Recognize the Night Shift: Week 43

I announced in May, 2010, the 52 - Week Employee Recognition Plan. This is the 43rd week. The step this week is:

• Recognize the unsung, unseen, unheard heroes of the “night shift.”

The night shift is any shift, any team, any area of your company who toils in ignominy. Unrecognized. Unheralded. They are the unmentionables. And yet, without their achievements the company would cease.

Derek Irvine, head of the  client strategy and consulting division with Globoforce and co-author of Winning with A Culture of Recognition discussed how strategic employee recognition creates a plan that makes it possible to recognize everyone’s successes towards their shared goals.(Listen here.)

Feels good. Who likes to be left out or unrecognized? And, who likes being part of a group where that happens? Right?

But there’s more than a group-hug, feel-good, benefit to recognizing everyone. When you create a plan that allows everyone’s successes to be recognized then you create the mass mobilization of employee attention on the topic.

What does that mean? Mass mobilization of employee attention on the topic. Well, it means momentum. It means a quickened pace. It means creating a culture of learning as Gary Harpst, author of Six Disciplines for Excellence,  discussed. That, Gary notes, is the source for creating a culture of leaders.(Listen here.)

You can’t have mass mobilization of employee attention, a culture of recognition, a culture of learning and leaders with recognizing...the night-shift.

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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.