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Give the Gift of Sincere Thanks

Back to blog homepage for: Strategic Employee Recognition: by Derek Irvine

Inf this holiday season of expressing our love and appreciation to family and friends through the giving of gifts, I’d like to express my thanks and appreciation for all of those who make my work life fun, enjoyable and truly meaningful. Without my colleagues – my friends – work would be a drudgery. Instead, it is an exciting challenge that I look forward to every day. Thank you, all. The opportunity to work with you is truly a gift.

Even though I take this moment to very publicly express my appreciation, I am consistent in my efforts to continually, frequently and personally recognise my colleagues for work they do. Frequency is a critical element of recognition that is meaningful to the recipient and impactful for achieving strategic objectives. It’s like Derik Mocke put it on his Sustainable Employee Motivation site:

“People often say that employee motivation doesn’t last. We’ll neither does bathing. That’s why I recommend both daily … especially employee motivation.”

Somewhat tongue in cheek, but very true. As is this statement Drew Stevens in Human Resources IQ:

“Management must constantly strive to provide feedback to employees. Feedback is not an annual performance review event. It is imperative that daily communication exists for good information and improvement. Coaching, counseling and mentoring are components of organisational morale. Many people attend church and hear the words, ‘It is right to give thanks and praise.’ Many watch professional sports and witness coaches cheering on their athletes. We can learn something here: Simple words of thanks and praise can improve employee morale and relationships.” (emphasis mine)

Take a moment as we bring one year to a close and being another to thank those who have made work easier, more pleasant and more fun for you. And thank you, readers of this blog, for your thoughts and insightful comments that make this more fun and engaging for me as well.

 

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Editor's Welcome

 

Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.
 
But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.
 
So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....
 
Cath Everett
HRZone Editor 
 
 
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