What if your choice is thanking someone in person two weeks from now or sending a note via the intranet or emailing seconds after an employee does something great? Oh, just pick up the phone and call, you say? What if the person is simply unreachable? Is a voice mail better than an email? I don’t know for sure, but I know that I’m not alone in intensely disliking long voice mails. I feel like I have to listen just because I don’t want to miss something important, even though it’s pretty rare for people to leave big news on a voice mail.

Of course, I’m not saying that online recognition should completely replace all other forms of recognition forever. Online recognition has the best results when it’s part of a comprehensive recognition program that includes all sorts of interactions – from formal memos to live town hall meetings and informal discussions.

Here are three reasons to expand your recognition program online:
1 – If you operate on a global level, your employee relations program has to operate on that same level, and technology is a big part of that. The bottom line is that employees appreciate recognition, and when they feel appreciated, they’re more likely to leave your customers with the same feeling.
2 – Online communications are preferred by younger generations and by some older ones. I’ve been with many clients who keep checking their emails while saying something like, “I’m sorry. I have to check. I’m waiting for my boss to tell me how the launch went.” When the email comes through, they say, “Oh, she said it went great. That’s a relief. Now I can move on and focus on what I’m doing now.” Another lesson: Sometimes any communication is seen as recognition.
3 – The world operates on immediate gratification these days. Just as your customer wants whatever it is they want immediately, employees crave almost immediate gratitude for getting the job done well.

What qualifies as online recognition? Tribe works with a number of big global brands to launch micro-sites for giving global “shout-outs” up and down the ranks to sharing stories that make heroes out of employees who don’t usually win the spotlight and providing training for managers on how to make the most of online recognition.

Do you have someone who pushes back on recognition programs?
We hear a lot of, “Managers just need to say thank you. We don’t need a program for that.” Actually, not all managers are created equal. Some have a natural talent for recognizing people, and some don’t. Having multiple methods for making sure someone gets the recognition they deserve is a good way to hedge your bets and make sure everyone wins.

There are tons of books on recognition, but an interesting read is The Carrot Principle about a ten-year study of 200,000 managers and employees. This research says that companies in the top quartile for employee recognition, as determined by the surveyed workers, “earned a significantly higher return on equity, return on assets, and operating margin.” (You can read all about the study in The Carrot Principle, out in 2007, a New York Times best seller. The second version came out last year.)

Here are some tips on kindness that anyone can follow and employees will appreciate:
• Be on time for and pay attention in meetings.
• Look people in the eye when they are talking to you.
• Give recognition freely. It lets people know you care.
• Lead by example, and those who you have regular interactions with you will take your cue on how to treat others.
• Ask genuine questions.
• Being frank and honest is always the best way.

A little positive energy can go a long way towards inspiring those around you to be onboard with your goals and vision.

We’ve been talking with leadership and employees at brands that are having people who they kept on through the recession leave for other opportunities. “This is something I’ve always wanted to do,” employees are telling leadership. “I’ve worked really hard for you for a long time, and now I want to explore my options.” Leadership is telling us that they expected people to leave, but not these people. “We need to keep the people we have right now,” said one manager. “We’ve got to start engaging them.”

This dynamic is part of the legacy of a recession. Leadership has been focused on the numbers for the last couple of years. Employees have had their noses to the grindstone to execute work handed to them.

In both cases, people are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and making changes accordingly, meaning that leadership is turning up the focus on engagement and employees are becoming more discerning about their current work situations.

If you’re seeing a trickle in qualified applicants, or people aren’t banging on your door anymore to see if there are jobs, then you might want to explore the issue further to make sure you’re competitively set for the future.

I’ve had more than one brand call and ask if we can do anything to improve morale at their company, without their leadership knowing anything about it. But leadership has to know about it because they’re central to its success. Research has shown that organizations actively seeking to improve employee engagement, including through the use of formal and informal recognition, financially outperform their competitors. The results of Watson Wyatt’s Human Capital Index Study show that better Human Capital Management (as measured by a composite HCI Score) is correlated to improved financial performance:
• Low-HCI companies: 21% total return on shareholder value
• Medium-HCI companies: 39% total return on shareholder value
• High-HCI companies: 64% total return on shareholder value.

So, am I saying that you’ve got a problem you don’t know about? Absolutely not. Here’s what I’m saying:
• Leadership needs to be sure they’re not just talking to themselves. When you’re close to the nucleus, you immediately understand things faster than people further away.
• Traditional surveys don’t always tell the whole story. Show me a survey where people don’t inflate or deflate the truth for one reason or another. I’d love to see it.
• Be sure people of all ranks and geographies get equal billing. It’s easy to subconsciously and subjectively dismiss findings that don’t appeal to what you want to hear or that can be easily explained away.

The beauty of being a leader is that you can have a far-reaching impact. Value your employees and they usually return the favor by doing their part to make your brand a success.

So, if you’re giving your intranet a tune-up to align it – and employees – with the company’s vision, then consider the following:

- What content will be on the site?
- You don’t want to bog employees down with another task.
- Your first shot has got to be your best shot.
- Recognition should be a part of it.
- It’s all about engagement/teamwork.

What content will be on the site?
People sometimes like to separate engagement and tools from HR materials. A separate HR portal may be a more inviting resource for a spouse to find answers to family-related HR questions

You don’t want to bog employees down with another task.
The price of entry for a successful intranet is that the site must be easy to navigate and user friendly. If it’s not, then it will become another part of the communications clutter that employees often have to weed through to get the information they need to do their jobs. A common barrier for communicators looking to leverage this channel in their organization is that people don’t want to add another task to their already busy day unless it benefits them.

Your first shot has got to be your best shot.
Your first shot is your best shot at getting employees to interact with employees – and leadership – on your intranet. When employees check out a website for the first time, it’s like they’re visitors to a foreign country. They’re seeing everything fresh and new for the first time. If the experience is not good, they won’t travel to that destination again without a lot of hand-holding and convincing. We’ve even worked with some companies who walk away from or shelve a technology indefinitely to get rid of bad juju.

Recognition should be a part of it.
Employees crave recognition and visibility, and social media can be a great tool for promoting both. Don’t be afraid to call out achievements and success stories from across the business. Nothing will make employees jump on board faster than seeing leadership actively supporting the new channel.

It’s all about engagement/teamwork.
Start by interviewing employees and leadership about what they want from the new tool. Then, deliver content and tools that align what employees need with the organization’s business goals. When you strike that balance, employees want to use the site, and, when they do use the site, they’ll be working toward fulfilling the purpose of the company. You’ll really start to see results when employees are having conversations and solving problems that otherwise would have gone unanswered.

Some of the parents in the NYT article agreed, saying their introverted and shy children were finding the courage to connect online or their busy teen was using it to schedule time with friends. Elizabeth Hartley-Brewer, author of “Making Friends: A guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Child’s Friendships,” says: I think it’s possible to say that the electronic media is helping kids to be in touch much more and for longer. And the kids themselves are head over heels in love with technology.

I think that’s true. Tribe’s own research has revealed that half of kids in Gen Z prefer a technological gift over something “unplugged.” If businesses capitalize on this idea, then that’s something they can take to the bank.

Old ways of doing things get old for a reason
It’s true kids text about play dates instead of knocking on doors, but letter writing used to be the main form of communication, too. And we’ve moved past that pretty well. I’m not defiling letter writing for those of you that think it’s a lost art. I agree there is an art to it, but I also like to think that each generation improves on the ideas from the last one. This feels like a natural progression to me.

And, companies that facilitate this natural progression are sure to win on many fronts regarding:
1. Innovation. Social media helps people around the world, in a different building or in the same office to share ideas in a free flow form. Thinking up great ideas is as simple as getting smart people together in a room, but now you don’t need the room. You just need smart people.
2. Engagement. Technology is how younger generations connect with each other inside and outside of work, so they’ll expect to use these tools at work. PowerPoints will become obsolete in the near future. So will long meetings, as they become more focused and productive. In fact, most of our clients are adding interactivity to their portals to facilitate that engagement.
3. Recognition. Social media is a great outlet for peer-to-peer recognition and for recognizing people who aren’t all in the same building. It’s an opportunity to say thanks and to say what you’re thanking them for, so they know what they did right.
4. Development. Social media can make development tools available in a fun, simple style that engages people. And when employees see a clear path for themselves within the company, they’re that much more likely to become engaged.
5. Community. People want to be a part of a community, and in a sense, that’s the whole reason social media has been so successful. People will continue to find new ways to connect with one another, and successful companies will provide the tools for employees to do so. Relationships are formed differently, with more and more friendships being formed between people who have never met.

Gen Y and Gen Z connect by sharing
My colleague’s child just thought up an idea to stop the oil spill in the Gulf. He wrote it up and sent it off to BP. He’s 10, but I heard his idea and thought it was pretty darn good. I bet he gets some sort of response. And, as he grows up, he’s going to continue to use the Internet as a channel for sharing ideas. Someday he could help solve world hunger or help protect the earth by solving a problem, like the oil spill of the future – whatever that is.

A true sign of success is when something “just is”
Despite all the times I just said social media, at Tribe, we don’t use the phrase “social media” much anymore. Well, at least not as much as we used to. And, trust me, we’re into it, but we’ve adjusted our language to focus more on the channel’s value and benefits than the channel itself.

We’ve found that talking about “social media” distracts people from why they should use it in the first place. It’s too new. It’s too 2009. It’s too fast. It’s too raw. It’s too time intensive. Also, people tend to immediately think “Facebook” or “Twitter” when those sites are just the tip of the iceberg.

When talking with clients, I’ve taken to using social media and online communications interchangeably. To us, social media is simply online communications, but dished up in a two-way format rather than more traditional static one-way communications. The spirit of interchange and idea sharing are what takes “online” to the next level of socialness.

• Employee interviews. Interviews with a dozen employees in a variety of functions is a great starting point. From these interviews, we ask questions that will reveal what employees want most in terms of content and how willing they are to share their voice. From there, we develop strategies to close that gap. Qualitative interviews tend to reveal much more valuable information than a bunch of numbers from a poll. And by asking questions in a different way, you can often get a more “real” response, not just someone repeating back to you what they think they’re supposed to say.

• Leadership interviews. How well does leadership see their vision being communicated to employees? When it comes to a new project or initiative, ask questions that will help foster a greater understanding of what motivates management to not only becomes engaged with a project, but become ambassadors for it. The most important group to interview may be the fulcrum group, that critical group of managers just under the leadership team who lead the general employee population. If the fulcrum group jumps on-board with your project, it’s much more likely to be a success. The findings in this phase will help guide future communications around the project.

• Communications audit. Once you’ve finished with interviews, it’s time to develop your communications strategy. Take a look at your existing channels and determine the best way to communicate your message. This often involves using multiple channels to reach different internal audiences.

Once the Discovery phase is complete, it’s time to develop tactics and content from the information you gleaned during interviews. Communicating change is more likely to be successfully if you anticipate and explain any hurdles that employees expect to face along the way.

When employees don’t hear about the vision, they assume there is none.
When we asked employees about management’s vision and plans for how to move the company forward, the reports were much different. Some comments included:
• “I don’t think they have a plan. It worries me.”
• “Leadership has a plan but nobody knows how to execute it.”
• “We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few years.”
• “I think it’s more likely they don’t have a plan.”
• “They have a plan at the higher levels, but nobody at lower levels knows about it.”
• “I don’t think our top three leadership has a plan and that makes me nervous.”

It’s a problem that doesn’t have to be a problem.
The problem is not that corporate management does not have a plan, or even that employees don’t support that plan. There’s a plan in place for moving the company forward, possibly a brilliant one, yet employees are often completely unaware of it. Some earlier research we did indicated that employees want more communication from the top, not less. Even if the news is not great news, employees feel less anxious and more confident in the company’s future when high-level management keeps them in the loop.

The solution is easy: Communicate from the top down.
Some CEO’s feel giving an occasional town hall meeting or speech to employees means they’ve checked the box of top-down communications. For better employee engagement, morale and productivity, not to mention progress toward company goals, a solid communication strategy might include a leadership blog, a regular presence on the employee website or internal portal, or a monthly update to employees. These communications vehicles don’t have to be difficult or time consuming for management.

The winners are facing the same issues that many companies deal with. For instance, American Express was recognized for engagement around an experiential promotion to “rebuild organizational trust at American Express.” Many top companies are facing this very same issue as they come out of the recession. Tribe’s research has revealed that there is often a gap between leadership’s vision and employee understanding of how that vision plays out on a day-to-day (or project by project) basis.

Qualcomm, Inc. won an award for most inspirational piece for their 2008 Annual Report about People. This is a separate piece from their corporate annual report and centers on celebrating and connecting employees. It’s one more step towards giving employees the recognition they crave, and employees who feel unappreciated are likely to be disengaged from their work.

Unfortunately, the site itself doesn’t give in-depth information on many of the pieces described. But you are able to browse images of many of the award winners, so it’s definitely worth a look.

We’re hearing from many companies that attracting top talent will be a huge issue as the recession comes to an end. One manager for a global brand said that when recruiting became an issue, leadership realized that they had to invest time and energy into improving their culture. While many people right now are just happy to have a job, that won’t last forever. Some companies are starting to worry that employees that have just been waiting it out will leave once more companies are hiring again. If so, companies like the Inspire Awards winners are probably positioned to capture that top talent down the road.

• They’ve grown up with technology. Perhaps the most important thing to point out about this generation is that they are truly the first generation to not know what life is like without technology. They were born into the age of the Internet, cell phones, Facebook and TiVo, so technology provides the background for a lot of their predominant characteristics. Expect this group to adapt very quickly to new tools and technologies at work, although they may prove to be overly dependent on these tools.

• They show signs of becoming fantastic multi-taskers. Because they are used to handling so many forms of technology in their daily lives, they are fantastic multi-taskers. This might present a problem once they are working since the challenge will be to keep the Gen Zs motivated and focused on the task at hand.

• Gen Z is highly educated. This will be the most educated generation to date. With this prestige comes strong opinions on everything and they might not do so well at taking suggestions. Even though they are well educated, they may not be drawn to the same types of jobs. What we think of as prestigious professions, like doctors and scientists, might not hold much value for this group.

• They process information quickly. Thanks to the internet, Generation Z is used to instant results – and can be very impatient when they don’t get them. With instant results also comes the ability to process information very quickly, which can be an extremely valuable trait in the workforce.

• They prefer informal communications. Gen Z is typically self-directed, individualistic and private. But when it comes to sharing their lives on the internet, they are much less restricted than other generations. They interact primarily through the digital world and as a result they might lack in interpersonal skills, verbal communication and expression—which can come across as a lack of confidence. This contrasts with Gen Y, who are typically seen as people pleasers and team players.

Gen Z is just now getting their first jobs. And in the coming years as Boomers begin to retire, Gen Z will get a chance to show the working world how their skill set will drive business forward.