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Employee recognition ideas on the cheap, it’s easier than you think

Actually, the best employee recognition ideas don’t have to cost anything at all. Forget about big bonuses and expensive gifts, all you have to do is say “thank you” … and say it often.

According to Bob Nelson, the “guru of thank you” and author of the bestselling 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, organizations must do more to thank employees and show their appreciation often.

“The number one reason people leave their jobs today is that they don’t feel recognized for the job they’re doing,” Bob said in an interview about a year ago with The Power of Goodwill.

Bob, who has worked with such companies as FedEx, Time Warner and IBM, believes that paychecks alone don’t make people happy.

“Peter Drucker, who’s the father of modern management, once said that money is always used initially to reward performance, but in no time at all it becomes an expectation and eventually it becomes an entitlement. People expect to get a raise just for sticking around another year. And in the typical organization, only three per cent of the base pay separates average from outstanding performers; there’s no alignment of compensation around performance. But not everyone gets recognition, and that’s partly why it means so much.”

“You get what you reward,” says Janet Smith from The Power of Goodwill. She expands on the basic management principal, explaining that if you want more outstanding work from an employee “say thank you the very next time that employee performs an iota of outstanding work.”

Do whatever feels right the next time you want to recognize employees and demonstrate appreciation, Janet said. It can be as simple as writing the employee a note, taking them to lunch or acknowledging their work in a staff meeting.

Even when times are tough, employee recognition does not have to suffer along with your budget. According to Bob, it’s usually the times when we need to recognize employees the most is when we tend to do it the least.

With a few modifications, employees will still appreciate signs of recognition, no matter how small the package. There are special considerations to delivering recognition when budgets are strapped and economic situations are tough, Bob said in an article from Harvard Management Update. He offered this example:

“Say you give a team award that used to come with $250 but because you can’t afford the $250, you stop giving the team award anymore. I say still give the team award. Say something like, “We’ve had to drop the financial aspect to hunker down, but it doesn’t diminish the value of the job that this team did, especially at this time.” When we are up against it, just a word of support, a team lunch, a “hang in there,” can go a very long way.”

There are countless ways to show employees you appreciate and value their work. If you need more ideas take a look at an older post on the topic, or check out Bob’s 1001 Ways to Reward Employees.

However you choose to do it, remember to thank your employees and thank them often.

November 18th, 2008 | Posted in Various Training | No Comments

Just remember the benefits of exercise

Michael Greenberg, who wrote a memoir recently about his daughter’s experience of bipolar disorder, has now written a fascinating review in the New York Review of Books (NYRoB) of a new tome on memory “Can’t Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research” by Sue Halpern.

As with so many reviews in the NYRoB, Greenberg’s account gives you a wonderfully informative snapshot of Halpern’s book - providing a glimpse of how she subjected herself to psychological experimentation; the tragedy of Alzheimer’s disease; and the desperate scientific hunt for an effective medical treatment.

Oh and in case you are wondering, the optimism in the book’s title, Greenberg explains, comes from the discovery of the power of exercise:

“During the years that she was writing this book, one incontrovertible means of neurogenesis came to light: aerobic exercise. The mechanics of the process couldn’t be simpler: exercise promotes new cell growth in old brains by increasing their blood volume, and cell growth improves memory. It was true for mice with cognitive impairment and it was true for humans with MCI [mild cognitive impairment]. It didn’t take away amyloid plaque [a neuropathological hallmark of Alzheimer's], but it improved cognition anyway. ‘In addition,’ explains Halpern, ‘exercise…increased the amount of the chemical BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) circulating in the brain, and it was BDNF that stimulated the birth of new brain cells…. BDNF also enhanced neural plasticity, which was to say that it enabled the brain to prosper. In diseases like Alzheimer’s, depression, Parkinson’s, and dementia more generally, BDNF levels were low. In people who exercised, BDNF levels rose.’

Link to NYRoB review of “Can’t Remember What I Forgot: The Good News from the Front Lines of Memory Research” by Sue Halpern.

November 18th, 2008 | Posted in Psychological Resources | No Comments

Autopathography: the patient’s tale

Autopathography: the patient’s tale : ” The case history was invented by Hippocrates. Since then medical practice has been straitjacketed by its artificiality, to the detriment of the patient’s own narrative. But patients have found ways of expressing themselves other than by talking to their doctors. Over the past two years I have been collecting a bibliography of book length autobiographical medical narratives, each completely or largely devoted to the writer’s personal experience of drug use or illness. My growing list currently runs to about 270 titles.”

November 18th, 2008 | Posted in Medical Training | No Comments

Consciousness is a crazy mess, so why don’t novels portray it that way?

The portrayal of conscious thought in novels has about as much resemblance to the reality of our mental lives as stick men have to true anatomy. That’s according to celebrated novelist and essayist Will Self who gave the opening lecture at this year’s BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival.

If you haven’t encountered Will Self before, you should prepare to be dazzled by his mastery over the English language. Each of his words feels as though it’s been selected with all the patience and delectation of an expert sommelier choosing a fine wine.

This is an intense, must-see lecture for anyone who is interested in the nature of thought (made all the more atmospheric by the filming that renders Self as though disembodied). Self attacks the novelistic conventions that mean many of our most cherished authors present a kind of cartoon version of what it is like to be a conscious being.

Challenging his audience to consider what they’re thinking “RIGHT NOW” - it becomes clear how inadequately language is able to capture the “clotted and crazy” reality of our mental lives. Indeed, it’s only by attempting to report what we were thinking that we shoe-horn our thoughts into the unrealistic, list-like structure so frequently found in novels.

Self goes further and argues that readers enjoy lapping up this unreal version of conscious thought because we find it reassuring in the face of the more chaotic reality. Psychotic thought is comfortingly presented as something experienced by unwell people, safely sectioned away from the rest of us.

What’s more, Self says this diet of unnatural “naturalistic fiction” has affected our ability to think freely. Those who present thought as “scumbled, psychotic and deeply irrational” as it really is are condemned as “elitist, wilful obscurantists with inclement mental hygiene”. By contrast, those who present an exaggerated fantasy of “sagacity, lucidity and perspicacity are lauded as the greatest humanitarians of all.”

I wonder if popular cognitive neuroscience, the “blobs on the brain” approach that makes the front pages of the newspapers, might well be guilty of a similar charge to that which Self levels at novels - what do you think?

If you enjoy this lecture you might also enjoy audio files available from the same festival, including Susan Blackmore on free will and Ben Fletcher on turning thoughts into action.

Link to Will Self Lecture “Naturalism and Sanity: Is the Mind Really as it’s portrayed?”

November 17th, 2008 | Posted in Psychological Resources | No Comments

Employee engagement down, how training can help

With businesses across the country suffering under the flailing economy, now is not the time for employee engagement to start deteriorating. Unfortunately, experts say that’s exactly what’s happening.

Employee engagement levels are dropping across the board, revealing that 21% of U.S. workers actively disengaged, according to a recent national study by Modern Survey.

Notably fewer workers feel a strong sense of pride in their companies. Now only about half say they are willing to put in extra effort to help their company succeed and only about half say they intend to stay with their company for a long time.

“You can’t open a newspaper or surf the internet without being bombarded by headlines and stories about the country’s ever-deepening economic troubles. Month after month, we’ve all been learning about the subprime mortgage mess, plummeting property values, foreclosures, layoffs, and the collapse of some of our largest financial institutions. People are spending a lot more time worrying about how to make ends meet than they did just a year or two ago,” said Bruce Campbell, a Senior Consultant at Modern Survey.

Among a long list of unexpected costs, poor employee engagement can lead to unplanned absenteeism, a lack of teamwork, low productivity and damaged morale. Though we can’t do much about the nation’s economy, we can do something to improve employee engagement within our own organizations.

How training can help

Engage employees by providing opportunities where they can improve personal leadership skills. Leadership training gives employees who may be feeling stuck in their current position an outlet to explore the next step and the ambition needed to move up in the company.

Outside training courses and seminars can be expensive and require companies to dole out hundreds of dollars in travel expenses. The best way to keep costs low is to provide in-house employee training and put existing resources to good use.

An employee mentoring program is one low-cost and effective leadership training idea that can help boost employee engagement. Partner employees with managers and executives and have them shadow each other or work on a project together. Both partners will appreciate the change of pace and the employee will pick up valuable, hands-on leadership training that can’t be found at any off-site workshop.

Times are tough right now for everyone. Providing employees with leadership training opportunities will improve engagement and help your business come out on top when the storm clouds pass.

For more employee engagement ideas, check out these related posts:

Incentives and rewards: Now is the time to act

5 tips to build employee morale in a down economy

Corporate volunteering builds teamwork, improves employee retention

Employee incentive ideas on a budget

5 tips of employee training on a tight budget

November 17th, 2008 | Posted in Various Training | No Comments

Medical imaging tool launched for Apple iPhone

Medical imaging tool launched for Apple iPhone: “A leading healthcare IT vendor has made its imaging technology available through Apple’s iPhone App Store, in a move that looks to capitalize on the growing popularity of smartphones and the need for remote access to medical images.

Merge Healthcare’s new Merge Mobile tool provides access to CT, MRI, X-ray and other images via the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. The vendor is offering a free demo version of the product in the App Store.

iPhone and iPod applications built on Merge Mobile will allow radiologists to view emergency cases, consult with colleagues and securely forward care information to a patient’s referring physician.”

November 17th, 2008 | Posted in Medical Training | No Comments

The Health Care Blog: Confessions of a Physician EMR Champion

The Health Care Blog: Confessions of a Physician EMR Champion: “The broad message is that, to be successful, the adoption of health IT by physicians, nurses, and staff must extend communication and health data exchange beyond the narrow confines inside the four walls of their practice. Health IT needs to empower all providers to act as effective members of a team which includes the patient, medical home, specialists, and ancillary service providers such as pharmacists and lab technicians.”

Right now, the problem with healthcare is that it’s all about doctors - who decide what to do and when to do it. It needs to be about the patient - and the clever use of IT in health can allow this to happen !

November 16th, 2008 | Posted in Medical Training | No Comments

The Health Care Blog: The Technology Hype Cycle: Why bad things happen to good technologies

The Health Care Blog: The Technology Hype Cycle: Why bad things happen to good technologies:

“# Technology Trigger – The initial launch; a new technology reaches public or press attention.
# Peak of Inflated Expectations – A few successful applications of the technology (often by highly selected individuals or organizations) help catalyze unrealistic expectations, often aided and abetted by hype driven by word of mouth, the blogosphere, or vendor spin.
# Trough of Disillusionment – Virtually no technology can live up to its initial PR. As negative experience mounts, the balloon is pricked and air rushes out. The press moves on to cover another “hotter” technology, like a moth flitting to the light (see Phase II).Hypecycle_2
# Slope of Enlightenment – A few hardy individuals and organizations, seeing the technology’s true potential, begin experimenting with it unencumbered by inflated expectations. Assuming that the technology is worthwhile, they begin to see and demonstrate its value.
# Plateau of Productivity – As more organizations ascend the “Slope of Enlightenment,” the benefits of the technology (which by now has improved from its initial clunky phase) become widely demonstrated and accepted. The height of the plateau, of course, depends on the quality of the technology and the size of its market.

You can chart the course of virtually any health information technology on the Hype Cycle curve.”

November 16th, 2008 | Posted in Medical Training | No Comments

The Health Care Blog: A patient’s perspective

The Health Care Blog: A patient’s perspective: “As a customer relations expert and a concerned healthcare observer, I must comment on doctor’s turning a deaf ear to patient input.

Two things to remember:

-You don’t have to read an entire stack of articles that a ‘patient customer’ brings you. To minimize how often this happens, give them more *undivided attention when you see them, more empathy, and much more clear updates on their condition. If they are bringing you a stack of articles, it is one sign that you have not earned their trust yet. Else they would more likely just ask you if you were familiar with xyz info.

-Turning a deaf ear to patient customer is disrespectful and breeds long term mistrust of the entire medical community. Mistrustful customers are tougher to deal with next time. Many doctors (not all) like to be in control. They frequently present options as must haves. Answer our questions doctors, present options, and make your recommendations — without the attitude that you have something better to do. The sooner you do it, the sooner you will be free to move on to what is next in your schedule and your life. It takes less time when you give patient customers your focus and your respect — not more. Listen to the questions and answer them clearly. Then your patient customer will relax.”

If doctors remember that both doctor and patient are on the same side ( the patient’s !) , life becomes much easier. It’s only when we start thinking of patients in an adversarial role; or resent them for taking upo so much of our time, that we start running into trouble.

Reframing your perspective, by thinking of your patients as “research assistants” who will educate you about their problem, can help a lot !

November 16th, 2008 | Posted in Medical Training | No Comments

Older people have more black and white dreams

If you dream in colour, you’re not alone: the majority of people today claim to have colourful dreams. But it wasn’t always thus. Research conducted in the early part of the last century consistently found that people reported dreaming most often in black and white.

According to Eva Murzyn at the University of Dundee, there are at least two possible explanations for this strange anomaly.

The first is methodological. The early studies tended to use questionnaires, whereas more modern studies use dream diaries (filled in upon rising in the morning) or so-called “REM-awakening”, which involves interrupting people’s dream-filled periods of sleep to find out what they were dreaming about. People’s memories of their dreams are likely to be less accurate using the questionnaire approach and more likely to reflect lay beliefs about the form dreams generally take.

The second explanation has to do with black and white television and film. It’s possible that the boom in black and white film and television during the first half of the last century either affected the form of people’s dreams at that time, or affected their beliefs about the form dreams generally take.

According to Murzyn’s findings, it’s the explanation based on media exposure that carries more weight. She used both questionnaire and diary methods to study the dreams of 30 older (average age 64) and 30 younger people (average age 21).

The methodological technique made no difference to the type of dreams people reported. Crucially, however, across both questionnaires and diaries, the older participants (who had had significant early life exposure to black and white media) reported experiencing significantly more black and white dreams over the last ten days than the younger participants (22 per cent vs. 4 per cent).

Another finding was that older participants reported black and white dreams and colour dreams to be of equal vividness. By contrast, the younger participants reported that the quality of black and white dreams was poorer. This raises the possibility that the younger participants didn’t really have any black and white dreams at all, but were simply labelling poorly remembered dreams as black and white.

Several awkward questions are left unanswered by this study. It’s not clear if the older participants really are experiencing more black and white dreams or if it’s their memories or beliefs about dreams that is influencing their reports. Related to this, we don’t know if early exposure to black and white media has really affected the form of the older participants’ dreams or simply their beliefs about dreams. Finally, if differences in media exposure really do explain the current results, we’re still left with the question of how and why early exposure to black and white TV and film has had such an effect on the older participants, even after so many years of exposure to colour media and given that they live every day in a colourful world.
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E MURZYN (2008). Do we only dream in colour? A comparison of reported dream colour in younger and older adults with different experiences of black and white media Consciousness and Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2008.09.002