I announced in May, 2010, the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan. This is the 38th week. The lesson this week is:
• Greet them every day.
This seems pretty straight-forward, right?
Recognize them, every day, by greeting them every day.
On a previous week, I encouraged you to know their name and use their name.
These are all pretty straight-forward steps; simple steps, too; and inexpensive steps, as well:
- Greet them every day.
- Use their name with your greeting.
How does it make you feel when you’re greeted with your name as you check in to a hotel. Good, right? What if your boss or co-worker or partner did the same? What if you did the same?
Some may think your company has grown too big for personal greetings. Fine. You’ve lost touch. And so will your customers. The recognition given your key stakeholders is the recognition they in turn will share with their customers.
As soon as they recognize you don’t, they won’t. As soon as your key stakeholders, employees and customers, recognize you don’t care then they won’t buy. That’s just how it is.
It’s cold out there. It’s cold out there because you stopped caring enough to even recognize them with a daily greeting.
Regardless of your company's size you can greet those around you.
- Walk by their office.
- Make it a point to be in the hallways at the start of the day.
- Be the doorman for the morning.
- Pick up the phone and call to say hi.
- Find an excuse, a topic to discuss or question to ask, and stop by to discuss it. Start that discussion with...what? Greeting them with their name.
Start small. Drop a pebble in your corporate ocean. Watch the ripples spread.
What if a few more followed your example and dropped the same ripple in that same ocean?
What if they followed your example and greeted those immediately around them?
Could get kinda noisy, boisterous, exciting, engaging.
Just....greet them every day. See where it goes. I think you'll like where it takes you.
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You can start with any week of the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan and make that your first week.
You can take one of those weeks and turn it into a month or commit to an accelerated pace and complete 6 of the weeks in one month.
You can create your own week of employee recognition. Share that journey here. Share it in your blog or Twitter or Facebook.
But, do something to recognize your employees! They set your brand apart as your ultimate competitive edge.
And the more you recognize their achievements, the more achievements you'll see and they'll enjoy, along with your customers and and shareholders, partners and vendors.
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