Signatory Employee of the Month Voting Made Easy

Electronic signature employee of the month voting

Hi Guys. As the CEO of one of the most successful employee recognition companies in the US and Canada, there is one question I am asked repeatedly... and that question is: "How do we pick our monthly winners?" OK, we'll get to that in a moment. But for right now, let's start first with what you DON'T want to do when picking your winners. Listen! and I"m not going to sugar-coat this either. You need to know the facts. The two most common reasons employee recognition programs fail are: Number One...Managers fail to keep their program up to date. In fact, it's not uncommon for some managers to allow several months to go by without ever recognizing their top employees. Hey, like anything else, if you don't actually use your employee recognition plaque program on a consistent basis... it won't be successful. Listen! Timing is everything. Research shows that recognizing your employees every three months is only 26 % as affective as rewarding them monthly. So, by forgetting to pick your winners for a few months, and then trying to catch up, you'll only experience a partial benefit of what you would have seen by being consistent... month in and month out. By the way, I've explained how I fixed the "forgetting to pick your monthly winners, and falling behind" problem in an earlier video. You can see that @ OperationNextLevel.com when you finish with this video. The second most common reason recognition programs fail is... The managers allow the employees to pick the monthly winners. Whoa! Big mistake! Here's why. Believe it or not, some of your best employees are not really all that popular. Many times, and you know this is true, some of your best people "serve in silence" where they are rarely noticed, much less actually receiving recognition for their hard work. And, if you allow the employees to pick your winners... one thing is for certain. They will pick the most popular people in your store. When that happens... your program will become a complete and utter failure. It may take a few months before you realize it, but you'll not only waste your money... you'll find, by allowing that to happen, your best people will develop resentment towards you and the often less-effective employees who were picked over them. That is definitely something we do not want to happen to you. So, Dave, how do we pick our winners and guarantee the success of our employee recognition program? Simple... Choose, and then recognize, the things you want to improve. As I've said before in some of my other videos, "What gets recognized... gets repeated". Show your employees exactly what it takes to win one of your "Employee of the Month" plaques, and they'll do whatever it takes to win! But... they must have a target to hit! Focus your employees' attention, like a laser beam, on things that matter to you, and to the success of your business... Things like "going above and beyond" what you ask them to do, and exhibiting leadership traits even before they have a leadership role in your store. These employees are your future department managers and store managers, so make sure you recognize them, or they'll leave you for another company and another manager who will. Research proves that. Remember, the Gallop Organization found that, 650f employees said they had received absolutely no recognition from their manager in the last year Don't let your employees say that about you! OK, I'll be the first to say... there are some types of employees that are easier to rank against each other than others. Salespeople, for instance. It's very easy to determine who the top person is.... They have the most sales! Alright, Dave, so how do we rank our employees when they have entirely different jobs? Well, one thing's for certain. You can't compare apples to oranges. In other words, it's impossible to compare a cashier to a salesperson effectively. That's not going to work. So, to be fair to all, you simply rank the employees within their own department each month and recognize the winner. Let's look at the larger retail stores as an example. They have cashiers, floor employees (those employees who help the customers and stock the shelves), shipping and receiving people, customer service employees, department managers, and more. How can you compare them to each other effectively? You can't. So, once we have the categories of employees, let's determine how we rank them. Your ranking criteria might include: What's their attitude like every day, Do they Clock in on time, Helpfulness to other employees, Helpfulness to customers, Availability if needed to work at short notice, Are they cross-trained to work in other departments if needed, How committed are they to the success of the company? Do they even care? Are you noticing something about all of these ranking criteria? These are the qualities you want ALL of your employees to have. Once again, "Reward what you want to see repeated!"... because that's exactly what you'll get. When your employees see Janet getting "Cashier of the Month", and you say things like Janet was the highest in new company credit card applications, she had the second fastest checkout speed per customer, and had the highest gift card sales in the department your employees will know exactly what it takes to win next month. Make it easy for them to know what matters to you by explaining exactly why Janet won. If you specifically and consistently mention to your employees what matters to you like I showed you with Janet, it will have a major impact on your store's sales. Let me show you how. We've all heard of the 80/20 Rule, right? Ok, it states that 80% your results come from 20% of your employees. If only 20% your employees kicked up their extra effort just 10% in just ONE month... it will pay for your complete employee recognition program for the entire year. Let me explain... If you recall, we praised Janet for three things: She opened more company charge accounts than anyone... which means your store will not only have increased charge card purchases in future months, but you may also have interest income as well from the charges on the customer's store charge card... thanks to Janet! 2nd thing - Faster checkout speeds... This will result in you needing less cashiers to move the same amount of people through the checkout lines. What's that worth a month to you? If you have ten cashiers, and they increase their speed by 10% you don't need one of them. That's probably a minimum savings of $20-25,000 a year, at least! 3rd thing - More gift card sales... which means customers will have to come in to your store to spend them. Plus, statistics show people spend more than the actual value of the gift card when they come in too. That's a good thing too! So, do you see how using a strategically designed employee recognition program, featuring an effective criteria for choosing your winners, will help you reach your monthly sales goals? If your recognition program isn't delivering the sales and profits you desire, sit down right now, and decide what you want to improve.... and tie your awards program directly to reaching those goals. I remember hearing a quote years ago. It goes like this: Some people make things happen. Others ask What happened? Take action, and make things happen for yourself and your people. Every day, strive to become the leader you would want to work for yourself. See you soon!