Eric Mosley's Blog: The Globoforce Blog, page 30

It’s People Science.

When people ask me what I do, I tell them, “I’m in the thank you business.”

If they ask what that means, I tell them, “Well, I work for an HR company that offers employee recognition to some of the world’s most admired businesses.”

If they want more detail, I tell them, “I work for a really innovative, global Software-as-a-Service company that is revolutionizing how companies manage their talent and culture.”

What we do is connect people through the power of a simple “thanks.” We energize and st...

Recognizing Across Cultural Borders

Does recognition still seem to your managers to be a peculiar or very American idea? Do you worry about finding the right words for recognizing employees around the world without faux pas? Are you recognizing in a way that makes sense to you, or in a way that is authentic and meaningful to your global employees?

Yesterday we talked about three important cultural variables for curating a global work culture: holistic vs. specific culture, monochronic or polychronic culture, and individualistic...

Is Your Culture Holistic, Monochronic or Collectivist?

Just how homogenous is your company? Chances are, not so very, anymore. In the global economy, more and more companies are doing business across national and cultural boundaries. It isn’t uncommon for a manager to have direct reports in other regions and countries—sometimes in more than one.

You could argue that the world has become a smaller place in many ways. Dress codes, tastes and even manners have become more portable and universal. It makes it easy to assume that people think and commun...

5 Companies Whose Great Cultures Saved Their Bacon

Sooner or later, a company is bound to encounter a challenge that becomes a crisis moment. It could be something slower like adapting to a changing market—or it could be lightning fast, like sorting out a product quality nightmare.

As HR folk, these are the times that try our souls and scare the stuffing out of us, because as much as we’d like to control the moment, we really can’t. These crises often strike from out of the blue, snowball quickly, and impact areas of our business we would neve...

25 Great Statistics on Employee Recognition

“Nearly 75% of organizations have a recognition program (despite the fact that only 58% of employees think that their organizations have recognition programs).” (Bersin by Deloitte, The State of Employee Recognition, 2012)
Career opportunities, recognition, and organization reputation are consistently top engagement drivers. (Aon Hewitt, 2012 Trends in Global Employee Engagement)
“The number-one reason most Americans leave their jobs is that they don’t feel appreciated. In fact, 65% of people s...

How Good Recognition is Never a Popularity Contest

Once in a while I am approached by a wild-eyed reader in the grips of a terrible fear—a fear that social recognition will turn their company into a mutual admiration society or a high school popularity contest and devolve into some sort of playground ‘sharks and jets’ dodge-ball shootout.

Rest assured, it is no trouble talking these folks off the ledge… because this, of course, is never what happens in real social recognition. I can tell you this from our years and years of experience in runni...

7 Quick Tips for Writing Great Recognition

Most everyone knows that writing recognition can be a powerful way to motivate employees. We understand that it drives engagement and affective commitment to a company and that it reinforces relationships with givers of recognition and those who add congratulations.

But knowing recognition is a great idea doesn’t always mean it is easy to give. In fact, recognition comes a lot easier to some managers than to others. And I’d say one of most challenging things I hear about recognition for many m...

Webinar: Effective Multi-Generational Employee Rewards and Recognition

Multiple generations in the workplace can be tough to manage and reward with one-size-fits-all culture methodology. All too often recognition devolves into an annual review or financial incentives that attempt to reduce effort and commitment to a cash figure. This approach misses the main points of employee recognition: positive feedback, recognition of extra effort, and the acknowledgement not just of managers, but of leaders and peers.

Next week I am excited to be hosting a webinar with HR a...

5 Killer Biases That Can Hurt HR

I spend a lot of time deceiving myself. And, I’m sorry to say, so do you.

It’s not really our fault though. Our brains are sort of wired that way. You see, in order to function quickly, the human brain likes to take little cognitive shortcuts. We see a cue, and our brain fills in the blanks for us—it makes the leap so we can more quickly take action and make decisions. We call it gut instinct.

It’s something of a holdover from the caveman days. Your brain sees long teeth and fur, hears snarling...

The Dangers of Organizational Amnesia

My good friend Geno has a cynical take on organizational memory. “Stick your arm in a bucket of water,” he says, “And then pull it out. The impression you leave is how much of a mark you leave on a company.”

I disagree with Geno’s philosophy—I would argue that most of us leave a tremendous impact on companies we work for—in ways we’re not even aware of. But he’s right on one count: Organizational memories are often all too short, and without a central way to record that impact and capture know...