Send employees snail mail to make an impact

By Annie Waite, Editor of the Internal Comms Hub (North America), Melcrum

Sending employees "snail mail" is one of the suggestions Chris Gay of Bridge Consulting made for how to make an impact with your communications to different employee groups, during her workshop yesterday at Melcrum's Strategic Communication Management Summit in Chicago.

In this technology communication saturated era, to receive a handwritten letter is like the equivalent of an 18th century farmer discovering a dodo egg in his chicken coop.

Last night's keynote speaker, Dr. Bob Nelson of Nelson Motivation Inc. also suggested ways to make meaningful connections with employees. He gave us an enviable set of ideas for how to appropriately reward and recognise employees - I thought I'd share a few of them here, but you can find more of Bob's examples (and leave your own suggestions) on a detailed account of day 1 of the Summit - check the Hub for more.

• Busch Gardens uses recognition tokens. When managers see any employees demonstrating their core values – safety, teamwork or customer service – they give them a token. The employee can turn it into payroll if they wish, but many choose to retain the token as a reminder of how they've been rewarded for good work.
• Disney has "WOW! cards" for employees to award to each other if they notice exceptional behavior. It's a very simple program and other companies have adapted the idea for people to accumulate points.
• Apple puts its core values as words on t-shirts. Employees that personify a value (for example, integrity) are then given a t-shirt as a reward. Many employees strive to get all the t-shirts in the set.
• KFC has a list of employees who play a musical instrument. If someone has done well in the company or reflected their core values, they are serenaded by the crew of instrument players. The idea has been so successful that a second band of musically minded employees – a string quartet – has been created to serenade people.
• Fel-Pro runs an annual suggestion lottery, whereby good ideas are rewarded with random fun, redeemable coupons.
• Grumman Corp. issues on-the-spot gift coupons.

Bob also suggested an idea for managers to use to make a positive impact on their employees' morale – "Interrupt a meeting with good news! You can pack a lot of punch with a little thanks.”

“Good praise has an emotional charge that leaves a mark," he says " and it has a residual effect that stays with the person for a long time”.

What do you reckon - would the idea take off with your employees, or would they roll their eyes at such behaviour and think it was just another shortlived employee engagement exercise handed down from HR?