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| Humor at Work |
ISSUE 556 - Oct. 15, 2014 |
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Celebrate By Taking The Bull By The Horns
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At the end of the credits for the Pixar movie Monster Inc. (where, incidentally, the monsters discover the joy of laughter), 49 names appear below the heading Production Babies. These are the 49 babies that were born to Pixar employees during the making of Monsters Inc., and it's Pixar's way of celebrating the new additions to their family.
As I remind you on a regular basis, we all need to be doing a better job at recognizing the people around us and celebrating success. Something in the neighborhood of a gazillion studies have confirmed that everyone wants more recognition at work, everyone appreciates being appreciated, and those companies that do a better job at recognizing employees and celebrating realize higher profits, higher employee retention rates, and improved customer service scores. You need to celebrate the obvious, but here's some ideas for some offbeat reasons to celebrate and recognize people:
- Celebrate the founding date of your company.
- Celebrate the anniversary of when employees
started working with you.
- Throw a new year's eve party on your fiscal new year.
- Create a highlights video, scrap book, or
yearbook of the top achievements for the previous year or create a top-10
highlights ceremony to remind everyone of how much has been accomplished.
- Hershey Foods has a special award, "The
Exalted Order of the Extended Neck," to reward people who buck the system.
Similarly, Biogen Idec Canada has an employee-nominated "Take the Bull by
the Horns" award, which is given out at each of their town hall meetings
to an employee who embodies the company culture by challenging the status quo.
- An annual World Pizza Games competition
includes events such as the pizza triathlon, fastest box folding, fastest
dough, largest dough and individual acrobatic dough making. Hey, if pizza
making can be turned into a competitive event, then anything in your workplace can be turned into a fun competitive
event. (And I mean, anything: there's a phenomenon known as "Extreme
Accounting" where accountants take their work to extreme locations:
mountaintops, sea beds, roller coaster rides or skydiving.)
- There's a Pizza Hall of Fame, so why not a
__________ Hall of Fame?
- How about a "Most Likely to OD on Caffeine" award? Or "Quirkiest Sense of Humor," "Least Likely to Be Voted Off the Island," "Hero of the Month," or "Wow Does This Person Ever Need Something to Boost Their Spirits" awards?
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Mike's Fun at Work Tip |
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Thursday, October 16, is "Boss's Day." Now I know there's a lot of bossy bosses out there who forget to take their time to appreciate and thank employees as often as they should. Especially the forgotten employees, the "unsung heroes" if you will. But when it comes to people who feel unappreciated and at times unloved, guess who else tops a lot of surveys? If you said mimes, it's completely understandable, but no, that's not what I was going for.
Surveys often report that many bosses feel unappreciated by their employees. So here's a simple thought: if you want your boss to show you the love, return the favor. If you want them to appreciate you more, start appreciating them more. Boss's Day is the perfect occasion to take the time to do something fun and special to recognize your boss. (Heck, why not hire a mime for them and kill two birds at one time?) |
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Quote of the Week
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"If you sell something, you make a customer today. If
you help someone, you make a customer for life." Jay Baer, Youtility |
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It's a Wacky World |
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Of course it's important not to rock the boat when it comes to workplace safety, but what about rocking the bus? A bus company in China launched a "drive safely" campaign by hanging bowls of water next to the drivers; the bus drivers are expected to drive gently enough that the bowls remain filled with water when they reach their destination. | |
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Copyright © 2014 Humor at Work. All Rights Reserved.
mike@mikekerr.com
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