April 26, 2007
Employee recognition is front and center in LCVI action phase
Business management guru Tom Peters once said, “Celebrate what you want to see more of.” Through ongoing efforts of the Leadership, Community and Values Initiative, the UW is doing exactly that, with a strong new emphasis on employee recognition.
The impetus came from a 2004 campus survey that reported a need for improvement in the way employees were recognized for their service. Fewer than half of all UW staff surveyed, and even fewer faculty, felt their work was being adequately recognized by others.
An LCVI recognition subcommittee led by V’Ella Warren, vice president of Financial Management and treasurer of the UW Board of Regents, took on the concern. Their recommendations included providing an infrastructure to support and sustain recognition.
Now in its “action phase,” LCVI Recognition resides in the Work/Life unit of UW Human Resources. It is leading the way toward boosting employee recognition with campus workshops, a host of online resources, recognition toolkits and even a new human resources specialist who is able to work one-on-one with managers.
“It’s the first time we’ve ever had a centralized approach to employee recognition,” said Randi Shapiro, assistant director of Benefits & Work/Life, adding that she hopes the effort will bring out the “true champions across the campus.”
Shapiro said the aim is to increase employee participation in the new recognition efforts — among both staff members and faculty. “With recognition, this is the kind of thing that everybody owns,” she said. “If you are recognizing colleagues, regardless of what’s going on above or below, you have an impact.”
But noting excellence in employees is not likely to be the same process in all parts of the campus, Shapiro said. “What one unit values and thinks important another might not,” she said, adding, however, “we really want them to reflect University values” as well as their individual departmental goals.
The Financial Management Department, for one, has been excelling in employee recognition for many years, serving as a template for other efforts. Ruth Johnston, senior associate treasurer in Quality Improvement and Student Fiscal Services, explained that Financial Management conducts its own employee survey every three years. The department began designing special recognition efforts in the early 1990s with its all-volunteer Recognition Quality Teams — groups of staff members who both encourage and administer recognition efforts.
Through those teams, employees in Financial Management spread rewards and recognition in a number of ways, from fairly informal — verbal or written expressions of appreciation, gift certificates and departmental meals — to outright awards. These include the department’s Leadership in Quality Award, its Outstanding Performance Salute and its Courageous Achievement Reflecting Effort & Determination (C.A.R.E.) award, given by employees to one of their own for the “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger, fear or difficulty.”
Some smaller units pursue employee recognition on a more informal basis, but it’s no less effective. Linda Yedlin, administrator in the School of Dentistry’s Pediatric Dentistry Department, said that her department chair, Dr. Joel Berg, takes the staff of about a half-dozen out to lunch once a month as a way of saying thanks.
“We get to choose where, and we put it on his calendar,” Yedlin said. “We laugh, we talk, we eat, we spend a couple of hours together not working. And I think that really, definitely carries over into the atmosphere of the department.”
This spring, the LCVI Initiative has heightened recognition efforts by providing:
- 90-minute workshops for managers, focusing on how employee recognition plays a role in the UW’s new vision and values, and what new recognition tools are being made available. Many workshops are schedule throughout late-April and May.
- Employee recognition toolkits that include gift and thank you cards and certificates,
- Lists of ideas to get you thinking, such as “94 Appreciation Award Ideas” and a “Top 10 list for Recognizing Staff.”
- Online starter kit, “Five Steps to Developing an Employee Recognition Program.”
- A human resource specialist who will be able to meet one-on-one to help you find ways to enhance your own department’s recognition efforts.
Much more information on employee recognition is available online at http://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/roles/mgr/ee-recognition/main.html. Registration for recognition workshops can be done online at https://www.washington.edu/admin/hr/pod/catalog/Dispatch.cgi?Course&course_id=LCVI03.
