Sephora recently reached the incredible milestone of 10 billion in revenue.
And they sent their employees a cookie.
Um. No.
According to HR Brew, Sephora employees were—rightly—offended and posted things like, “When your employer makes $10 billion…and all you get is a damn cookie.”
And: “They are always coaching us to meet our goals and expectations, and, of course, everyone goes above and beyond for the company and all they give us is a stale cookie and a letter thanking us.”
If that’s not convincing enough, here’s a stat to consider: “From the start of 2020 through the present, employee happiness has steadily declined at a rate of 6%.”
Yep, even after all your hard work to help your employees thrive in the post-Covid chaos.
While I certainly don’t have all the answers, I do know one thing: Don’t be like Sephora.
Make recognition real. Take recognition personally.
Here are some examples.
Colorado architecture firm Rowland+Broughton incorporates personalized recognition requests into their ongoing engagement conversations.
When they conduct stay interviews, they ask, “How do you like to be recognized?” and record each employee’s response. They found that 80% of the team likes to be acknowledged publicly while 20% would prefer privately.
Whitney Eichinger, SVP & Chief Communications Officer of Southwest Airlines shared on the Modern People Leader podcast that they “used to only have one way to celebrate. Now we are adding in choice. If you like an in-person thing, you can do that. If you want your own recognition personally sent to your house you can do that. We are offering a blend of virtual and in person opportunities.”
According to Mindi Cox, Chief Marketing & People Officer at O.C. Tanner, “Every technology we use welcomes us with our names, features our preferences, even asks questions to assure it knows our favorites and serves us in the way we find most useful. Is it any wonder, people want to feel just as seen by other people?”
And while AI can lay a lot of groundwork in establishing personalized recognition, as Cox told me, tech-generated love “will never substitute for a leader who is invested in developing real relationships with their team members.”
It’s not rocket science, but it does take intention and care.
2/13/2024
