure that all your modern employees, you know, baticularly, anybody that's under forty five years old, like eighty percent of your workforce probably don't relate to it anymore at all, But no one's actually looked at it there We're too busy. We got this other thing anyway. So to that, you know important question, where do you go? Well, ask yourself through your organization of course, in the form of survey anecdotically backs, what do people think? Okay, how do we think recognition has been managed? Do we think it's being done well? And somewhere within that process, you're probably going to need to identify to yourself a champion, a cultural ambassador, a who is going to speak to the voice and experience that we'd like it to be. Now, certainly this is where the CEO does have a role. If they want to create a legacy in an organization. Rest assured it won't be a quarterly result that no one can remember after they flogged off the shares. Oh yeah, that was the CEO that we did the think did what happened to that person in it? Why they go? Both created a legacy of this this cultural dimension that extended beyond that people remembered and feel connected to the value of. Interestingly, even the CEO of Black Rock not too long ago, I think in the last couple of years to begin to intimate to some of his publicly traded company videos. Hey, we want to look at your human capital in another dimension, and some of them have been talking about it or frequently there's a lot of press associated with, you know, diversity and inclusion and the combination of boards, etc. And of course, you know, that's a great positive step and a trajectory that we thank God on, which is people should be valued not by what they look like, but what they do and they contribute to who they are as people. Great, that's an excellent trend and momentum. And the faster that it gets to the point where we're all color blinds, so to speak, the better it is. However, a forced requirement to mix up your board like a chess game so that it's got the right combination of these colors and commodations only produce as an external artificial influence on who you should actually make as you're bord, if you have to force it, great better than not doing anything at all. But bett is still is to let it naturally evolve and grow and develop and reflect the wellven culture that you wanted to be as Michael, let's stop you there, justify we can, because I know you have the ability to really paint a picture for us. But I want to grab our last break here so we can go on to some more meat. I'm your host, doctor Elease Cortez, who were there with Michael Leavy. He is the CEO of word Proud, and he has helped with his team over four and fifty companies greatly improve their engagement scores and reduced turnover through their design and development of board winning, award winning employee reward and recognition programs. We've been talking about about the strategy behind and the importance of employee recognition after the breakering to get more into the need of designing them and their roy staying with us, We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortez is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose and inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakehold and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a Lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Eleise Cortez dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Release Cortez. To reach our program today or open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise ali se at Elise Cortez dot com. Now back to working on Purpose. Thanks for day we us and welcome back to working on purpose if you're just joining us. My guests Michael Leeby, who's the CEO of Word Proud. So Michael, let's get into some more than of the actual medium. We've been talking strategy at a high level. Now I want to if you would talk a little bit about what would define an effectiveness successful employee recognition program. What would that look like. I like to look at it in a reverse engineer from the perspective of the employee and considering it from the organization. So I'm Michael. I worked for ABC Incorporated. I show up to work each day on time, and on Thursday, I did this extra great thing right, I self propelled myself to improve a skill set above and beyond on a customer experience. Did something outside of my court, job function and description to the greatest satisfaction of my teammate, customer manager, subordinate unit. What should happen to me. As a result of that, I should be acknowledged, possibly a little publicly, maybe within the group of people that know me or that I know them. Maybe my manager should be notified. Maybe if it's really important what I did, my managers manager should be notified. And it begins with that construct in mind, which is, are the mechanisms by which positive actions by an employee can be seen, captured, and nurtured in a positive, constructive fashion within an organizational structure that does the following personal satisfaction For me, I feel good about it. If I feel good about it, as the person that didn't the work, what am I most likely to do? Go across the road and see if they're paying me another three percent more? Or hey, I feel good about that. I should do that kind of thing again. Two that the organization begins to see where that activity is happening, happening a lot, not happening at all, and then beginning to ask the self the question, well, that's interesting because I know that if it happens a lot in a positive way. I got KPI outcomes, you Net promoter score outcomes, Gallop engagement survey, business outcomes, retention rate, quality, performance, attendance, safety, whatever the variables are that drive that particular unit. And conversely, when it doesn't happen at all, what am I seeing at the KPIs how bigins the delta between those two? How much money does the delta cost and produce? So that I'm beginning to actually tie that connectivity from or what is the program to here? So first is to beginning to get into that mindset and orientation, and then to think through, well, what could we do to create experiences that are like that? What processes and procedures, what mechanisms do we have in place to do that? And then the humanistic part. So let's first let's talk about the mechanisms by which it can take place. So we'll give you the two illustrations, right. The first is one client used to have the little car there we do recognitions fantastic. There are cards in managers desks all over the organization and they can pull out that you're a star card and they can write and fill out the car and then they can hand it to the car to the person and hey, a handwritten note from a business leader all right to you on a personal level that says, hey, I want dear John, I wanted to really thank you for the outstanding work that you do. Is amazing, details, et cetera. Is in normaltly powerful, right, It's just that a takes a lot of work. So the frequency by which is happening is out, let's say, wade by its power too. Who saw it? Who knew if it happened? There's no database to go that manager does it a lot, That manager doesn't do it at all. No one knew. So that's this weakness. And you know, because there's a lot of organizations and we talked to them like we've got this wonderful culture thing. I'm like, don't stop doing that. Nothing. I'm going to say, if you should replace the fact that that exists. However, what is everybody else doing? All right? And that's the classic scenario that we sort of see itself. Now. Some companies come and tell us that go, well, you can email Francine in HR right when you see something amazing happening. Right, So you go, like a ten thousand person organization, its stuff happening all the time. And then you know, leadership, if you have got a recognition program, they can email Francine. Then what happens all right, see you do? Right? Do I get to know eventually that Francene's got to pass on that I was a rock star? Right? That's the Thing's nothing wrong with France scene. She's doing a fantastic job. She actually has another job in the organization. She wasn't the inbox of the recognition stuff. And then I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this? Oh no, what do you mean? They're put in their spreadsheet and then they give it this committee, and then the committee meets together, and then the committee decides and them it's like a Dilbert By that time, the employees left the organization totally. Yeah, what do the CEO get? Some say, I'd like to explore, I'd like to recognize Frank frand cast yard, Frank left. Okay, what's the next one on the list ship? Isn't there's somebody on the right. But I'd be seriously, this is what happens last and the weeds correct, right, So the timeliness of the systematization and the lack of his ability, the lack of his ability at the organization, they will lack of visibility with your with then you know, the inability to go did you do it frequently. That right. So on the other side again, as I said, you know early on the presentation, everything has a time. Anybody's seeing one of these, you would believe it. It's your employee. Populations have got those. I remember when we started doing this fifteen twenty years ago, people don't have phones. Okay, fine, fifteen twenty years ago we were innovative and right at the front line. Now this is a thing, right, can't go to a shop and buy a flip phone. My god, my wife reminds me, why did you give the kids one of those phones? You can't get them off the phone. It's a separate conversation. That's because it's so exciting attractive. But this is not a device, as I say, right, this is a window, and the window will show different things. When we are in our window, we are looking experientially for things. And so we say to companies, every one of your employees when they go and break, goes like this. They may not be on break and they go like this, right, that's right. Are they looking at things that relate to your company? Or are they out there on the social media and the TikTok and the Instagram and they're catching up, and they're seeing who's doing they're catching up and they're seeing in the news doing here that subtilty. I'll do it in slow motion there, Okay, they're connecting with people with social networks and they're looking at their stars or their tennis or their sports calls and their other stuff. And we're like, hey, we can't stop that, all right. I mean, you can put a policy no phone on the manufacturing plant, yes, but as soon as they have an opportunity pick it up, they're going to look ahere like, let's create some space around the business, right, and the space around the business that we might have the potential to engage a population is positive activities and things that are happening with their peers. Bring it back home and what did they accomplition? Have they gone above and beyond? Remember I was doing the recognition and a handwritten note. Well, now let's do it in this way. Let's pull up the device, Let's call up the company app. Let's go, hey, I want to recognize a lee. She did this fantastic job. They're literally you know this is what we can talking to the phone. What you just did? I just attended this meeting with her. I just saw her do this thing with this patient. I just sort of deal with this fantastic thing with this customer. She just did this amazing merchandise thing. Let me take a photo of it, let me post it up. So what it's doing is saying, oh wow, this great little device allows us to create the experiences that we wanted to have Michael have on Thursday after he did this great thing, and we can probably get them to do it at a ten x to a hundred x factor than the multiple cards, and we can see exactly who did what, so we know where it's happening a lot, and then correlate APIs a little bit and none at all, and we can what I would call the word I have to use this sort of amplify the positive energy or recognition through the cool things that Facebook and Instagram taught us to do, which is, I read this great thing about a lease and she did this great, really cool thing with her customers or with her team or with this innovation, and I'm going to share it now with another part of the organization, because you are in a business of ten thousand people. So if we have recognition activity and notifications and the manager celebrating and then there's some birthdays, and then there's some people's anniversaries, and then this person got promoted. And then, by the way, there's this new weldness thing which we all do and incorporate into a unified experience. We have to organize. It's sort of in a micro level, because you only know about a hundred people, or have need to know about one hundred to two hundred and fifty people around you. You don't need to know about what people in another country the necessarily are doing, unless what they're doing is so important that that shared with your group. So it is now organizing and systematizing the creation of social networks that are encouraging and amplifying positive things that people are doing inside the business, which is saying to other people in the business, here are good things, and see how these people are being appreciated for their good things. And you know, it's color blind, and look how interesting our rainbow happens to be. It's natural. I didn't shove it in there with an artificial external hr policy campaign to try and make it happen. Letting it happen and grow and evolved in a way that speaks to a population in a language and format that is natural to them. So there's that sort of everything has a time. That's so beautiful, Michael, And that's why I wanted to have you on the show, because you know, I'm a fan of what you do. I think it's really important. I think it's so elegant, and you use technology, you allow people to allow organizations to scale appreciation. What a thing. And guess what, we've managed to poop away a whole hour already together almost so we've come to the end of the show already, Michael. So you know the show is listened to by people across the world who care about creating a workplace that is meaningful where they can be enriched, fulfilled and grow. What do you want to little listeners with I would like to listen to things. Firstly, in the event that any of our clients and customers do happen to hear this show, which will of course promoted, I want to thank you all for your individual contributions for we and my team are a reflection of the great inputs and ideas that you've had, the great inputs and collaborations that people like you, Alice, you know, we love doing that. And then the only promotion is if this you think is something that is an initiative that you want to pursue and explore inexpensive massive roy want to look like a huge success inside your business, whether you be the executive leader or otherwise. You want to take this approach forward, go to work Proud dot com, Work Proud dot com, and from there we'll pick it up and help you. Michael, what a beautiful way to finish the show is going to send them there as well, So I'm glad you beat me to it. Thank you so much for sharing your passion, your wisdom and your experience with us. It's just been wonderful to chat with you on air. Finally have you on my program. Great to be Thanks for the opportunity. All the best to you. Absolutely listeners, you knew order to find him, you know, look him up. They're doing great work. And last week you missed the life show you Can Always Kill you recorded podcast. We were on there with Peter Comber talking about collaborative creativity in the workplace and to innovate into increase employe fulfillment. It was actually really a smashing conversation because it was a full moon for both of us. Five PM in Dallas for me midnight for him in Milan, Italy. We had technology problems and we still managed to have great jobs of fun. It was a great conversation, very illuminating. I hope you'll catch it. Next week we'll be on the air with On Baker, who's the CEO of D two Well, which stands for a desire to learn are We're talking about the importance and role of continual education development in today's rapidly every involving marketplace and workforce. See there. Remember that work is at least a third of our life. So let's work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose, featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortez, each week on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. Together, we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires impassioned performance, and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.