SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR |  RSS | | REPRINT
|
Family Affair: Rewards for the Whole Family
January 13, 2009
How do you give recognition to star employees? Try rewarding their families too.
By Carol Patton
Jesse Jacobs, president of Samovar Tea Lounge, was trying to find a creative way to reward one of his employees who recently exceeded her sales goals.
His tea company sells seasonal, organic and artesan teas from around the world and also operates two restaurants in San Francisco.
"Diana treats the business as if it were her own—with a lot of integrity and care," he says. "Her sales showed it. But the restaurant business has very tight margins. I don't have a lot of money to throw out thousands of dollars in bonuses. I wanted a way to recognize her, show her that we appreciate her and do something special."
So Jacobs asked her to attend a tea trade show in Las Vegas, thinking she would appreciate a trip to the world's playground. He planned on treating her to dinners at the upscale Bellagio and a show or two of her choice. But when the single mother of three refused—citing her role as caregiver for a 15-year-old son who still lived at home—he offered to treat her son, too. He says the whole trip will probably cost no more than $1,000.
"My son is excited about the trip," says Diana Solis, who has worked for the company for five years. "It's a new experience for me and my child. [Jesse] is a wonderful boss for doing this."
Through this experience Jacobs learned something that many employers never do: that rewarding the families of high achievers goes a long way toward job satisfaction, motivation and loyalty. Whether the reward is small or large doesn't matter. What does is making employees feel like a superstar in front of their families and outwardly recognizing their families' sacrifices, with gifts or tokens of appreciation. If families better understand the value of employees, they will encourage them to excel in their career, rallying behind them and the company.
Although this is the first time Jacobs has ever rewarded a family member, he now plans to incorporate more family rewards or recognitions into his business' strategic plan. For example, last month he hosted a holiday dinner this year for his 40 employees and their families, so they could enjoy a special night out and meet the most important people in their coworkers' lives.
"Every single business is nothing except people—people who work for you, people you sell to and people you buy from," he says. "If [employees] are feeling good about what they're doing and where they are, everybody wins. They make more tips, the company makes more money and creates more opportunity, and customers have a better experience."
Mix 'n' Match
Small businesses with fewer than 100 employees have been offering family rewards for decades. This tends to be more of an impromptu process than the structured way some major corporations do it. Small companies tend to build a workplace culture that is family-oriented, says Bruce Clarke, president and chief executive officer at Capital Associated Industries Inc., a nonprofit employer association with offices in both Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.
He points to three different companies that involve families in recognition programs:
One technology firm, for example, allows its high achievers to use the corporate plane for family trips anywhere in the continental United States. Another allows such employees and their families to take out the owner's personal yacht—along with its captain—for a day trip on the Atlantic Ocean. A third company's owner sends his personal chef to the employee's home to prepare a meal for the entire family.
Capitol Broadcasting Co. in Raleigh, N.C., a member of CAI that owns a minor league baseball park, once invited Clarke and his son to sit in the company's skybox during a game.
"People will remember just about everybody who does something nice for their family, especially if it's for their children," he says. "That's a powerful bond."
However, avoid "shoot from the hip" recognitions, since they can produce unintended consequences, he says. Human resources needs to find out what a spouse or children enjoy, ranging from their favorite restaurant to entertainment. An outing on the owner's yacht sounds like a great idea until HR discovers that the spouse gets seasick.
Even simple rewards can produce positive results. Clarke has sent employees handwritten letters to their homes, praising their accomplishments, knowing they will share the letter with their family.
"It really internalizes in their mind that you really thought they did a good job, that it was really important to the organization," he says. "There's a lot of power in one-to-one gratitude that's genuine, that's not related to any kind of commerce."
Organization and innovation expert Amir Elion suggests on his Web site, www.Best100 Ideas.com, several ways to say thanks to employees in their families' presence:
Invite the family—everyone from spouse or partner to children and parents—for lunch and a workplace tour, pointing out the employee's special projects.
Visit the employee's home—bring dinner or dessert—to tell family members why the employee is important and appreciated.
Send out an e-mail newsletter to all employees' families, each time highlighting the success of different employees.
Personal Ties
When Adrian Gostick, vice president of incentive and recognition company O.C. Tanner Co., based in Salt Lake City, gives presentations about motivating employees, he sometimes asks people in the audience if they have rewarded the families of employees. Out of a crowd of 300 people, he says maybe four or five hands are raised.
"A lot of people feel like it crosses the line," says Gostick, co-author of The Carrot Principle. "[They think] it's not appropriate—work stays at work, home at home. Nothing could be further from the truth."
He says every manager needs to create a recognition log that records information about each member of their staff's family, such as what activities they enjoy, food they like to eat, sports they play or watch, birthdays and wedding anniversaries. He says the smartest managers he's ever met have connected to their employees on a personal level.
"It may seem like it's real above and beyond, [but] boy, people will walk through fire for somebody like that," he says, adding that it serves as a strong retention tool. "If you make that marriage of employee and family motivation work together, you're going to have more success. It's just inevitable."
That's what Matthew Kelly discovered seven years ago. Kelly is president of Floyd Consulting, a Chicago-based consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning and employee engagement strategies. Back then, his firm was contacted by a janitorial company that had huge employee engagement problems. At the time, the company employed 400 workers and had a whopping 400 percent turnover rate.
Initially, the company surveyed employees to find out why they were quitting and found many didn't have transportation to work. The company set up a shuttle service in three different neighborhoods. By doing just that, turnover dropped to 225 percent.
But there was still more work to be done. "I said people don't dream of being janitors, so you have to find out what their dreams are and connect their work to their dreams," explains Kelly, who also created The Dream Manager program based on a book he wrote.
So the company conducted a dream survey and discovered that most employees had simple dreams, like buying a car or learning English or how to operate a computer. The firm then hired a full-time dream manager, who met with employees once a month to identify their dreams and help them develop a plan to achieve them.
However, the dream manager also met with each employee's family—the spouse, children and even grandchildren if they were old enough. The program was so successful that the janitorial firm hired several more full-time dream managers, then watched the turnover rate for its now 600 employees plunge to 20 percent.
"[When] employees start engaging their family in their dreams, that's where you find the most passionate relationships," Kelly says, adding that happy families produce happy and productive employees. "There's nothing more powerful than people pursuing their dream together."
Send comments to feedback@incentivemag.com.
|
SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS |
|
|
| Back to Incentive Index |
|
|
