Giving Thanks: It is Not Seasonal Ya Know?

'Tis the season of gift giving. Family and friends are gearing up for the holidays and the gift lists are growing. We’ll start our season of thanks here with that traditional Thanksgiving meal. There is much to be thankful for. Following that Thursday meal is the “Black Friday” shopping. The mind-set is initiated with the thoughts of those special gifts for those special in our lives.

How is corporate recognition any different from holiday giving? It feels good to give and it feels good to receive. I think there is lots of emphasis on the receiving end that is miss-guided. We all know employee morale is enhanced by recognition. Everyone wants the pat on the back for a job well done. It is an age-old adage applied to recognition whether you are giving bonuses or incentive trips, watches or luggage. Huh? Sounds like a Christmas list?

But, what about the giving part? Why isn’t there more emphasis on helping managers want to give recognition? Managers, does it just feel like work to follow up and follow through with that pat on the back? Is it just another management box to check to recognize your workforce? If it feels good to receive then why doesn’t it feel good to give?

An employee recognition program needs to have that element of “feel good” in both giving and receiving. It should feel good to give! Ask yourself why it does not. And then ask yourself how to fix that. What you give and how you give makes it fun and enjoyable. So maybe your employee recognition program needs to have more of a holiday attitude to promote the “feel good”. Just as the holidays are anticipated as a season of giving thanks and appreciation, your employee recognition program should be too!

Make it a party. Celebrate. And may you have a fabulous year of giving!

Turkey image provided by:FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The History of Bacon & HR

Post-HRevolution Un-Conference and I have not stopped thinking about this conference experience. Yes, it was a small conference, a gathering of visionary HR bloggers and HR social media enthusiasts in Louisville, KY. The heart of the discussion was how social media can influence HR’s place in business and to paraphrase Trish McFarlane’s Fox News interview “… to drive the business strategy … be leaders in our companies that bring in new tools and technologies…”

Meeting these HR professionals in person and being actively involved in the discussions that have been going on online for months was a thrill. The energy and intellectual discussions were fluid and filled with the collaborative spirit that seemed all too familiar in many ways. Oddly familiar since I had only talked on the phone to Steve Boese a few times and met Crystal Peterson at KYSHRM a month ago. I had never met any of these people before outside of Twitter and their blogs. But, I knew their voices, their point of view and their businesses. It met all expectations for me. My role was to add value by tweets, questions, cookies and bacon buttons. I hope it inspired HR visionaries to DO something beyond the talk.

The one question that was asked repeatedly to me… “Why bacon buttons?”

So I felt I owed it to everyone to share “The History of Bacon and HR.” I must preface by saying that bacon is a common theme in social networking because of the “Kevin Bacon, Six Degrees of Separation.” In HR there is also the food component centering around Lance Haun’s family butcher history and this rock'n guest post he did on Punk Rock HR here and Steve Boese love of BBQ that birthed HRevolution here and another Steve bacon reference here. Throw in Mark Bennett’s blog post here on Talented Apps that ties it all together, we now have a string of bacon blogging themes that run through tweets and blog comments that just made a bacon button meaningful to me to give to you. If I missed some other good blog posts on bacon please share the links in the comments. If you missed getting a bacon button, DM me. @awardframes. Now I hope bacon is meaningful to you and symbolizes that personal aspect of social media that makes us all real. I sure enjoyed meeting the “real you” at HRevolution.

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Thanks again to Steve Boese, Crystal Peterson, Ben Eubanks and Trish McFarlane and a special shout out to the event sponsors and session leaders. We appreciate being involved and sponsoring this cutting edge experience. Bacon Button photo courtesy of zazzle.com

See You at HRevolution Friday

The lead-up to this conference has been a social media example I continue to learn from. Lots of topic hype online! Session topics will start with: “Is HR Dead” and wrap up with “Future of HR & Role of Social Media.” This un-conference is going to resuscitate HR discussion that has been flying all over the HR blog-o-sphere and bring it to life in these sessions! What is also interesting are the sessions scheduled in the middle of the day which center around the impact of technology and blogging.

Will you write the answers to HR’s issues of identity crisis in your blog? Will you define and lead your expertise into social media for everyone to read? There is a hungry audience out there. Many attending are already doing this. For those who aren't (like me) we win when the Rock Stars show up.

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Wikipedia’s definition: “Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing branding or public relations purposes are called a corporate blog.

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You can’t change the world if you don’t talk about it and get as many people as possible on board talking about it too.

What happens when marketing strategy is applied to HR blogs? Fran Melmed blogged about this. And Lance Haun touched on this in the last “HR Happy Hour” episode 16 . And I think they are right on! Blogs, tweets and writing are marketing "outreach" delivering a message to help companies and employees "get it" and understand the value HR adds to the bottom line. Marketing is the power. How can we all better understand and empower our individual voices and HR messages?

What else do I look forward to at HRevolution? Meeting all you bloggers, Rock Stars and HR Happy Hour fans will be the real highlight. And there will be milestones! Raise a beer toast. It will be the first time Shauna Moerke and Steve Boese will meet in person. And we will all be there to witness the magic and bring alive all of our online connections!

Berkeley Tandem and Fusion Frames is proud to be an HRevolution sponsor and I thank Ben Eubanks (Upstart HR), Trisha McFarlane (blog: HR Ringleader), Steve Boese (blog: HR Happy Hour and HR Tech) and Crystal Peterson for making HRevolution possible! And lets not forget the simplicity of a good conversation over a beer and BBQ. See you Friday. – Lyn Hoyt @designtwit @awardframes