Awards
Recognition programs cost companies relatively little but often significantly boost employee morale and customer awareness. By creating teams and a collective feel, managers seek to increase camaraderie, gain valuable ideas, and encourage employees to motivate each other. The strategy also reduced the need for oversight and transferred some of the burden of enforcing discipline to the workers.
Home Depot pins
Marty Greco, Home Depot kitchen systems engineer, is one of the company’s biggest collectors of “flair”—company pins and patches. By creating teams and a collective feel, managers seek to increase camaraderie, gain valuable ideas, and encourage employees to motivate each other. Recognition programs often boost employee morale and customer awareness.
Walmart pins
Walmart sees building employee corporate culture as a key strategy for success. From store associates to senior management, exchanging and displaying pins is part of the Walmart way. By creating teams and a collective feel, managers seek to increase camaraderie, gain valuable ideas, and encourage employees to motivate each other. Tom Smith, senior manager on the Global Talent Development team, is an avid collector of company ephemera.
Edicott and Johnson service award
Recognition programs cost companies relatively little but often significantly boost employee morale. Even a simple reminder of employement longevity can do much to build employee allegiance and commitment. Mary Blazek immigrated to the United States from Czechoslovakia in 1928. For 37 years she worked for Endicott and Johnson shoes, where she spent her career attaching the white band between the uppers and the sole.
Carmen Villalba service award
Recognition programs cost companies relatively little and, if administered well, can boost employee morale. Even a simple reminder of employment longevity can do much to build employee allegiance and commitment. As a teenager Carmen Villalba moved from Mexico to the United States. In 1979 she began working for Sweetheart Cup, where she still works. As time passed the company was sold several times. The service awards declined in quality, angering Villalba.
Cubitron II, Golden Step award
Recognition programs cost companies relatively little but often significantly boost employee morale and effectiveness. By creating teams and a collective feel, managers seek to increase camaraderie, gain valuable ideas, and encourage employees to motivate each other. 3M Corporation created the Golden Step program in 1972 to encourage cross-divisional teams to to create innovative new products that generate over $10 million in three years of sales. Cubitron II, a new type of abrasive, was develepoped by a team from four different divisions of the company.
