Using the Drivers of Appreciation to Support People and Profits

Thanks everybody for joining today. Excited to talk about this topic. I love my job and the opportunity to talk about something like appreciation. Um, so I'm gonna dig in. The two things that I wanna make sure that you understand is what's happening in the workforce. Some of the research that we've done that takes a concept like appreciation, right? That's a word I think we all use, but what does it mean? Um, how does it apply to the work that we do and to the decisions I'm making about supporting my people? And also give you some really practical tips. That is my favorite thing. I almost always wanna have 20 slides that are just try this. Have you tried this? What about that? So as we go, absolutely. As Zach said, please feel free to put into the webinar chat, um, ideas that you have, and there will be a couple times when I specifically shout out questions. Um, and it's great to see everybody, um, putting that in there. So, um, my name is Alex Powell. I am the director of Insights at Reward Gateway, Eden Red, which means I get to play in the research, find out what's happening. Our next push is going to be around communications and productivity. So we're thinking about what questions can we get out into the ether and find out about in regards to that. But the other part of my job is I get to talk to clients. I get to talk to clients that are being successful with their engagement goals, their business goals, their wellbeing goals, their recognition goals, to find out what are they doing to do that. We know that, um, we we're lucky because often it is because of their partnership with us and the technology we provide. But what are they doing with that technology? How are they communicating out about it? So, just really briefly before I dig into our research on appreciation, I'll share with you a little bit about reward gateway. Eden Red. My favorite way to do that is to shout out a client. This is our client, Georgia Aquarium. They, um, have a site that, um, they, they have worked with us to build, called the Reef. So they've designed it with our design team so it fits their culture. They call it the reef. It makes it feel like home for employees when they go on there. And they've worked with us to build into this unified platform, their recognition and reward tools through US communications and blogging through us, and wellbeing challenges that they're using to make sure people are, um, keeping moving. So really excited. Um, oh, and the thing I should say is, as we talk about, um, appreciation, when they reward people, they call it sand dollars. I'm hugely into a marine pond, and so I love that for them. Okay? So if you're wondering what we do and, um, and what the rest of the folks on my team are working on, they're often working with working, um, with clients to build them systems that support all of these goals that we're gonna talk about today. So first of all, I am gonna talk about a focus on appreciation, that word, what it means, some examples of it to take it down to a much more operational level. Then I wanna share with you the appreciation index results. It's a really cool study that we did using some interesting survey technology that I think uncovers, um, really actionable feedback, um, from employees in the states. And then I'm gonna talk about actually driving appreciation. What are things you can do at an individual level, a team level, and an organizational level to ensure that you're hitting those appreciation goals. And all that comes along with that. And then if you have any questions, do feel free to put them in. We can. Um, I'm hoping to have some time at the end, but as I said, we're also gonna make sure that that chat stays warmed up throughout our time today. So first of all, a focus on appreciation. Um, so it's a word you probably hear associated with culture a lot, associated with people, teams, and, um, supporting your people. But an important note is that technically appreciation and recognition aren't the same thing. We may use them interchangeably when we are, you know, thinking about whether our teams feel supported, but there is an important difference. They are both important, but there is a difference. First of all, recognition would technically be showing, um, being grateful and showing gratitude for what employees do. So an employee does something and we say thank you. So it's like a back and forth, but in that event, the employee needs to step up first and then we respond. Appreciation would be being grateful and showing gratitude for who employees are. So in the case here, I'd love for you to join our panel discussion. Your expertise would be valuable. They haven't done anything yet, but I know based on my experience of them, that they would be a valuable addition. I'm appreciating them for who they are and what they bring to the table. I'll give you two examples of what that might look like in the life, the life of an employee, and that employee is gonna be me. I'm gonna share with you, um, this is an approximation of what I was feeling probably about eight years ago. So at that time, um, I had been assigned a lot of presentations similar to this one. And as I said, I love my job. It's a great job. I get to talk about cool topics, but they all tended to fall in a very small window of time. So I was spending a lot of time, um, evenings getting those presentations ready, making sure that I had all the logistics handled with slide development and all of that. And I was starting to wear down. So despite loving my job, it was starting to feel like I was a victim of my job as opposed to having the opportunity to participate in it. And at that time, I got a recognition through our recognition platform from our head of marketing, and he said, thank you so much for all you're doing this week. I know you're working long hours to prep for a series of presentations. So he was paying attention, which was great to know. The effort you put in now will make such a difference in the experience of attendees. You're really making the world a better place to work. Well, that's our mission, and I really believe in our mission. And so this well-timed recognition let me know that he was, uh, paying attention as the, the guy who was responsible for scheduling a lot of those presentations. He knew I was really busy, and he sent me that recognition. And it took me from, uh, a well-intentioned employee that was starting to wear down to someone who was excited about what was possible, the opportunity. I felt important and valued, and I reengaged with the presentations that I was putting forth. Yes, exactly, Erica, he was very specific with the recognition, something we work with our clients on really intentionally. And that worked. Its magic on me, for sure. Now, let's move forward a few more years. This was a couple years ago, and this was me again. Now, in this instance, it was personal. I have a 16-year-old daughter. And at that point, she was really struggling. She was having trouble, um, with her mental health. She wasn't comfortable going to school. She was having trouble staying in school when she was there, she wasn't feeling safe, and she needed support. And of course, that was impacting my ability to focus. Um, going to pick her up in the middle of the day, maybe staying with her in the morning until she was comfortable meant it was imposing on my work hours. So I had a conversation with my boss and I was really straight with her, and I said, this is what's happening. I want to let you know. And she said, great. Here's what we're gonna do. She said, the plan is that you as a mom need to take the time you need to take. And she wasn't a mom, she was just a manager, right? But she said, this is what you need to do. It's clear to me that this is important. So every morning you're gonna send me on a scale of one to five, where you are that day five means fully working, engaged in projects, send me new, um, things to think about. I'll be at all my meetings. One is I'm a hundred percent a mom. And she said, if you send me a one or a two or a three, I will cover for you. I will look at your calendar. I'll make sure you have that people know what's going on. I'll make sure that you are not, um, dropping the ball on things and that we're pushing deadlines as we need to. It didn't take very long to think about. And once she did it, it lifted a huge weight off of my shoulders every morning. That's all I did. No explanation. I sent her a three in case she knew I was pretty much there, but I wasn't, um, necessarily fully free to do my job as I would normally a one. She had my back, she covered for me and a five she reached out to say, I'm really glad to hear it's been a good day. It took me about two weeks, but I was able to spend the time I needed with my daughter and some of the people that support her. And everything was back on track. I was back to being a full-time and employee. My daughter was safe. Everything was, um, was, was really taken care of. And what that meant was, as an employee, I felt appreciated in a way that made me value my company in new ways. And my manager, if I, I was excited after I got that well timed recognition, I was thrilled at how caring and thoughtful my organization had been. They had really saved me and my daughter, and you better believe that engaged me as an employee. So, um, when we think about that, his, this is how, um, this can help you, right? I just shared some stories about, helped me individually, but the research has shown people who are recognized are 23% more effective and productive. I was really firing on all cylinders, even on a busy, busy week after getting really specific recognition. People who are appreciated and valued for them, their whole selves are 43% more effective and perform even better. I was committed and loyal and ready to move mountains for the organization that helped me support my family. So that appreciation piece and the recognition piece are, um, something to think about as you think about how you're caring for your people. Are we taking care of who they are as people? And gosh, of course, are we thanking them when they go above and beyond? So now I wanna dig into these appreciation index results, which will help you think about this large topic, but make it specific and tangible for your organization and for yourself. First of all, in our research, we already, I already shared you with you some of what's possible with appreciation, but we confirmed what has been known for a while. When people are appreciated, they work harder, they're more engaged, they're more satisfied with their job. So if you're on a mission to make sure people understand the value they provide, this is gonna help. If you need to make sure that your organization is firing all cylinders and you have the productivity you need to be successful, this is also gonna help. So in our research, this was focused primarily on three English speaking countries, Australia, the uk, and the us. It was 3000 folks across that board. And what we found was a, an appreciation index of 60, um, six, sorry, 65 globally, right? So that doesn't mean 60, um, 5% of people are appreciated, but it's a net score across. Some people are a little bit, some people are a lot appreciated. But on that scale of zero to 10, the appreciation index globally came out to 65. And the US was actually a little bit above average at 66. This research was done in the middle of last year, by the way. Um, what we found is Australia was even higher and the UK was lower. So I think one of the things we learned from these numbers is that while we have room to grow, there is opportunity to appreciate more. We should also give ourselves credit for the fact that especially in the last few years, we've really shifted how we see cultures to understand that it is about the people that work here. We're starting to make that shift, um, to the individuals, the, the personalities, the human beings that work. We always had an element of that, but I, I think with Gen Z and millennials, that focus has really needed to expand. So before I dig into the results, what I would love to do in the chat, and thanks so much for the network and the community that's already making sure that the, um, information is coming through loud and clear. Um, which groups in your organization would you say feel least appreciated right now? If you had to guess thinking about it, which groups is it? Are there certain departments, certain types of employees that you feel, um, would probably be feeling least appreciated? Those who operate behind the scenes? Yep. That makes sense, Brenda, for sure. If you're not necessarily seeing the evidence of your work in those, um, frontline, um, conversations, hr, Stacy. Yep, I hear that every time I ask this question. Middle management, frontline employees support roles or non-sales roles. Yep. All right. Any other groups that you're thinking probably naturally feel less appreciated? Civil service employees? Hmm. Yeah. Well, there's a lot going on with that. Operations does not get the recognition that sales gets. Yeah, absolutely. Depending on the type of people, the type of work they do, what your organization, how your organization measures success, all of those things make a lot of sense. So let me share with you, what are research found on certain demographics for you to think about employees in government and lower grades? Yep. Greer, I know you're from DC so there's a lot going on right now in your part of the world. Um, and so I wanna share with you the demographically what came out of the groups that were most likely to feel appreciated and least likely to feel appreciated? Now, and when I share these groups, nobody's at a hundred, right? These are all folks that are in that 60 range, right? Not fully appreciated, but also not necessarily in the doldrums. What we found is we did ask about gender, and the folks that were more likely to feel appreciated were men. The folks that were less likely to feel appreciated were those that identified as gender non-conforming or non-binary. And, um, those that identified as women were in the middle. So that's where we fell out with that when we looked at industry, some of what you're sharing in here, I think will make a lot of sense for folks. Um, when we looked by industry, those in technology and financial services tended to have higher levels of appreciation than those in hospitality and education, right? The front lines in those different types of industries are going to be different. Are you frontline, literally in a retail store or in, um, in a, in a classroom in front of the people that you're helping? Or are you behind a desk? And those are the trends there. Also, we did look by age. Um, the most appreciated were those that were, um, older than 65, and then it fell quickly, 45 to 54. That was the least appreciated group right here. So then we get executives we're more likely to feel appreciated than the front lines. That should make sense, right? Um, there's a lot of reasons why that is the case. People in smaller organizations were more likely to feel appreciated than those in larger organizations. This one, I found a lot of this, you probably could have guessed right, if I'd given you these as physical pieces of paper, you could have put them under the category. But this one we found particularly interesting, and that was when we asked people how much control they had over their work. Those who said they always have control, that was one of the biggest, um, trends in how appreciated they felt versus those who said, almost never have control. When we looked at these graphically, the graphs were a little bit more like this, right? There were different variations, statistically significant variations, but for this one, it was very clear, if I have control over my work, I'm much more likely to feel appreciated. I think that's interesting for all of us to consider. How are we giving our people control? Especially if you're in industries like hospitality and education where there are restrictions on where people can go and what they can do. Are there ways we're giving them control, right? So if they're working in the, in a hotel lobby, do they have some control over the music? What are the restrictions around, um, what they can do and where they can be and what they, where when they work? Are there ways for us to build in that control piece? And then when we looked at tenure, five to 10 years felt the most appreciated, but then after 10 years, it fell off a cliff a little bit and people started to feel less appreciated. Um, I was actually having a conversation with someone about that demographic, and they said, well, gosh, once you've worked somewhere for more than 10 years, you're gonna feel a little stuck. People at those earlier ranges, if they're really not feeling great, they may be more likely to jump and go elsewhere. But after 10 years, you're starting to feel like you're kind of stuck. And so you may stay despite not feeling appreciated. But so something to think about in regards to these different demographics. Um, yes, Greer, you called that employees with longer tenure are less likely to feel that appreciation. So before I move on from those though, I did wanna say, when I put those different demographics up, there was part of me that thought, gosh, this is always the way it is, right? Executives are always gonna feel more appreciated than the front lines, right? You look at the gender dynamics and you say, there it is. That shows up in a lot of places. And I started to, um, think about why that might be, and our team really thought it through. What is it that might be driving this? Is it that we're just treating all of these people differently? That people in smaller organizations get treated differently than people in larger organizations that, um, people in those certain, um, industries are getting treated differently than people in other industries? And here's what we thought about. When you think about your groups, it could be that they're less appreciated because they get less praise or focus. I think about people who work third shift, right? They're less likely to have leaders walking around seeing what they're doing, giving them credit for that great work. So in that case, they may be getting actually less praise and focus, but it could be that they are being treated the same way, yet they're starting work in a different place. For example, when it comes to the gender dynamics, there have been studies that have shown that women just consistently are more burnt out than men. So maybe women are showing up to work and they're already feeling in a little bit of a hole. So the work we need to do to get them feeling the same level of appreciation is actually, um, is pretty hard to get there. So that makes sense that that would show up in how appreciated people feel. So it could be that they're starting their day in a different place. It also could be that they interpret situations differently. So in our previous research, we found that introverts are less likely to feel recognized than extroverts. I'm intentional with that recognition versus appreciation. Um, so they may be experiencing maybe some of the same communication messaging, emails, um, messages from their managers, but they're interpreting it differently, right? We think about sales and people in operations, right? If you're talking to a group of developers in software versus the salespeople, I might say to both of them, you're doing really well. The sales team, oh my gosh, she loves me. It's amazing. We're doing so great, great. And the developers might be like, yeah, but something broke last month. I don't know that I believe her. Different types of folks may interpret the same message differently, and we need to think about that when we're sharing messages of appreciation. And then finally, they're less likely to ask for feedback. When I think about my first years in my career, which was a very, very long time ago, if I didn't know how I was doing, was I as likely to speak up and ask for feedback than I am now? No way. I speak up really easily now. It's been a while. I don't have some of those same concerns. My confidence is higher the longer I'm, I'm in my job. So it's also possible that maybe people on the front lines aren't getting the message that they can ask for feedback if they need it. Um, so there's lots of different reasons why it could be different in those different groups. Just something to think about. All right? But here is the real kicker. This is where we're gonna start to get into solutions for all of this, regardless of who people are across all those different demographics. When we ask people what drives appreciation, these are the top five things that came out of this. And I also should say, I, I'd encourage you to, to download the report at the end because the methodology was pretty interesting. We didn't just ask people what makes you feel appreciated. We used a rapid response test, which is more likely to, um, to push past biases. So we ask people, you have less than a second, tell us how you feel. Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no. Moving past our more logical front brain processing to our more instinctive, behi, um, base of the brain processing, which is more likely to get to where we make decisions, right? If someone asks you how your day was, you're probably not gonna think a lot about it. You're just gonna feel that instinct. And that's what we were trying to get to. Um, in regards to this. So these are the top five things that showed up on how appreciated people feel. One is, am I recognized by managers? Here comes the recognition term, right? So recognition and appreciation are connected, but it was specifically manager recognition that showed up as most connected to appreciation. Next, my hard work is rewarded. Those who answered that positively were more likely to feel appreciated. I feel I belong here, came through loud and clear my managers support me. So things like I described in my story, right? When I really needed the help my manager had my back, I felt very appreciated. And then my organization praises me, right? So manager recognition that when I work hard, I will be rewarded. And organizational praise. Three of these five elements are very much related to recognition and a couple different ways of thinking about it. Also in this, we see the powerful role of managers, not a surprise. It comes through in so much of our research that people are really relying on their managers to determine how they feel and how things are going for them. And then this theme of belonging, am I welcomed? Am I part of a team? Do I feel safe? All of those things. These are the top five. So Erica, yes, there were lots of other things we asked. We probably asked a total of about 35 or 40. There are others on the list, but these are the ones that came out, um, loud and clear. So what I wanna do now is I wanna start to give you some examples of what I've in conversations with clients in the work that we've done in the past 20 years, what tends to come out as good examples of ways to drive these five. Um, before I do though, I'm curious, those of you listening, which of these, let's see, do I wanna go positive or negative? Which of these 5, 1, 2, 3, or five do you think you do best? We'll start, we're gonna start positive. Which of these do you think your organization is doing best at? Of the five? Is it manager recognition? Is it rewarding, hard work, belonging, manager support that they have their backs? Or is it my organization praises me? Right? And if you wanna do one through five, I didn't have it on the slide. Didn't think to do it, but yeah. Okay. Five. We've got organizational praise, manager support, three, all of them. Great. Good. Three and four. Belonging and manager support. Five. Yep. Five and four. Awesome. Hmm. Our work rewarded hasn't showed up, but it's a very small sample that I'm looking at. Number one, I'm recognized by managers. That's great. One of the things that I thought of when I saw that at the top is that that can be especially tricky. So that's wonderful to know that that's going well. Wonderful. Okay, good. Well, all of that work you're doing to drive these five things, that's paying dividends into your organization because it genuinely is what people really care about when it comes to, um, when it comes to appreciation. So if you have some of these that you know you need to improve on, here's some ideas. Okay? First of all, when it comes to feeling recognized by managers, gosh, I've been talking about recognition for well over 20 years, and one of the best practices that shows up again and again is just adding it to huddles and meetings, making sure that managers are reminded to do it. That it's the first thing they ask. Who has some great work to share? Who has others that they wanna recognize? Making sure that the message is clear that we should be recognizing each other. It's a priority for us to talk about. That can add. If you have one weekly meeting with your team and you add recognition, that's 50 more opportunities for recognition throughout a year. That also feeds it into the culture. So it happens in other places as well. The other thing too is if you are working with a team and you're not always with them, right? Whether it's varied shifts, different buildings, um, me, right? I'm in a, in my home right now, I'm hundreds of miles away, um, from our main office, the one of the things that managers can do is start asking in their one-on-ones or as they go about their day, what are you proud of? It might not feel as natural when you first ask the question, but the opportunity here is huge. I was wor once working with one of our developers, um, and he came up to me and he said, Hey, I got recognized today and I'm kind of annoyed by it. And I said, that's not what all the research says should happen when you get recognized. Can you tell me more? And he said, yeah. Um, I am working on this really compelling project to speed up our systems to drive the architecture of our, um, of our software to be much more efficient. And today I got recognized for helping someone set up a web meeting. I was like, oh, okay, I get it. So we're missing the mark on thanking you for the stuff that's meaningful to you. So I was able to ask him, can you tell me more about this project you're working on? I wasn't in the loop on it very much, but he was able to give me the basic information. I was able to acknowledge that to him. And then I told that story to our full team, and I saw his body language change from being a little doubtful to seeing that pride of a job well done. So just asking people, okay, so that's what I've noticed about you, but what are you proud of? Can do a lot to make sure recognition is really effective. The other thing is making sure that managers have tools to recognize. So this is an example of one of the things we work with our clients on is building multi-tiered recognition. Um, making sure that it's not just one method, that there's multiple methods, right? We don't wanna make it so complicated that it's overwhelming, but we do wanna make sure it's varied. So they may start with a level of peer-to-peer e-cards through our, our platform or recognition anyone can send to anyone else. It's relatively low cost. It's just something that we can, you know, make happen. I just actually pulled our larger team today and um, uh, the largest part of our software that people enjoyed were those e-cards. So maybe that's happening behind the scenes. It's happening frequently, but setting aside a layer that is for managers as well, maybe it's reward based or maybe it's specific, um, specific e-cards that only managers have. So they feel like they have the tools they need when they're feeling a particular way about an employee to make sure that that recognition happens. And then our clients often will have things in addition to that, like quarterly or annual so that they can make sure those real above and beyond moments are elevated. And that happens. Oh yeah, here's an example. This is Golden one, um, credit union. They're one of our clients in California. They've done a beautiful job, um, working with our designers to get some manager specific recognition cards that they can be sent out. And as they get sent out in the social wall, everyone sees this happening. It really reinforces that recognition is important and that employees are valued. Um, and Robin, yes, your point is well taken. Recognition doesn't need to come from managers, but we know from our research it is one of the top drivers of appreciation. So recognition in general is very important. Recognition from managers though does carry a little bit more weight. And so we wanna make sure we're giving them the tools they need to really, um, make that happen. Okay, so before I move to the next section, which is rewards for hard work, I'd love to know from those of you listening in, what is a reward that would make you feel appreciated? It could be stuff I really like my vacuum cleaner that I used our rewards program to get. But it also could be a day off access to, um, professional development, the ability to travel to a different office or participate on the most valuable projects. What to you would feel like a truly valuable award? I love my rice cooker. That's amazing. Time off remote work. Yep. You're working really hard and so we're gonna make things easier for you and let you do some of that remotely. The gift of time. Yep. I think a lot of us push really hard to work and the, I know for me there's days where I'm working until seven and then I don't necessarily feel comfortable taking that comp time, but if it's given to me, I will appreciate it for sure. Attendance at industry conferences, a spa gift card. Yeah. Let's not forget about the gifts like that. Um, increase flexibility, time off exposure time with leaders and mentors. Remote work. Yep. Professional development. The five languages from Paul White. Yes. How to best appreciate others. We actually have a blog post about the five languages of appreciation at work that goes into just specifics in regards to that public acknowledgement for the behind the scenes work I do, yes. And that can feel like a reward, right? We want the recognition, but reward is much more than cash and gifts. Those can be valuable, but also it is, um, right? You can use the cast cash and gifts to get that spa and that massage and really feed into that self-care you may not naturally take care of. But all of those other things are also important, and that's part of what people are looking for. The second driver was, when I work hard, do I feel like that hard work will be rewarded? And we already talked about it a lot in the chat. I'm not surprising with an HR audience that that's coming to the top, but professional development opportunities. I think sometimes managers think I gotta go get a gift card, but maybe it is. You know what? Find a class you'd like to take, think of a session you'd like to go to and, and we'll give you that time. It also could be time to set aside and solve problems with autonomy. Maybe there is like that sand in your shoe problem that your group is dealing with and you just don't have the time. What if you were to say you two are really firing on all cylinders this quarter? I would love it. How about if I give you the day Thursday, go to an offsite and I want you to think through and put together a plan for how we can get rid of this problem once and for all. Letting them know you trust them to make those decisions and choices could be a means of, um, rewarding hard work. And then of course there are those things, like if I know that a spa or a massage would be really valuable, then a gift card somewhere local for you might help. Um, our clients find it. We've got a reward marketplace that allows employees as they build up points to redeem them on Amazon or, um, to, um, various spa finder.com, places like that. So you can make it the reward you care about. But if you don't have that technology available to you, making sure you know what people care about, maybe they would love you to bring them a coffee card. Um, as long as it's the coffee place that they prefer, maybe they would love time off to travel or gift certificates of Barnes and Noble so they can, they can feed their book habit. But getting that information from employees can do a lot to make sure that the rewards we want to give them are actually felt by those employees. Okay, so additionally, I feel I belong here, right? It's easy to go directly to like diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. When you think about belonging, those things are obviously very closely tied together, but it includes that and is also wider than that. Do I belong? What is the welcoming experience for new employees or, you know, are people that are, um, that maybe have different styles feeling comfortable? And one of the things I love, one of, um, my colleagues Chase Sterling, she works at the wellbeing Think Tank, which is a not-for-profit, focused on sharing wellbeing ideas with businesses, was this concept that there's a difference between team bonding and team building. And it's important we do both when we look to drive belonging, right? So it could be maybe you default to if you're local, having happy hours or adding a few minutes to your meeting to talk about the movies people saw that weekend or the shows they're watching, that's bonding, right? We're, we're connecting on personal issues, but more intentionally, the team building is also something we should consider, right? Where we look at what are our styles? Who is more extroverted and introverted? What are natural ways of working? What are some things that get in our way? Um, we use the predictive index here at Reward Gateway, Eden Red, but I've used tons over my career, right? Disc and insights. And so the opportunity to do that and provide that can be really valuable, right? I'm, I appear extroverted, but I'm actually introverted. And if people don't know that about me when I suddenly go quiet, they might think it's them. It's definitely not them, it's me. I'm recharging. Um, people that are more neurodivergent, right? That are, that identify as neurodivergent, things like team building can help people to understand the different ways they work so that our collaboration feels more natural and people feel that they belong. Also, this is something that our clients do, especially we, so this is actually our page. We're a global organization. People celebrate lots of different holidays that we may not be as familiar with, right? Baba Mar Day was not a day I was familiar with. It's a Bulgarian holiday that our colleagues celebrate. So we have a lot of fun with celebrating the different things that people believe and where they live and who they are using these greetings E-cards. It's, it prompts a lot of conversation and it does something for belonging for sure. Um, in fact, I'm gonna give you another example of belonging. I shared with you the Georgia Aquarium and their site, the Reef. One of the things they do to make sure people feel valued is they give, let them suggest e-cards that they would like to give to their colleagues. And so if you look, I ask them, there's a card called Great Pinna Pal. Thanks for being such a great Penny pal. There may be even someone on the call that knows what that means. I did not know what that meant, so I asked them. And a pin AED is a seal. So someone suggested if we're gonna have an e-card, it should include Penny Pal. They designed it, the organization uploaded it, and let them, um, send it out. And it's one of the big hits of their program is, um, referring to people as penny pals. So there's lots of things you can do organizationally as well as within teams to make sure that belonging is front and center. Welcoming in of new employees is of course, important. A lot of our clients ages ago moved from waiting five years to acknowledge people's milestones to 30 days and 90 days. We definitely want people to know we value their contributions earlier rather than later. And so these welcome message can be, they're just pre-programmed, but they go out on 30 days to acknowledge that for folks. Allison's saying, part of me thinks we should make those graphics available to the rest of your clients. I would love to get right. I think we should. Maybe we should all just work once in our life at a place like the Georgia Aquarium where we're surrounded by animals. I would love that, Allison. But yes, we could get a little more creative with the recognition we're giving. Have fun with it. It probably would give you a little more boost if it was something fun like a seal. All right. Also, does my manager support me is a really important one. I told you the story of how my manager supported me, but I don't expect most managers would be able to handle that situation as deftly as she did. That's really tricky. So making sure managers feel able to support employees is a really important challenge. Some of you said you're already good at it, and that's really amazing. One of the, the research we just came out with yesterday actually, um, on wellbeing shared that 71% of managers feel personally responsible for their team's wellbeing. But we also know that managers are also themselves more stressed than their employees tend to be. So how do we set our managers up to feel that they can support their people? I think one thing we need to keep in mind is being as managers, is to consider our biases and be balanced with our support. Um, first of all, those that identified as neuro part of the Neurodiverse community said they were less likely to feel supported by their managers than those that were neurotypical. So as much as managers have a lot on their plate, trying to customize our support to the people we work with is important. Also, um, there was a statistic from the report that showed that only in the us those who are caregivers, felt more supported than those who are not. That was really surprising to me. I would've expected that people with kids would've said, gosh, we need more support than we're getting. It's the opposite. They're feeling a little more supported than others. And I think one of the things we need to keep in mind then as managers is maybe it's easy to support someone who's got a kid, right? The kid gets sick, there's a play at school. We all understand as a society that when someone has children, that is a priority and we need to give them their space, right? Just as my manager did for me. But are we also giving that same space to people without children, without caregiving responsibilities? If one of my colleagues has had a really busy quarter and she wants to take a girl's weekend to Nashville, will I treat that with the same level of importance as I would someone wanting to go see their kids play? People are different. Those things are different. But also making sure we're, we're thinking about people for who they are and not, um, and supporting them in all of the ways we can. Hopefully that makes sense. Um, oh, here's a really specific idea. So this is something that happened. Honestly, it was in the early months of Covid, but it stuck with me and it's something I really try and bring back up. Um, all the time. We had on a random, um, day, a half an hour showed up on our calendars that was set aside for wellbeing. This is actually a screenshot from my phone. Um, it showed up in the middle of the day and there were some suggestions from our wellbeing center on things you could do during that half an hour, right? Like a workout or a meditation, um, or a yoga class. All of that was suggested to us. But the messaging was, we're putting a half an hour on your calendar and we want you to use it for your own wellbeing. Move it if you need to, right? If you already have something planned during that time, but either plan for healthier meals for the weekend, go take a walk, lay on the floor with your dog, whatever support supports your wellbeing, whatever supports you to take the time you need. And I love that best practice setting it aside on the calendar, telling people, get creative, put it where you want to, but the message is you taking care of yourself is not just something you do when you have time. It's something your organization wants you to do. Um, and when we think about manager support, if managers really are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, they themselves are stressed. They're trying to take care of their people. One of the most powerful things you can do, and something we've seen in our research is people wanna know what benefits they have. I don't expect my boss to do everything for me, but I bet there's other things out there that could support me during times of need. And so this is something that our people team has done is redesign our benefits hub. This is also out on our, um, employee engage employee experience platform. We've built out this benefits hub and we've divided all of our benefits by the type of wellbeing it supports, family wellbeing, career wellbeing, physical, mental, financial, our career. And that way we can go find what we need, which is great for, um, people on the front lines. We've heard from our HR team that new joiners, new people onboarding are much more likely to understand the benefits that are available to them because it's laid out in such a clear way. But also, we have been talking to managers about how they should be prepared to triage people with the benefits that they need so that they understand if, you know, we, there's things in here about, um, really crisis management. If you know someone is going through a crisis, go out to the benefits board and find something that they can use so they feel supported in regards to that. And that can help managers have what they need to really support their people. All right, so the last one of the five top, um, drivers of appreciation was my organization praises me. So I actually think this would be an interesting thought experiment unto itself. Where where are people getting recognition? Is it mostly from managers? Are there opportunities for them to feel praised by the organization? Is it their colleagues, right? It's not in the top five, but recognition from colleagues is also going to be important. Where is that recognition strongest and where is there an opportunity to grow it? So if we're looking to have people feel like the wider organization praises them, one technique might be to make sure you're sharing recognition across teams. So if someone on our sales team does something really great, well actually let me use a different example based on your comments we talked about behind the scenes. Let's say someone on our operations team does something really cool that's gonna make it easier for our sales team to do their jobs. Is the head of sales thanking that person or is it just the head of operations? Right? The more we can share recognition across teams, the more it will feel like it's not just my boss, but it is the organization that is appreciative of my efforts. And that will also help us to sit a little taller in our chairs. This is actually, um, an example from what reward Gateway Eden Red does. We use our software and our communications platform to share updates to our products and technology. I don't work even in the same country as the people who are making these updates, but when they're shared, oh, sorry, my notifications are going off. When they're shared with us in our communications system, we, they're highlighting specifically the people that work on it. So there's this cool update that's happening and we would like to thank Ryan and Engel and RG and Engel and Ancy and Alexander for what they did. So I know who the actual people are and I can click on their names and send them a recognition if this update to the software is something that's really meaningful to me. So I think as we're communicating out across the organization, reminding ourselves and the leaders we work with to highlight the people that are doing the work, not just the thing that has changed, that can do a lot to make sure that you feel like it's not just my team, but it's everyone that appreciates me. Okay. So the goal was to talk a little bit about appreciation versus recognition. Hopefully you're thinking about, okay, we are we good at recognition and if we are also, are we making sure that all types of people feel supported in these five ways across our organization? Because recognition drives a 23% increase in productivity. That's awesome appreciation. It's 43% and all of, and all of that comes from feeling important as a human. And that's also a benefit to the individuals that work for you, not just the organization as a whole. So when you think about these five, I'm glad to hear that there's a lot of them that the organ that your organizations are already doing. Well, you can either put in the number where it falls. I'm curious, which of these do you want to focus on more in 2025? Is it manager recognition, which is the top one? Um, has a lot of influence on how appreciated people feel? Is it feelings of belonging? Is it manager support, making sure people have what they need to feel supported? All right, we've got some ones, some twos and threes. Hard work is rewarded and I feel I belong here. Yep. Um, a lot. Yeah, lots of ones. I know I kind of biased it 'cause it's at the top of the list. Um, but they all five are influential. But I will say manage your recognition does have a lot to say for how appreciated people feel. And as much as we're asking a lot of managers, gratitude is a wellbeing strategy. So when I speak to managers at our clients, which I sometimes do, I'll a training for a group of managers. We're rolling out a recognition program for them. I make sure that they're clear that actually recognizing other people isn't purely altruistic. It's actually a really good strategy for yourself. Don't just focus on what's broken. Don't just focus on what needs to change. Focus on who's already doing great work. It does wonderful things for them. It supports those people that are the backbone of your organization. But it also is a moment of self-care for a manager. It brings feeling grateful, brings down those stress hormones, it increases your feeling of connection. It can make you feel more fulfilled in your job. So it's important for people, but it also can help managers with the burden that they're carrying in so many different ways. Oh, so I just shared with you kind of the high level pieces of the appreciation index as um, a report. But we'd love for you to go in and take a look at it and give it a read. Um, there's much more in regards to the specific demographics and how that works. You can click on the link that's in the chat or you can use the QR code that's here or the short link that's there. But go in and take a look at it and maybe it's something that you wanna share out. Maybe you've gotten some ideas for how you can drive more either recognition or appreciation and you wanna get some other folks on board with those, send them over the report. Um, and then you can have a conversation about it and see what you might be able to do in order to drive that. Because it's beneficial for individuals but also for the organization as a whole. All right. So thank you so much for your time. If there's any particular questions people have, any other suggestions, I just gave a whole bunch of suggestions on what people could do to drive appreciation and recognition. But if you've got some hot tips or golden nuggets of information that's really made a difference in different organization parts of your organization, please feel free to put those into the chat because I know there's probably some really wonderful ideas, um, that you already are doing that we could all benefit from. So I'll keep my eye on the chat for anything like that, that might take a minute to type in. But otherwise I think I can hand things back over to you, Zach, if you wanna, um, close things out for us. Alright, thank you so much. Yeah. Can we amplify the thank yous in the chat, show some appreciation back to Alex on that. That was incredible. Thank you for that wealth of knowledge and, and strategies and I'd love to ask you a question right away, especially with the the manager piece being at the top of the list. Obviously that seemed to resonate with everyone. Yeah, I think sometimes though the biggest challenge is just getting managers bought in and aligned to doing that into their weekly routines and habits and part of their team connections. Are there certain ways you kind of see people start to enable that the, the quickest or the easiest? Yeah, so there's lots of ways. First of all, I think it's really helpful if it's modeled from the top. If you're gonna try and get buy-in to it, if you can work at the highest levels of the organization to just do some really simple pieces. Like we were working with a, a, a bank, a regional bank that had about 40 locations and their president just started adding a recognition moment to their town hall phone calls. And that sent the message that this is a priority. If their 20 minute town hall involves five minutes for recognition, it's something we should all be doing. And people then were able to experience it and get that it actually was one of the best parts of the meeting. So it's not a bad thing to add it in. So I think modeling it from the top is big, bringing your stats. Not everybody is gonna get the warm and fuzzy that goes along with appreciation and recognition, but if they see some of the impacts to productivity, to connection, there's tons, there's tons in this report, there's tons in our resources. And gosh, Gallup, you, you know, throw a rock, you're gonna hit a Gallup stat about the power of culture. So I think bringing those stats is crucial. And then the third thing I would say is working it into where they already are. Do you already have a meeting with your team? Is it the best meeting you've ever run? I'm gonna guess no. If you add a recognition moment to it, it does change the tone of it. It makes it more interesting and engaging. Um, what are you, someone who's in a car, maybe you're driving around a lot. Can you add recognition into that while you're driving? Call some people and say thank you In healthcare? One of the tips I got from a former, um, nursing leader was she would, when she washed her hands, which was something she did all the time, that was a prompt. She had a sign by the, um, sink on a lot of the units that said, who should you thank building that in to when you're already taking a pause. Um, for me it's often when I fill up my water cup that I think through who should I say thank you to? So as long as managers know that they're getting credit and it's being modeled from the top that there is value to it, it's not a waste of time and it doesn't need to take a lot of time. It's slower to see change when you don't already have that culture built, but you can absolutely do it. Oh, and actually the fourth thing would be figure out who are those managers that are already amazing at it and, and highlight them. So it's not just you as HR saying do it. You've got your head of sales that loves to recognize their people. Trumpeting that to the other managers. That's absolutely something we've seen be effective for sure. I love that last part. That was something that was going through my mind as you kind of were reaffirming, like making sure it's coming from the top. And maybe part of that strategy, strategy is recognizing the recognizers, right? And, and celebrating them. And we know part of the strategy there is what you recognize is you're kind of reinforcing the behavior behaviors that matter most to you so that others then can maybe, you know, model that in their own. So can we celebrate the leaders that have brought that into their own team culture as a way to kind of encourage other leaders to jump on board and get on bought into it. And then I love the nudges piece too, right? So how can we create the daily reminders, the nudges, the the type of symbols throughout the organization or in your digital kind of ecosystem that reminds people to include this into their conversations, into their next team huddle or their one-on-one check-in and things like that. So, uh, incredibly powerful. Alex, that was great. Yeah, great. Thanks. All right everyone, well we're coming up on time. Uh, make sure you check out the appreciation index, share that with your team, with your peers, start to foster that knowledge around, and I think as we shared, right, like the nudging and the encouragement of this information for each other can really start to spread this information and, and share that collective knowledge, right? And that will maybe start to create some collective movement on this. Uh, connect with Alex via LinkedIn as well. I shared that in the chat. Connect with her, maybe ask her more questions and kind of volunteering your time a little bit here. But, uh, I'm sure should be happy. My Favorite. It's my favorite topic, so I'm happy to talk about it. Yes. And then, uh, lastly, we obviously put the credits in the chat, so if you want to take advantage of that, uh, uh, copy those now and then we'll also send those in a follow up email. Otherwise, that really concludes our session today. Uh, Alex, thank you again for sharing your time and wisdom with our network. Thank you to everyone for dedicating time out of their day to join this program. I applaud you for investing in yourself in that way. Uh, it means a lot to, to us as a community. And yeah, get out there and start appreciating. I appreciate all of you. So have a good day everyone.

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