Recognizing Employee Excellence leads to Gratitude and Innovation
Some say we’re in a risky post global pandemic era. All the same, how we spend our time and energy has never been so critical to success as individuals and as contributors in an organization.And, we’re also in an opportunistic era of disruptive transformation based on the evolution of Generative-Artificial Intelligence (Gen-AI) technology. Many recognize the potential benefits for Gen-AI improvement have no upper limit. But a recent IBM survey found only 38% of executives say their organization has the in-house expertise to adopt Gen-AI for innovation.
Today, our warring world could blow itself apart if leaders are not seeking justice and peace in parallel. These are challenging times. Yet, the principal of KaiZen tells us that the greater the crisis, the larger is the opportunity for improvement. A problem for some is an opportunity for the one who solves it. When we apply this to our lives, we can see that an attitude of gratitude and continuous improvement will lead to better things. There are many effective Gen-AI systems that measure performance and recognizes employee’s success.
This is a foundational principal of the revolutionary SAI6-Accelerate-Center-of-Excellence™ training, our commitment to develop excellence. Improved organizational efficiencies, via Gen-AI solutions the right way, will lead to improved employee recognition, engagement and retention, and much more, even to innovation.
With the “VoiceBot.ai and Sunthedia’s Gen-AI Forecast” of $1.3 trillion on “revenue and technology spend,” through 2032, we thank the billions of VC investments over the last four years. Today, there’s a bumper crop of Gen-AI solutions for “everything,” for example Gen-AI Innovation-coaching-agents, and Gen-AI employee recognition platforms, for motivating, retaining and inspiring employees.
Implementing creative, data-driven performance-based recognition-rewards programs is a high priority. When employees are recognized and rewarded for innovative ideas the company, and employees win. This boosts self-esteem, confidence, and motivation, which are key drivers of creativity and innovation.
Conservative companies might miss out on being leaders. But by adopting the right disruptive value-based innovation training, this can accelerate and jump-start a company quickly into organizing an annual innovation day. With the right ground rules and rewards clarified, it can lead to self-appointed small employee-teams proposing to “fix or improve something.” This fits the essence if SAI6-Accelerate-LCoE™ training, which teaches the core principals of Six-Sigma methodology in a condensed manner. What’s important is investing in the right training to reap innovation rewards. Also, Executive Management and HR need to plan with care how this is communicated and implemented. Studies have shown that entrepreneurial innovation can be learned and it takes practice. This is the essence of creating a culture of “Innovation Fitness Training.” And we can ask: “what does that look like?”
Promoting a Culture of Innovation Fitness
A 2014 Stanford University and University of Michigan study of 2.5 million small businesses over 10 years showed that practice matters, and that entrepreneurs’ learning and experience increased their probability of success. Entrepreneurship, aka innovation, can be learned, and practicing is a key to increasing innovation and success.
“Building a practicing organization takes intention,” said Bryant Pfeiffer, VP of club services for Major League Soccer. “Competing pressures can postpone practice. The key is to find a key internal stakeholder who’ll be the advocate for the program. Then set a practice schedule, and you will be amazed with the results.”
Another key is “to allow teams to personalize behaviors and how they practice them.” said Troy Hayes, director of talent and organization development at Ingersoll Rand, said innovation is one of the organization’s values. With 11 business units and 40,000 employees around the world, Hayes’ team had to relinquish control and allow the business units to define what that means to them within certain guidelines. “We created a movement instead of a prescriptive set of steps to follow,” he said. “To turn our values into more than words and create a culture that is open and progressive, we urge teams to focus not only on what they do but how they do it.”
Here's Five Basic Behaviors that summarize “Innovation Culture Training”
1) Listen intently and be aware of verbal and non-verbal communication cues. We know this is not easy at first. Noticing details and listening openly can increase employees’ innovation fitness because innovation is rooted in discovering needs and insights from people and the environment. Ingersoll Rand had their recruiters join the sales team on client visits to listen and learn what the customer values. One customer was impressed with these visits and made Ingersoll Rand a preferred provider.
2) Defer-judgment means innovation works best when diverse points of view have a chance to mingle and co-create. In a Harvard Business Review article from December 2013 “Innovation, Diversity and Market Growth,” a team of researchers showed that organizations with diverse employees and leaders with inclusive behaviors are 70 percent more likely to capture a new market and 45 percent more likely to expand an existing one. Deferring judgment is a key behavior when it comes to making diversity and inclusion work. “There is no question diversity and inclusion drive innovation. When we know each other, we are more likely to collaborate and support each other in new ways of thinking and operating; all of which are critical components of innovation.” Planet-Fitness sends out a clear message about what its brand supports:
3) Declaring: Diversity helps innovation, and allowing people to communicate authentically and effectively is another success key . Authentic self-expression also can help employee retention, increase engagement and work satisfaction. “At Ingersoll Rand, there is a lot of overlap between efforts around engagement and innovation,” Hayes said. “If people are engaged, they will speak up more. We need everyone, especially the frontline employees to step up and have their voices heard.” So, the company has a new problem-solving training to help groups think about and articulate ways to solve issues. In Six-Sigma thinking this is root-cause analysis
4) Reframing: Functional fixedness is another psychological bias that tends to limit how someone views use of an object for its traditional purpose. Because innovation is an iterative process, it often borrows concepts from other fields, the ability to reframe information in a productive manner is key to increase innovation fitness.
Pfeiffer runs an award-winning sales representative training program that’s also an innovation lab for the sales culture at Major League Soccer. “When it comes to behaviors, we try to help our trainees become comfortable being uncomfortable,” he said. “To help trainees reframe discomfort and become more confident, nimble and innovative when serving customers.”
5) Gut decisions: Psychologist G. Gigerenzer researched decision-making. His 2014 results says that 50 percent of all decisions in a business are gut decisions, though publicly never named as such. He said making decisions solely based on statistics and algorithms is sound when things are stable.
Trust Your Gut Feelings
But in the highly unpredictable world we live in, intuition and smart heuristics are valuable tools to respond to quick changes and uncertainty. Avoiding analysis paralysis, managers can rely on their intuition. The ability to take a gut-check and “jump in” is a key behavior for innovation, where uncertainty is a given
Employee recognition supports individual needs and feeds Innovation
Employee recognition supports organizational and individual needs that lead to job commitment, and productivity increases. Employees who are regularly recognized are motivated by rewards will seek to improve the company and themselves. We thank you, Gen-AI, for using data to transform how we live and work. Achievers Workforce Institute (AWI) research shows that companies led with an effective recognition platform will drive business outcomes and lead to increased efficiency.
A question might arise: “what does recognition cost, to be effective?” AWI studies have shown that peer/social recognition can be equally important as monetary rewards, it suggests that social recognition increases, productivity, engagement and job commitment. However, if no monetary component exists, people are less likely to feel meaningly recognized. Company innovation day team-winners get a one-time award of several thousand dollars. And everyone knows they’re valuable to the company!
AWI research also shows that when employees are recognized at least monthly, they are more likely to be engaged, committed, and productive at work. Perfect attendance awards, employee of the month, nominated by peers, these simple examples that can be implemented with care, and reap big rewards for everyone. AWI surveys show that well thought out social recognition leads to improved employee outcomes on engagement, job commitment, and productivity. And, a solid recognition program with a professional-grade mobile app, makes it more easily understood. Also, a well thought out employee communication plan, with support from leaders requires creativity that will lead to these win-win rewards contexts.
How might a company implement continuous improvement training?
Employee tuition reimbursement is a company-sponsored benefit that covers some or all of the costs associated with employees seeking certifications or even a college bachelor degree or masters or PhD curriculum. In a reimbursement program, the employee might pay for their courses upfront, and the employer pays back a portion or the full amount of that cost upon completion with a “B or A grade.”
Raytheon, a highly respected international defense contract has a mandatory program that requires every employee to complete its Green-belt Six-Sigma certification, on their own time, during lunch and learn classes, or after work. I’m personally grateful to have completed this professional training, and being surrounded by colleagues who all know that continuous improvement is possible and every problem is an opportunity, not something to simply make negative remarks about.
So, let’s improve recognition frequency and effectiveness
If managers are never trained on giving meaningful personal, specific, and impactful recognition, we can only hope it comes naturally. But better not leave it to chance when the potential benefits are so rewarding for everyone. And studies show, people who are regularly recognized are more likely to recognize others. So, HR leaders need a training that reinforces the importance of recognition to start and spread a culture of recognition and continuous improvement. This can lead to the biggest impact on the organization in the shortest amount of time. At SAI6-Accelerate™, we’re confident that our training program fits these needs
Defining “innovation day awards” puts a spotlight on recognition,
CXOs can choose to agree and demonstrate that recognition is important with one-to-one meetings and even town hall companywide meetings to set ground rules for innovation-day. Wise recognitions programs will reach out to all people who see a need and decide to form a self-appointed team. When the fear of failure is replaced by honor and potential rewards it is amazing what small groups of good performers can come up with.
So, are you ready to invest in an innovation day program for your company? Can you see the benefit of continuous improvement training that reinforces the Gen-AI opportunity, and the value of employee recognition programs and platforms? Getting there can be profitable and professional fun for everyone!
Does the Gen-AI Recognition platform you’ve been looking at include a professional app to ease its implementation? Does it included setting up: Milestone and Service Awards, Performance and Incentive Awards, Custom Innovation Day Rewards, Point-based Rewarding, Recognition Tracking, Rewards Catalog, Social Recognition, Peer-to-Peer Recognition
Weighing and developing ratings and best practices can be time consuming for leaders when there is so much opportunity to get started the right way. Be careful because most Gen-AI companies offer their products with a free trial and encourage you to start “Now” while exploring their website! The competition and marketing is intense to win you as their customer. That’s the beauty of free enterprise.
SAI6’s DNA is about helping your company strive for excellence, not perfection
If your existing recognition platform isn’t driving results, let’s assess and review gaps together. We can always do better. Consider specific program elements such as social vs monetary recognition, the ability to boost or share recognitions, and whether employees know about and are able to use such a platform to recognize others for rewards
Please consider looking to us at SAI6-Accelerate™ for honest experience regarding the right recognition platform for your company, and the right innovation and continuous improvement training programs. That’s what our DNA is all about
With SAI6-Gen-AI Readiness™ assessment programs and SAI6-Accelerate™ Lean Center of Excellence (LCoE™) training, we can help company leaders and employees get started, deciding where to go, when, and doing it. At SAI6-Accelerate™ we believe attitude changes everything and gratitude is the best attitude to practice.
We know from experience that continuous improvement and an attitude of gratitude can be learned by anyone with an open mind. So, keep your mind open and let SAI6-Accelerate™ prove it to you!
