Bridging a Gap with an Employee Program, Part I
Most companies - regardless of size - experience at one time or another a breakdown in communication with their employees whether they have a dozen employees or thousands. In such a fast paced world, as we continue to do business faster and faster, we have learned to adapt through advanced technologies that allow us to communicate with our clients and our vendors at a rapid clip and in the most efficient way possible; but we have somehow failed to extend that level of efficient communication in-house amongst our team of management and employees. The result can often be a disenfranchised employee base who feels as though their needs are not only far from being met but are also being completely ignored. This was our story almost two years ago - the result of a combination of several different factors if I’m being honest but most stemming from our rapid growth. It was great to experience that level of growth and to have the opportunity to reach out to new sectors of business but in-house we were experiencing some pretty significant growing pains without a whole lot of ideas about how to manage them. The answer came in the suggestion to implement an employee program - a way that we could let our employees know that their ideas and needs mattered to us and something that could be controlled fiscally by growing or shrinking the program according to our budgetary situation at the time.
We began our employee recognition program on a pretty big scale. We were doing well and had the money to spend so we set up - with the company that helped us manage the program for our nearly 1,000 employees - a tier of management-determined business goals and prize incentives that would be offered to the employees who reached those goals. Again, we started strong with some incredible vacations and even flat screen televisions. It was the right thing to do and it would pay off in big ways when the economy crashed around us. More in the next post…
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