So, servants of the capital markets, how’s the motivation? Stable? Critical? Grave? Whatever your condition, if you work at Grant Thornton, you’ll be happy to know that there’s a chance (somewhere between slim and good) that you’ll receive a little token of appreciation tomorrow:
Exciting, right? We’re not sure these GT e-cards are of the erotic variety but that would definitely be a great show of apprec t have the self-control to forward it to your non-GT address and wait to check it at home so you don’t end up like some people.
Turns out National Employee Appreciation Day has dropping on the first Friday in March since 1995 but we’ll be damned if we’d ever heard of such a thing. Is there some coordinated effort among accounting firms, large and small, to keep this thing as quiet as possible? It’s busy season after all; the close proximity to deadlines should be appreciation enough.
Anyway, Recognition Professionals International put this together back in the Clinton days and presumably it’s been a hit because, well, it’s still going on. Jump over to the website however, and you’ll find out that they have far bigger ideas that just e-cards:
Recognition can take a hundred forms and variations. Here are just a few ideas:
1. Ask an employee to write down six ways they would like to be rewarded. Anything goes. The only rule is that half the ideas need to be low cost or no cost.
2. Schedule lunch dates with employees. Give them an opportunity to select the luncheon site, and use the time to simply get to know them better.
3. Offer a free one-year subscription to an employee’s favorite business magazine and have it sent to their home.
4. Consider a gift certificate entitling an employee to lunch with you or another mentor of his/her choosing for the purpose of being coached on one or more topics.
5. Offer a shopping spree to a local supply store for an employee to get items (no staplers or paper clips allowed) to personalize his/her office or cubicle.
6. Give the gift of wellness. Have a limousine pick up an employee for a full day at a spa. Give gift coupons for ballroom dance, yoga or golf lessons.
7. Give a fun-loving employee a series of On your mark-get set-GO cards that they can redeem at their discretion. For example: Leave work early to go to a movie, or shopping, or play ball.
8. Send a handwritten note of thanks for the completion of a job well done.
9. If an employee stays late/goes above and beyond to complete a project, send the employee and his/her partner to a nice dinner.
10. Purchase a company “toy” your employees would most enjoy; a cappuccino machine, dart board, volleyball court, exercise room.
Now judging by this list, it appears that GT looked through these and thought, “Number 1 could be taken advantage of in ways that could get the firm in trouble (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) and the rest of these involve spending money. With the exception of number eight!”
So an idea was born. GT e-cards. Here’s hoping that you all get an inbox full of these because A) you deserve them and B) the better the odds are that someone will forward it on to us so that we may take a gander and then share it with everyone. If you don’t receive a GT e-card (or anything for that matter), then you have every right to go postal on whoever you damn well please.
