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Simple Awards Still the Best The more I work with recognition and rewards, the more I continue to be intrigued with the simple, sincere ways employees use to appreciate each other with a minimum of cost, paperwork and administration. The Spirit of Fred Award. At Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL, one of their 180 recognition programs is called The Spirit of Fred Award, named for an employee named Fred. When Fred first went from an hourly to a salaried position, five people taught him the values necessary for success at Disney. This helped to inspire the award, in which the name Fred became an acronym for Friendly, Resourceful, Enthusiastic and Dependable. First given as a lark, the award has come to be highly coveted in the organization. Fred makes each—a certificate mounted on a plaque, which he then varnishes—as well as The Lifetime Fred Award—a bronze statuette of Mickey Mouse given to multiple recipients of the Spirit of Fred Award. Thanks a Bunch. At Maritz Performance Improvement Company in Fenton, MO, they have a Thanks a Bunch program in which a bouquet of flowers is given to an employee in appreciation for special favors or jobs well done. That employee then passes the flowers on to someone else who has been helpful with the intent of seeing how many people can be given the bouquet throughout the day. With the flowers goes a written thank you card. At certain intervals the cards are entered into a drawing for awards such as binoculars or logoed jackets. The program is used during especially heavy workloads or stressful times. World of Thanks. At AT&T Universal Card Services in Jacksonville, FL, they use the World of Thanks award as one of more than 40 recognition and reward programs. It’s a pad of colored paper shaped like a globe with "Thank You" written all over it in different languages. Anyone in the company can write a message of thanks to someone else and send it to that person. The program is extremely popular—in four years they have used over 130,000 such notes. Appreciation Days. ARA Services headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, organizes a day of appreciation for worthy employees. They send out a proclamation announcing Bob Jones Day, for example, with the reason for the honor. The honoree enjoys all sorts of frills, such as computer banners and a free lunch. The Wingspread Award. The Office of Personnel Management in Washington, DC, uses a "pass around" award that was first given to the division’s "special performer." Later that person passed the award to another person who, he believed, truly deserved it. The award came to take on great value and prestige because it came from one’s peers. A recipient can keep the award as long as he or she wants, or until he or she discovers another special performer. When the award is to be passed on a ceremony and lunch are planned. The Golden Banana Award. A Hewlett-Packard Company engineer burst into his manager’s office in Palo Alto, CA to announce he’d just found the solution to a problem the group had been struggling with for many weeks. His manager quickly groped around his desk for some item to acknowledge the accomplishment and ended up handing the employee a banana from his lunch with the words, "Well done. Congratulations!" The employee was initially puzzled, but over time the Golden Banana Award became one of the most prestigious honors bestowed on an inventive employee. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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