A comical take on employee recognition

Watch Michelle Pena, senior editor at Business Management Daily, as she bravely endures the loss of the much-coveted Top Banana award. Will this silly video make you rethink how you approach acknowledging star employees?

Reacting to the video on LinkedIn, sales consultant Steven Fallz wrote, “Recognize employees not for sales metrics but for individual and team contributions at work (i.e. leadership, sacrifice, most friendly, most approachable, most honest). Each one of these recognitions directly relates to human sentiments and are more practical. They tell stories about employees and who they really are.”

Operations Manager Dea Harrington wrote, “I always question the office award program’s effectiveness. Purpose, ultimate results, the message to the non-winner? What is the behavior you want and get? The overall culture should dictate the best acknowledgement of desired behavior, as well as a program that reflects employee input.”

And consultant Kevin F. O’Connor offered this: “I believe that we all work to our full potential. Some are able to exploit their opportunities, some are not capable of doing so. So should you award for it? Perhaps privately with a noticeable, tangible reward; publicly, no. You create a negative atmosphere when you do. I have been on both ends. I prefer a quiet thank you.”

MUSIC: ‘March of the Spoons’ and ‘Nu Flute’ by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/