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Service Awards represent a special and separate part of the recognition industry. They are currently being used by over 96% of all companies as a key employee appreciation strategy and continue to be the most objective and traditional form of recognition in our society. I was fortunate enough to meet John Tharpe in 1990 and to be able to participate in the growth of The Tharpe Company from $5 million to over $40 million in annual sales. Having come out of the manufacturing industry, I have the unique opportunity of being on both sides of the recognition fence. My interest in studying employee motivation and attitudes, and how they relate to human performance, is what led me out of the factory and into this business over 15 years ago. A lot has changed in the service award industry over the past 20 years, so to help you make sense out of what’s available, I would like to share a brief history. Using an engineering background along with a combined 20 years of experience, I believe my opinions on recognition and what is best for your employees will be refreshing as well as interesting. How it all began. Fifty years ago, service awards were provided by a small group of jewelry manufacturers and consisted of lapel and stick pins with numerals – 5, 10, 15… to signify years of service. Things were easy and inexpensive, with gold at about $35 per ounce. Soon, gem stones replaced the numerals to mark the years and the cost of pins increased accordingly. In the late 70’s, the cost of gold tripled and customers were soon left with the same perceived value, but vastly higher prices. This quickly led to considerations of other ways to better use the service award budget. At the same time, workforces were becoming more diverse ushering in the idea of “choice service award programs”. Why not offer a choice of awards, rather than just a pin, to maximize the perceived value and achieve long term reoccurring value. This new approach quickly took off, but carried with it very high start-up costs including tooling, product inventory, multiple year brochure runs, and tremendous risk of product availability. Every vendor was a jeweler back then, so nobody had much control over the continuity of non-jewelry awards, such as crystal, pewter, watches, and clocks. About this time, John Tharpe and a handful of other salespeople from Jostens, saw the writing on the wall, and realized that the ability to offer a high quality, broad based “choice” service awards program with minimal start-up costs, no product continuity risks, and cost effective brochures was the key to the future. John created the OMNI Recognition System which will be introduced to you in this proposal. The company grew from nothing to $42 millions in a little over 20 years -- the idea was sound. The success of Tharpe brought followers. Today, the remaining old line jewelers offer similar choices, but do not share the structure, philosophy, and freedom from product bias that keeps Tharpe the leader in creative, high value choice recognition. What Happened to Recognition? In the late 90’s, after a decade of downsizing, employees were understandably uneasy. A creative premium vendor decided this was the opportune time to go after some market share in service awards. Using statistics about diminishing employee loyalty and declining lengths of service, they concluded that your employees not longer value symbolic mementos that represent the achievement of a service milestone, but instead would prefer a cash-equivalent award. “Let’s just give them what they want, cash or some retail item,” they rationalized. “Heck with the logo and the gift box, they would really prefer the money; just ask ‘em!” Sure enough… if you do a survey and asked employees what the WANT (not what they NEED), the answer is usually cash or time off. This tactic led quickly to what is referred to as Lifestyle Awards. These are not necessarily poor awards; however, if offered without a corporate identity symbol or gift packaging, and delivered in a matter of days, they can cheapen the perceived value of a program. When the employee finds their award as a loss leader end cap display at Wal-Mart, this drop in value is further exaggerated. While everyone clamored to make sense out of this new phenomenon, few of the experts bothered to consider the ramifications. Is a weed whacker shipped to your home in a manufacturer’s carton a good way to thank an employee for 10 years of their life? The incredible irony of the situation is that the great revelation that employees no longer value lasting symbols of their years of service, was discovered by a premium house who inventoried a wide variety of these very Lifestyle-type awards! What This Means to You and Your Employees. After studying the wealth of information and statistics from the 30’s until today, it’s obvious to me that recognition is all perception. A genuine and meaningful presentation, and some way of making those memories last is what it’s all about. What its not, is a trivial bonus. The best approach to service awards includes properly trained managers who impart to their employees a true appreciation of their service to the company along with a symbol of that appreciation that they can’t buy for themselves and that lasts for many years. Throwing them a small, financial bone is proven to actually demotivate and often insult your employees. I have worked with colleagues to develop the best synopsis available of what quality employee recognition is all about, and what it isn’t. comprehensive Power Point Presentation entitled Effective Recognition -- An Important, (but often overlooked), Key Business Strategy. I also wrote a printable report entitled Role of a Recognition Strategy. If you would like to read this presentation, it is available in a PDF via email or I can present to your management team the Power Point presentation in about an hour, live or via web conference. Having experienced good and bad recognition programs, both as a recipient and a consultant, I am excited to have this information in such thorough and comprehensive format. It has been presented 100’s of times in HR seminars and to individual companies, and really gets people thinking! Most recently, I have just published a book entitled The Vocational Shrink (www.VocationalShrink.com). This book introduce my "Ten Levels of Livelihood" a list of employee characteristics exhibited in a stressful work environment. The purpose of the book is to help managers identify and counteract negative habit patterns to help both your employees and your organization improve productivity, reduce turnover, and enhance everyone's self esteem - the key to huge cost savings for your firm. You can order a copy from the web site, and I would love to hear what you think! The Bottom Line. What motivates employees and causes them to give their best to your organization day in and day out is not a mystery. Actually, the psychology behind it is not new and has not changed significantly since the industrial revolution. Sure, the make up of the workforce has changed, but deep down, your employees just want to know they’re valued and appreciated. If you are serious about recognition and want to implement a program that shows employees you care, has long lasting value, and makes the best possible use of your recognition budget – this proposal will demonstrate why The Tharpe Company and Recognition Concepts are the best partners for you to consider. Recognition needs to be a serious corporate strategy and requires a partner who understands it, has years of experience supporting it, and who has not sold out to the current trends. I would love to work with you to help you honor and thank your employees in an appropriate, tasteful and lasting way. If you have any questions or require additional information, please call me at 1-888-646-6670.
Recognition Concepts, Inc.
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