Celebrating the Employee

I was flying to a client this week and one of the flight attendants was on her last leg of a 40-year career with the same airline. The pilots and other flight attendants made a number of announcements to make her feel special. 40 years is unique in this day and age. In a way, I was expecting to see a banner when we were walking off the plane welcoming her home and I felt bad for her when there wasn’t.

A few years back Jordan’s furniture closed its doors one day and flew all of its ~1,200 employees to Bermuda for a beach day (here is a little more about it). Why would you send the money to charter four private jets and lose a day’s worth of business?

“We’re the highest-volume per-square-foot furniture retailer in the country because of our people,” says Barry. “We want to put a smile on their faces.”

If people are our greatest, why do we find it so difficult to reward them.

• How do we treat our employees?
• Do we do things to make them special?
• How do we celebrate major milestones?
• Are compensation plans created and distributed with a “take it or move on” attitude?
• When was the last time you did something different for your employees?

Posted in Uncategorized

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I was flying to a client this week and one of the flight attendants was on her last leg of a 40-year career with the same airline. The pilots and other flight attendants made a number of announcements to make her feel special. 40 years is unique in this day and age. In a way, I was expecting to see a banner when we were walking off the plane welcoming her home and I felt bad for her when there wasn’t.

A few years back Jordan’s furniture closed its doors one day and flew all of its ~1,200 employees to Bermuda for a beach day (here is a little more about it). Why would you send the money to charter four private jets and lose a day’s worth of business?

“We’re the highest-volume per-square-foot furniture retailer in the country because of our people,” says Barry. “We want to put a smile on their faces.”

If people are our greatest, why do we find it so difficult to reward them.

• How do we treat our employees?
• Do we do things to make them special?
• How do we celebrate major milestones?
• Are compensation plans created and distributed with a “take it or move on” attitude?
• When was the last time you did something different for your employees?

Posted in Uncategorized

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