Safety First.... Then Bukoo!

In many fields, safety is of the first and foremost concern.  Whether it's manufacturing, electrical work, building, or any other number of physically laborious industries, safe practices should be the focus to 1) Keep employees safe 2) Keep workers' comps claims under control 3) Show the employees you are concerned about their well-being.

As with all rewards and incentives programs, we recommend a gift outside of cash or gift cards due to the merit of trophy value the gift has in the workplace. Get all of your employees involved with an incentive points program. By rewarding employees with points for safe practices, you are engaging them as a team and as productive individuals.

Use an incentive points program to reward employees for:

Learning new safety regulations and implementing them
Successful quizzes on safe practices
"Catches" of unsafe measures or ideas for better and more efficient practices
Time passed without incident or injury
Reporting injury or incident

Encourage positive safe practices as well as rewarding those who report incidents. This will encourage employees to not hide incidents, and to make the workplace better overall so as to learn from the incidents and become a more productive unit.

Make the goals attainable and measurable, and the rewards desirable. If you don't know where to start in setting up a platform, be sure to check out Bukoo Gifts. Variety is the spice of life, and our gift selections are the spiciest! Your employees will find something they want to work for in our points program platforms. We can also promote safe practices through other custom reward methods and make sure you are keeping your employees excited, motivated, and safe!

4 Pieces of the Employee Recognition Puzzle: 4- On the Spot Recognition

The final piece of the employee recognition puzzle is On the Spot Recognition.

On the Spot Recognition is important, especially in the time of instant gratification and short attention spans we live in. When an employee completes an important task or additional task than usual to their workload, it is important to recognize them, and timely. If too much time passes the reward will have less of an effect. For those small occurrences that you want to encourage, an on the spot reward is a perfect way to have the task's value resonate with your employee.

Recognizing on the spot generally means recognizing someone at their desk, which often times will be in front of their peers. Being recognized in front of peers can mean more to the employee who achieved the reward, and can also be used as a motivational factor for those peers around them to try to achieve that recognition as well.

Tangible rewards are the best rewards. Giving someone a mug, card, or sticky note with words of encouragement or "thanks" will not only be positive because of immediate gratification but also because it will serve as a reminder of your appreciation and also the task or operation the employee performed to earn that reward. 

Koodos on the Spot Reward Kits by Bukoo Gifts

When you are able to hit your employees (not literally!) from all angles in recognition, you are more likely to have an effect on more people. A good mix of on-going (incentive programs), occasional loyalty (service awards), peer recognition, and on the spot recognition will ensure that you are affecting those people who regard their work as most important, those who value loyalty, and those who value respect of their peers. Regardless of the various personalities your workplace may have, they will all feel your spirit of Employee Engagement when you put together a program recognizing employees in all of these ways.

4 Pieces of the Employee Recognition Puzzle: 3- Peer to Peer Recognition

Receiving praise and adequate recognition from managers, supervisors, and directors is important, as we have discussed in the first two puzzle pieces here and here. The third element can be just as influential on the success and retention of employees in your company: Peer to Peer Recognition.

Peer Recognition is important because it's human nature to want to feel accepted. Acceptance and support from peers is vital. When a person feels support from their colleagues and recognizes that not only will their work affect others close to them on the same level, but they will be appreciated for that work, it is an additional motivation.

Give your employees the opportunity to call-out their fellow colleagues for doing something good, for accomplishments and achievements. Encourage simple gestures, because those can go a long way. To more formally implement a peer to peer recognition, hold nominations for employee of the month/quarter/year to give the staff an opportunity to recognize who they believe stands out and who makes their jobs easier or better.

When there is a good atmosphere and camaraderie amongst peers, that element of teamwork will only push the company's goals further. To encourage and appreciate when a member of the team steps up to help others, it makes the business more successful and more productive. Encourage this practice in your company and you will see results. More people getting more done= more success for your business.

A great solution is to provide simple tools for words of encouragement or small items for peers to give to each other to show their appreciation. Check out our Koodos kits and consider using these as an opportunity for employees to be able to give these to each other. Maybe have the kits on hand and encourage employees to come to managers to nominate their peer for a Koodos gift. There could be a gesture made of this employee giving their colleague a "Koodos" mug in front of the office, or in private. Either way, the gesture will build a stronger team and company loyalty.

4 Pieces of the Employee Recognition Puzzle: 2- Reward and Motivate with Incentives

Rewarding your top performers has never been more important. The economy has been through its ups and downs over the past few years, and the value put on high performance cannot be overstated. Being able to do more with less is the progress successful businesses have made. Doing more with less money, and doing more with less manpower also, of course.

Don't be shocked if your top performers are being lured away as the economy turns around. The best way to avert the crisis of losing them is to make sure they are properly compensated, rewarded, and recognized for their accomplishments and contributions to the company.

While trying to do more with less, you also want to maximize the contribution from ALL of your employees. Some might be disillusioned with their positions, but not feel safe enough to try to move to another company. This is almost the worst case for your company. It hurts to have people who only do enough to get by. As a company, you might feel stuck with this person, or not even know how bad it is because you are trying to avoid the high cost of turnover in one or multiple positions, or even avert a lull in productivity it would take to train a new hire. This is where incentives can be huge.

Incentives can motivate your lower performing employees to higher production levels than they would normally try to achieve, and properly compensate the highest performing members of your team. The more they perform, the more they receive in rewards. It is in the employees' control how much in rewards they receive.

To maximize the potential of incentives for your employees, the incentives need to be 1) Desirable and 2) Attainable. As in any setting for motivation, the end goal and reward must be worth the effort. Gift desirable rewards, and the motivation will be instilled. Setting goals for incentives that have never been close to being reached is not only discouraging employees to not participate, but it can actually have even more of a negative effect than not having incentives at all.

In an incentive program, it is important to make the goals attainable and quantifiable. A "good" action cannot be a qualification for an incentive reward. Make the rewards specific, and put higher value on the actions that more directly affect the bottom line of the company.  Be careful not to neglect elements like administrative tasks, or other actions that benefit the bottom line more indirectly. To be a successful company, all parts must work together and have emphasis. Incentives are a great way to "grease the squeaky wheel", if you will and get moving in the right direction.

To view examples of reasons to reward view our company blog on Incentives.

To learn more about a customized Incentive Points Program full of desirable rewards, check out BukooGifts.com.

4 Pieces of the Employee Recognition Puzzle: 1- Award Loyalty

There are typically four pieces of recognition that fully encompass a strong employee engagement program. Over the next four posts, we want to discuss those four pieces, and make the case for putting this puzzle together in your business.

The first piece of the Employee Recognition Puzzle is:

Employee Loyalty is the easiest form of engaging and recognizing employees. Due to the ease in tracking this about your employees (know their start date- know their anniversary), it's a way to recognize them, their work, and their loyalty to your company every year. Make a bigger gesture on their milestone anniversaries, 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, so on.

Employee Loyalty is something that does not have to be a thing of the past. Thirty years ago, leaving a job was nearly unthinkable. With all of the tools at everyone's fingertips now, Monster.com, CareerBuilder, LinkedIn, it's almost impossible to not be in the know about outside job opportunities. When a person stays with you for a length of time, it means they are denying their outside curiosity. Hopefully, it's because you are doing a good job of showing them you appreciate them, you engage with them, and respect their work and their loyalty. Make them think twice about opening up that "LinkedIn jobs you may be interested in", because they know what they have now is more interesting, engaging, and appreciative than what else lies out there in the unknown.

Small gestures on their anniversary- Balloons, a cupcake, or even a simple card are a great and simple way to let them know you are thankful.

Take the opportunity on a milestone anniversary to give them a gift. Give them some control over their reward and they will appreciate it. Let them choose a gift that maybe they would not get for themselves otherwise; or maybe they'll even choose an every day item they need. Either way, every time they see or use your gift, they will know they have it because of your show of appreciation and their loyalty.

To read more about recognizing years of service or the importance of recognition as the economy comes out of the recession view our white papers.

Opportunities to Gift to Your Employees

It is easy to get lost in week to week routines and not take the time to acknowledge your employees and their work. Luckily, there is a calendar of days throughout the year that make it easy for you to decide when to say "Thanks" to your employees! See the below list of dates based on job type for your gifting convenience:

April 15th-19th: Library Week- say thank you to your Library Professional and Administration
April 16th- National Stress Awareness Day- give your employees a break to reduce stress- a half day off or a relaxation type gift.
April 24th- Admin Professionals Day
April 25th- Medical Laboratory Professionals Day

May 6th-10th Nurses Week
May 7th- Teacher's Day
May 21st- Waiter and Waitress Day

June 17th-21st Nursing Assistant Week

September 27th- National Thank You Day- thank everyone you work with!

October 7th-11th- Customer Service Week
October 16th- Boss's Day
October 17th- Credit Union Day

December 5th- International Volunteer Day- Reward your volunteers for their valuable time and effort.
December 25th- Christmas

Mark your calendars down and make sure you are showing your appreciation for your co-workers! A little gesture can go a long way. Send them a Bukoo Gift or give them a Koodos Gift. Order today!

Tips for Budgeting for a Years of Service Award Program

Years of Service Awards Programs are a great way to display your appreciation of the loyalty of employees for any number of years. This day and age, when loyalty in customers is hard to keep, it’s nearly as difficult to find an employee with extensive tenure in an organization. Turnover costs are high, and grow every day, so anytime you can thank and appreciate your employees for working hard to keep their jobs and who dedicate themselves to your cause, it is a great idea.

When budgeting for a program, no budget should be considered too big or too small. However, it is important to make a gift worthwhile in the eyes of the employee. Any gesture will make an impression, but making a strong impression that lasts will resonate with other employees and make the employee feel special and perhaps will work even harder to prove the gesture was well-deserved.

Our award program that we deem the most effective is the program of choice. Allowing your employees to choose their award from a slew of worthwhile gifts will leave the lasting impression you want. When they choose a gift, they will be choosing something that they want to use or will need for possibly years to come. Whenever they look at the purse, watch, home appliance, or sports item they chose from the selection you gave them, they will remember the meaning behind that gift. It also disguises the amount you spend on them, so again, no matter what your budget they are seeing a gift, and not a number.

If you would like to learn more about budgeting for a Years of Service Award Program, other forms of recognition and incentives, or would like to re-vitalize a current program you have please contact Bukoo Gifts. We can customize a program to your budget and make your program as effective as possible! 1-866-446-1064

If you are at a loss on where to begin here is a typical budget we see for years of service awards:

1 year- $25-$50.00

3 year-$25-$75

5 year-$50-100

10 year- $50-150

15 year -$100-200

20 year- $200 +

25 year-$200 +

30 year- $250 +