Charlotte, NC (June 15, 2011) – Full-service incentive, loyalty and employee recognition company LoyalNation has formed a partnership with renowned author and employee engagement authority Dr. Paul Marciano to broaden its services to businesses seeking to reward and incentivize customers, dealers and employees.

Charlotte (NC)-based LoyalNation (www.loyalnation.com) provides leading-edge technology and turnkey management loyalty programs to companies across a wide range of industries, specializing in new technology platforms that use private labeled social media tools to enable peer to peer recognition and innovation with employees, sales teams and dealer networks.

“Dr. Marciano is a thought leader in employee engagement strategies and behavior modification. Case studies show that his real world application works,” said David Schroeder, president of LoyalNation.  “He will collaborate with our team in the ongoing development of our technology platform that engages specific workforce populations through strategies like peer to peer recognition.”

Dr. Marciano (www.paulmarciano.com) is the author of “Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of RESPECT” (McGraw-Hill Professional Division, 2010), which examines traditional rewards and recognition programs and typically asserts that an “employee engagement” approach is most effective.  The book was selected as recommended reading by the prestigious Business Book Review (BBR) and is among just 700 titles summarized for the BBR Library over the past 25 years.

“The LoyalNation solution works because it measures employee engagement and provides meaningful incentives for behavioral changes that lead to the all-important cultural changes needed by an organization,” offered Marciano.  “This approach combined with the newest social media platforms creates a powerful program that businesses can adopt seamlessly.  I’m excited to collaborate with the LoyalNation team.”

 Launched in 2010, LoyalNation was featured by the prominent industry media outlet Incentive (April 12, 2011).  The article focuses on the new technology platform, dubbed PRIDE (Promotion, Recognition, Incentives and Driving Engagement).  LoyalNation’s customized approach includes private label website creation/maintenance and social networking platforms to leverage the common interests of the populations involved.

The LoyalNation Board of Advisors includes founder J.C. Faulkner of Charlotte, the former head of industry-leading HSBC Mortgage Services who has been involved in the loyalty and incentive industry as a client and investor for over ten years, and Tom Reddin, former CEO of LendingTree and of the prominent NASCAR team Richard Petty Motorsports.  The president of LoyalNation, Schroeder, is a 15-year executive in the financial services industry with organizations including Bank One, Wachovia and HSBC.  Privately owned, LoyalNation also has offices in Kansas City, MO, and Jacksonville, FL.

LoyalNation clients include Interline Brands of Jacksonville, FL; BBVA Compass Bank of Birmingham, AL; Brooks Brothers of Enfield, CT; Intergraph Corporation of Madison, AL; Scott Insurance of Lynchburg, VA; and the North Carolina Bankers Association of Raleigh. Among the programs that LoyalNation offers are: dealer sales incentives; employee recognition; cross sales incentives; employee performance rewards; spot rewards; safety education rewards and travel incentives.

ABOUT DR. PAUL MARCIANO:

Dr. Paul Marciano has worked in the field of Organizational Development for over 20 years and is a leading authority on employee engagement and retention. He earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Yale University where he specialized in behavior modification and motivation. He has served on the faculties of Davidson College and Princeton University where he has taught courses in Leadership, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Survey Development, Research Methods and Statistics.#

Contact: Steve Griffith, Vizion Group PR, 484 433 7757, sgriffith@viziongroup.net

Yes, the Dallas Mavericks who…

- Had an NBA Finals starting five with an average age of over 32 years of age.

- Lost in the NBA Finals in 2006 after being seconds away from securing a commanding 3-0 lead in that series.

- Failed to make it past the second round of the playoffs the next four years after their Finals loss and did not make it out of the first round in three of those years.

During all of this time, their centerpiece player was Dirk Notwitzki.  Yes, the Dirk Notwitzki who…

- Missed key free throws at the end of game three of the 1996 Finals which would have clinched the game and given the Mavericks a commanding 3-0 game lead in the series.

- Was a ten time all-star and won many individual accolades including the 2007 MVP Award; however, despite the individual successes, was unable lead his team to and NBA championship.

So what happened?  Did Dirk decide it was Dallas’ fault for not surrounding him with the right kind of talent and that he needed to “take his talents” elsewhere (see LeBron James).  Did the Mavericks decide they should go with a younger, more exciting superstar and unload their entire roster to create the necessary cap space for a chance at the LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes (see the Miami Heat and NY Knicks).  No, Dirk and the Mavericks both stayed the course and stuck by one another.  They were LOYAL to one another and LOYALTY WON! 

This really was a case of “loyalty at work”, but, it wasn’t just luck that made this happen.  There are many factors that creating this “mutual loyalty” between the Maverick’s players and management.   Some of the more the obvious ones that I noticed are:   

1)      Clarity of Purpose – The team was unified and focused on the singular goal of becoming NBA Champions.   This was shown in the little things like Dirk Nowitzki leaving the court before the celebrations were done after their conference finals victory over the Lakers.  It was his way of showing there was still work to be done.  Then there was Jason Terry tattooing an image of the Larry O’Brien trophy on his right bicep over the summer as his “commitment” to winning a championship. 

2)      Strong leaders, established the goal, provided support and got out of the way – Rick Carlisle did an excellent job of getting the team bought in to his approach and Mark Cuban put the right pieces in place and then resisted his natural urge to “talk trash”, and actual kept quiet during the Mavericks playoff run.

3)      Everyone was valued and played their role – There was JJ Berea, a guy no one really heard of before the finals, then he starts in Games 4, 5 and 6 and becomes a series hero.  Another example is Dirk Nowitzki going 1 for 11 in the first half of game 6.  There was no back biting or finger pointing on the court.  The rest of the team just stepped up.  Despite their star having a miserable first two quarters, Dallas still went into half-time with the lead.

4)      Relationships Matter – There were strong relationships within the Mavericks team and entire organization.  These  allowed Dirk Nowitzki to give Jason Terry some very blunt feedback prior to game 4.  Instead of it causing dissention, it was taken in a constructive manner and helped Terry bring his game up a notch and play a critical role in the Maverick victories in games 4, 5 and 6

All of this involved a great deal of sacrifice at some level.  While the Miami Heat may have felt it was easy enough to win an NBA Championship, just assemble the biggest stars and let them play, the Mavericks realized it took something more.  As Dan Gilbert (the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team that LeBron left to join the Heat) put it in his Twitter message last night:

Congrats to Mark C.& entire Mavs org.,” Gilbert wrote. “Mavs NEVER stopped & now entire franchise gets rings. Old Lesson for all: There are NO SHORTCUTS. NONE.”

I could not have said it better myself.

Leaders are under pressure to improve employee engagement.  They should be.  With all the effort to date the average engagement level still remains at a dismal 31% level (according to the latest Engagement Survey by Blessing and White).   

Part of the root cause of this dismal performance by the typical manager is asking them to do things they should not and cannot do.  We are asking them to be responsible for feedback that they are unable to supply.  Employees should be more responsible for collecting their own feedback.  This would boost their engagement level and their performance and make the typical performance review obsolete (which it already is anyway).

Organizations need to be self-organizing

Next time you are taking a walk, look for flocking birds.  They move as one unit.  They shift together instantly.  There is no “bird manager” shouting commands or writing policy.  They move as if they can read each other’s little minds.  They move as if they are of one mind.  They do this because they follow three basic principles.  They fly at the same average speed, distance, and direction as their closest “flying neighbors.”  They get instant and constant feedback.  Why can’t an organization operate this way?  It can.  We just need a new way of thinking and a new set of principles to follow.  Organizations can (and must) be more like a self-organizing system.

Our microwave lesson

Our microwave burned out the other day.  My wife and I decided to buy a new one. Before embarking to a particular store I decided to check Consumer Reports.  They rated the Kenmore brand at Sears at the very top.  I told my wife and she agreed to go with me to the Sears store that day. 

Before we left she checked the website and found a Sears’s outlet store not far from our home.  They sell merchandise that was returned or slightly damaged at discount prices. I agreed to go there first.  We found the perfect microwave (size and color) at a discount of 50% off retail.  I picked it up to check it for blemishes and defects.  It looked fine.  My wife paid for it. I put it in the car and brought it into the house.

Who should get the credit for the purchase, me or my wife?  If our home was an organization with performance reviews, pay-for-performance policy, and a management by objectives policy we might have to decide who owned this objective and who would get credit for the intelligent purchase. 

In a self-organizing system the question of who should get credit for this objective makes no sense.  It was the quality of the interactions between my wife, me, the internet, and the store employees that achieved the results.  It is impossible to say who should get the credit.   We may not have chosen the Sears store without my interaction.  We may not have chosen the outlet store without my wife’s interaction.  We may not have chosen to inspect the heavy microwave unless I was there to pick it up and turn it around.

Fearless feedback provides continuous information about the quality of the interactions between people and the quality of the interactions between the people and their processes.  In other words, it’s the quality of the relationships and the quality of the interactions that matter more than the quality of the parts.    

Fearless feedback is a philosophy and set of tools to monitor and improve the quality and speed of interpersonal interactions and the quality and speed of system interactions.  Feedback is instant and direct.   It’s just like how the birds do it when they fly in flocks, i.e. instant and direct.

Instant direct feedback about the quality of interactions can replace the typical performance review.  The typical review is not working because it does not align with the principles of a self-organizing system.  It doesn’t work because it does not optimize learning and it actually damages the relationships it is supposed to improve.

Wally Hauck holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership from Warren National University, an MBA in Finance from Iona College, and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a Certified Speaking Professional and for 15 years his consulting firm, Optimum Leadership, has consulted with dozens of organizations and coached hundreds of individuals in improving leadership skills to boost employee engagement and performance.

http://wallyhauck.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/fearless-feedback-can-replace-the-performance-review/

As a process engineering consultant once told me, “One way to know you have a strong process is you don’t have any heroes”.

I was a little confused by this at first, but he went on to explain, “if you have solid processes in place, good results happen naturally, as a by-product of the process. If you have a weak or poor process, you always need a ‘hero’ to bail you out”.
Being a systems guy pretty much my entire career, I really saw the simple genius in what he was saying. I am a firm believer in establishing strong processes. The most cutting edge systems in the world are really of no use if you have poor processes and lack the engaged employee to execute them.

What you really want to establish are strong processes and discourage a “hero based culture” in the workplace. One tool for getting this done is putting an employee recognition program in place that recognizes the “Engaged Eddie”. This is the person that day in day out, does their job at a high level.

How do you recognize these people?

Don’t base your recognition program solely on random acts of heroism such as someone who worked over five straight weekends or worked back-to-back 20 hour shifts. Instead, establish daily/weekly or monthly quotas of what work should be accomplished in a given area or department and base recognition on individuals that consistently exceed those quotas and elevate those around them with peer to peer support.  You want to recognize this type of performance, even if it does not take a herculean effort to pull it off.  These employees may exceed the quotas because they are just good at what they do or have figured out the best way to do it.  You want to establish a culture that recognizes and even celebrates this type of performer with managers and through peers.   Remember, the behavior you incent tends to be the behavior you get.

 In addition to using your employee recognition program to highlight these individuals, you can celebrate them by building a strong employee engagement strategy – one that provides social networking tools such as closed loop social networks to highlight the day-in and day-out contributions of these “Engaged Eddies”. Getting employees to support each other and share best practices requires the development of an open culture with transparent reward systems.  Through new private labeled b2b social networks such a culture can be established.  Employees use these tools to interact with each other for recognition, employee innovation, and best practice sharing.  This approach can also provide them the ability to create company discussions or write a company blog that shares their “secrets” for being ultra-productive  This kind of a solution not only enables the right conversations to take place across production centers and roles, it creates a living knowledge database where past conversations can be called up and referenced for new employees, strategy development and more.

There are always going to be situations that require someone to step up and save the day, and when your employees do that, they should get recognized – employee engagement is all about the exertion of discretionary effort. But, when your recognition program only recognizes this type of behavior, you are discounting the people who make things happen day-in and day-out. Moreover, you may be encouraging your people to invent crises. Remember, you can’t have a hero without a crisis.

At LoyalNation we have experience establishing employee recognition and employee engagement programs that incent the behaviors you want. Our toolset includes the PRIDE Platform that is an automated platform for Promoting Recognition, Incentives and Driving Engagement. Give us a call for a free demo today.

Super Man, Batman and other larger than life heroes are great to watch on the big screen, but by over promoting them in your office and ignoring the “everyday heroes” you may turn your office into Gotham City or Metropolis, where you come to depend on them as the only thing stopping your everyday operations from devolving into chaos.

There is a saying that seems to explain how our subconscious beliefs can influence us.  It states something like this:  “Fish don’t know they are in water.”  Similarly, most people don’t know who Frederick Taylor was even though he remains today one of the most influential people in history.  His theory and practices surround us like “invisible water.”

He developed something called Scientific Management and he influenced everyone’s belief system about management.  His beliefs about people and work are still embraced today and we can see examples in our school systems and organizations.  Unfortunately, his beliefs, and the policies that follow from them, have reached their limit in their ability to improve productivity and performance in the knowledge age.  Taylor methods do not create employee engagement and that is one reason why we are doing so poorly on that front.   

What is Taylor Theory?

Taylor believed work could be compartmentalized and then ‘broken down’ into individual tasks.  These tasks could be studied (scientifically) to identify one best method.  Once that method is known workers must do it that way.  It’s management’s job to identify that method using scientific motion studies.  In other words, management knows best.

Taylor theory puts the minds of worker’s on the back burner while putting management on the pedestal of knowledge.   For Taylor, employees don’t need their brains if the one best method has already been identified by management.  They merely need to be controlled to perform the tasks that way.

This way of thinking was very useful during the industrial age because it accelerated the productivity of workers who tended to be less educated and in ample supply.    In the knowledge age this way of thinking is extremely limiting.  Today we need everyone’s brains working to solve problems and looking for better methods.  We need every worker to solve their own problems.  Relying solely on management to solve problems slows down productivity and creates a bureaucracy making us much less competitive (especially when the developing world has low wages and an ample supply of workers).

Thanks to Taylor we have most of our organizations with management dependent decision making.  The best examples of the “invisible Taylor water” are the Management by Objective policies which include the typical performance appraisal and pay-for-performance processes.  These policies attempt to control individual behavior and are completely consistent with the Taylor view of people.  The subliminal messages sent by these policies include: employees do not want to work; they must be prodded with pay or threat; they can’t be totally trusted.

What to do instead

We need employee engagement in the knowledge age.   We need engagement because we are no longer able to compete with the global marketplace with “manager dependent” decision making.  We are not moving quickly enough and the speed of change has accelerated.  We are being left in the “economic dust” of globalization.  This is proven by the numerous studies about employee engagement (the voluntary exertion of discretionary effort) that show we somehow cannot exceed the 31% level.  I believe we are doing poorly with engagement because we continue to embrace Taylor.

We can’t have both Taylor thinking and policies and achieve optimum employee engagement.  We need another set of beliefs about people and problems.  New policies will follow from the new set of beliefs.

Instead of thinking there is only one best method and management knows that method, we need to give employees the tools and opportunities to develop their own methods and solve their own problems.

Instead of attempting to improve individuals we need environments that enable the improvement of the interactions between the individuals.

Instead of management attempting to control employee behavior we need managers to become facilitators who trust employees.

Summary

Wally Hauck holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership from Warren National University, an MBA in Finance from Iona College, and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a Certified Speaking Professional and for 15 years his consulting firm, Optimum Leadership, has consulted with dozens of organizations and coached hundreds of individuals in improving leadership skills to boost employee engagement and performance.

http://wallyhauck.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/frederick-taylor-or-employee-engagement-%E2%80%93-choose-one/

The story says that Gorman felt the key to improving the schools was to move his best principals to his worst performing schools; however, he was talked out of mandating the  transfer of principals to new schools by a Yale economics professor who Gorman says told him, “…if I forced people to switch jobs, I would see the performance of some dip, while others would find another job.”

As a result, Gorman took another approach.  He decided to implement an incentive program.  Although it was not announced as an incentive program, it was just that. Let me explain.   Starting in 2006 he launched the “Strategic Staffing Initiative”.  This is a competition where the most effective principals would be recognized.  These principals would also be offered the opportunity to turn around a failing school.  If they accepted the opportunity, they would:

• Receive a 10 percent pay increase along with more freedom from district rules. 
• Be allowed to select an eight person team from their existing staff to help them in the effort. 
• Be allowed to “transfer out” up to five underperforming teachers who were bad fits for the new environment they were trying to create.

Basically Gorman took what many would see as a “raw deal” and turned it into an incentive program– with the winners earning the chance to take on a challenge, with the proper tools to overcome it!

After three years this approach has been so successful that not a single winning principal has declined on the opportunity, and many have asked “Why wasn’t I chosen?”.  To illustrate the incentive program’s success, in the first year the student test results on the state academic test improved in all seven of the impacted schools – some by more than 20 points! 

The use of competition and incentive programs did not stop there.  One of the winning principals who had some of the more dramatic increases in school scores also used competition to incent better academic results from her students.  She posted a chart of every student’s performance to create a competitive atmosphere and sense of pride tied to academic performance.

This approach can work for your company too.  Web and mobility applications make it easier than ever to create innovative incentive programs, even across geographically dispersed areas. 

Bottom line is your best performers will respond to incentives more than draconian demands…if incentive programs can help our public schools, just think what it can do for your organization.

As a 2009 study at Northeastern University concluded, “Pride is quite undeserving of its negative reputation….Pride actually constitutes a functional social emotion with important implications for leadership and the building of social capital.”  Who among us doesn’t want an employee that takes pride in their work, just as we appreciate the neighbor who has pride of ownership in maintaining their property?   With that as a backdrop for comparison, I thought it might be fun to review some examples of pride and recognition outside of work, and what that teaches us about workplace applications.

In our networked society, the lines between work and personal life are increasingly blurred. It pays to think about how incentives and rewards operate in our everyday life. Make sure that you’re aligning your employee recognition practices with what excites your team on the home front. If it motivates me in my kitchen or my front porch, chances are it will mobilize me in the office.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=150333

Consumers who previously freely shared their opinions about companies are turning into shrinking violets, according to a new study from Colloquy.

Research shows a severe decline in word-of-mouth opinion sharing about companies and products since 2008.

Of 3,295 U.S. consumers surveyed by Colloquy in December, 58% said they often have conversations with family, friends and coworkers about products and services they have used. That’s down from 73%, when Colloquy posed the same question in a 2008 study.

In addition, 57% of respondents in the latest study said they often recommend products and services to others, compared to 75% in 2008 — a 24% decline.

While the study doesn’t reveal a magic bullet to help companies engage with consumers, it does suggest tactics that loyalty marketers can execute within their social media and word-of-mouth strategies, says Colloquy managing partner Kelly Hlavinka.

“The most underleveraged way to encourage positive word-of-mouth with your best customers is to borrow what works best in your rewards program,” Hlavinka tells Marketing Daily. “Many companies seem to think that is off-limits. Yet in reality, rewarding and recognizing the behavior of advocacy drives great results.”

Some marketers are already on the right track, she adds.

“IHG and United Airlines are just two examples of this put into practice,” Hlavinka says. “IHG has done a series of Triple Point promotions to encourage their Priority Club members to pass along that offer to three friends or family members. They report tens of thousands of incremental room nights from the word-of-mouth generated by that program.”

United Airlines is another example. “Their ‘give Associate Premier status to a friend’ campaign allows their Mileage Plus members to be the hero by bestowing complimentary Premier status, such as upgrades and early boarding, to a colleague,” she says.

The reduction in WOM activity can’t be attributed to a shortage of ways for views to spread. There are face-to-face conversations, landlines, cell phones, email, instant messaging, texting, blogs, micro-blogs like Twitter, review sites like Trip Advisor and social media sites such as Facebook. Instead it seems the tough economy over the last two years may be the culprit responsible for the dampened willingness to engage in brand WOM.

For example, of respondents who reported their households are doing better economically this year than last, 71% said they often have conversations with others about the products and services they use. That’s very similar to what Colloquy found two years ago, before the recession became “the meltdown.”

Yet among those who now see themselves as worse off, just 56% reported having brand conversations and 55% said they make product recommendations.

Looking to the future, 74% of respondents who see their own financial outlook brightening said they have conversations about products and services, versus 55% for those who see their financial outlook worsening. And 67% of those who see a brighter future said they make recommendations, compared to 55% for those who see their finances tightening.

Of course this is a ridiculous question…everyone wants the economy to improve. This recession is one of the most severe in U.S. history and we have been in it for far too long. The real question is “Are you prepared when the economy does improve?” While the economy is showing occasional signs of life, I think most large companies are afraid to invest too deeply, because of the fear we have not totally turned the corner. This means that business is picking up, but increased hiring is not. As a result, already lean staffs are working harder than ever to keep up with the signs of life (upticks in demand) that are starting to appear.

This is obviously not sustainable. At some point (hopefully, sooner rather than later), most companies will decide the recovery is real, hiring will start to consistently climb and the economy will be on a legitimate upswing. While this sounds good, it can present a real dilemma for employers. The employees who have been fortunate enough to keep their job during the recession have also been unfortunate in some respects. They have more than likely seen their pay frozen or maybe even lowered, an increase in their cost of benefits or friends laid off or “downsized”. They may have even experienced all of the above. This will more than likely leave a bad taste in the mouth of employees and when the economy improves and they see new opportunities, the grass will indeed look greener on the other side of the fence. Many HR authorities and economists are recognizing this as a definite trend once the economy turns around. See bullet #3 from this link from “moneytalksnews.com” http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2011/01/12/10-new-trends-for-2011-jobs/ or just “google” search phrases such as “will employees leave current jobs when the economy turns” to see many articles on this very subject.

While it is true the company recruiting your employees more than likely executed the same cost cutting measures on their own personnel, your employees will not see it this way. They did not experience the pain of these measures with the company recruiting them, they experienced them with you– so you are stuck with the negative association, not the company trying to lure them away.

What do you do to make your employees feel valued during this still fragile economy? Since the strength of the economy is still more than a little tenuous, you don’t want to give across the board raises and even if your company has returned to profitability, you are probably reluctant to give larger bonuses, for fear this will be considered the new norm. The nice middle of the road approach may be to implement an employee recognition or employee incentive program. With a properly designed incentive program, you can provide rewards to your employees while encouraging behaviors that improve your ROI. Thus, you increase your profitability while also showing your employees that you appreciate their hard work and want to share in some of the rewards of the improving economy, be it an ever so slight improvement.

In addition to incentive programs, another option is to increase employee engagement by implementing a closed loop social network that supports idea sharing as well as manager to employee and peer-to-peer recognition. Thus, you are building a stronger connection between employee and employer.

This means that once the economy really does enter into a full steam recovery mode, your employees will remember you took care of them even when things were very challenging and the grass may not look so green on the other side. All the while, you were able to do things in a fiscally responsible manner. This approach can not only help you retain your current employee base, but it can also help with recruiting.

Our society is only going to become more entrenched and networked in social media and employees will be using these outlets to share their experiences in the workplace. The way you treat your employee base will become much more transparent in the work force. Having a solid reputation “on the street” will help when recruiting of the best and brightest. Good people will have more options – and that’s a good thing if you’re making it work for you.

Let LoyalNation come in and provide a free consultation on setting up the right employee recognition and employee rewards program or closed loop social network for your company or operation. This way you can really be excited when the economy turns around, and not have to trade one worry (the health of the economy and profitability of your business) for another (losing key employees as companies begin to increase their new hires).

by Evil HR Lady – Suzanne Lucas