S2 Ep5: Convincing your CFO & the “People Balance Sheet” with Sarah McVanel

In this episode, Thankbox Co-Founder Tsvetelina Hinova sits down with Sarah McVanel, a global recognition expert, professional speaker, and founder of Greatness Magnified with over 25 years of experience in HR. Together they explore why appreciation isn’t a “nice to have” at work,  but a fundamental human need with serious business consequences.

Sarah makes a compelling case for recognition as a serious leadership practice. She shares why most organisations undervalue the thing they’ve always known how to do, what a genuinely appreciative culture looks and feels like in practice, and why her movement - “Forever Recognize Others’ Greatness” - is less a slogan and more a daily discipline.

💡 What you’ll learn

• Why recognition is hardwired into us - and why that’s exactly why we undervalue it at work
• The busyness trap: how rushing through the day means missing the people right in front of us
• What a real culture of appreciation looks like - and how you can tell the difference between lip service and the real thing
• The F.R.O.G. mindset: why Forever Recognising Others’ Greatness means always scanning for ordinary moments of extraordinary contribution
• Why recognition needs to be woven into the full employee journey - from before someone applies to long after they leave
• How to build the commercial case for appreciation - and what a “people balance sheet” could mean for your organisation
• Why grand appreciation events mean little if people don’t feel seen the other 364 days of the year

Check out the ROI of Recognition calculator that Sarah references here: https://greatnessmagnified.com/roi/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to Lead with Bangs! In season one, we explore why appreciation matters at work. In season two, we're going a step further. Because believing in appreciation is one thing, but making the case for it inside your organization is another. In each episode, I'm speaking with leaders and practitioners who've had to justify appreciation in business terms, tying it to retention, performance, culture, and real business outcome. If you've ever struggled to get buy-in, budget, or belief from the leadership team, this season is for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Sarah, welcome to Lead with Banks. It's such a pleasure to have you here. I love speaking with others who are as passionate about recognition as I am. So it was a privilege to be asked.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Well, I was just about to say that actually. Before I give you a chance to introduce yourself, I uh I just wanted to say that I've been following you for a very long time. I know your work very well, and um and I've learned a lot from you. So I'm super grateful for that. And uh when we finally got to speak together, I just I just remember being so blown away by the passion you bring to appreciation and recognition. And I remember saying to my husband, oh my god, I'm just astounded by the work that you do uh in the space. So really grateful for that. And since then, I've just been like wrestling my brain on like how can I bring your knowledge to our customers and clients? Because I think it will add so much value to them. Again, really, really grateful to have you here today. Why don't you introduce yourself? Um, what what do you do? What are you passionate about? How did the passion for recognition um come to you? Um and then we'll start with a question.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, sounds good. So for the last 11 years, I've been Canada's recognition expert, and I actually study recognition around the world, including the happiest countries of the world too. So my home base is Canada, my work in organizations uh for the 15 years before I became an international speaker and author was in organizations. And the passion really started from a place of when we would go in and we would try to support teams that were imploding up the seams: disengagement, turnover, absenteeism, presenteism, the original form of quiet quitting, right? And and basically a team that wanted to do good work, nobody shows up to do bad work, you know, and it they just were encumbered, shall we say. Um, what we found really quickly is the only way to make sure that they were rebuilding that resourcefulness, that collaborative, strong culture, psychological safety, physical safety, safety for clients, good customer experience was if everyone knew that they were valued, seen, heard, appreciated for their unique contributions, not simply their title, their role, that they filled a shift. And we also had to learn how to make sure they weren't dependent on us so that when we would leave, they would stay just as well off, if not continue to get better when we left. And so recognition became the foundation of our work because it was the most important thing we needed to put in place, the easiest thing to put in place, and what would make it resilient enough to for that culture to stay, because it became their culture.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

That's just amazing what you said. They're making it a habit, making it something that everyone relies on. It's natural almost for for everybody to apply. So you you said that it's really important appreciation at work. So let's start with a basic question. Why? Why does it matter so much at work? Why is the why is it the most important thing to to introduce in our culture?

SPEAKER_01 4:00

It's such a great way to start because we actually undervalue the things that we've always known how to do because we've always known how to do them. I mean, babies, one of their first things that they they express to their caregiver is the reflex response. So you're just mentioning your beautiful daughter that you adore. I love my kids too. They know they grasp their caregiver's um hand because that's their first gesture being able to connect before they can even smile at three months old. They can physically touch their caregiver. So we are built for connection. And isn't it ironic? The first thing that we figure out how to do, because we are not capable as human beings to survive without meaningful, um, nurtured connection for our food, but also for our social connection. We can't survive without being social beings too, right? Otherwise, that's called neglect. So we've known how to do it for so long. So oftentimes we think that it's not then that important to build into our workplaces, to build into our community spaces, to build into our educational places. And yet, when we look at psychology, we realize that almost every psychological theory, there's over 300 different types of psychotherapy out there, but also there are, I mean, literally hundreds of models out there about human behavior. And every one of them talks about the importance of connection being part of that. And so, you know, when we look at something as fundamental as self-determination theory, what is the core root of human motivation, relatedness, right? In other words, connection, competence, and autonomy. So, what might that look like in a workplace? I have close friends and colleagues, and I can depend on them. People acknowledge me for my capability and my competence, and people trust me to act independently with efficacy, and also that I will be asked for my opinion about how to improve things. You know, so that's fundamental human motivation 101. And so not only is connectedness one of those three key elements, but also the way in which we reinforce all of those human motivators are about we can do through recognition. So people can get really caught up in the when and the how. And those are important conversations because that's a level of sophistication, right? That's when people are saying, how do I make sure that it is done the way somebody else needs it to be? Not just how I feel comfortable, the following the platinum rule, right? Treat others the way they want to be treated. But really, when it comes to the why, it's because it is fundamental to human motivation. And it is fundamental to our human survival. Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Obviously, every parent knows that first grab. I have never actually put a label to it, that it's the the way to express connection. That's the first way to express, look, I I know you're here, I know I can trust you. Like you're, I hold on to you tight. It's uh it's amazing. And you're right. It doesn't matter how much we say that we don't need other people or that we're perfectly happy on our own. Um every single person craves that connection, that trust, that that belonging. And I don't know if you've seen the um TV series called Alone. It's filmed up uh up in Canada actually, uh in in um in the really far north. Yeah, basically they they send people there to survive in the wild, and the conditions are really tough, but they're alone for a very long time, months and months and months, and the one thing that breaks them very quickly is the isolation, the fact that they need this connection with it, doesn't it doesn't matter who it is with, it's just the connection with somebody else. Um and you're and you're right. Yeah, and we spend so much time at work, don't we? We need we need that connection there as well. It's not just a tick box, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

And that's a meaningful connection, you know, like it's yeah, I had the privilege today of going on site when I have uh speak at a big uh corporate event. So this is their national, they bring all of their people from across Canada. It's a strong Canadian building center organization, it's castle building centers. They're an incredible uh institution. And so they're they're coming together, and I thought, I want to go to my local castle building supply center. I want to see greatness in action. So I wanted to see it, does recognition happen on the walls somewhere? I want to talk with the staff, the owner, the the leaders. And you really, I didn't need to go into their staff room to see do they have a kudos part? Because each person I met, they talked about we are a family. We we contribute to each other. We we want to be there for each other. So recognition to them looks like they the owner knows everyone by name, even though he's a very new owner to that store, he knows everybody by name. The head of building services said, when I'm asked for my opinion about what could be done differently, I feel valued. The person that reports to him said to me, I know that my voice matters because I'm the one who speaks to the customers. And everyone knows the people who work with the customers are the one who needs to be asked first if we need to make a change or what am I not seeing. I mean, literally the owner came in two hours away to physically be on site, not to meet with me. He was going to be there anyway. That's a way of showing respect as well. And, you know, so each one of the of the individuals that I had the privilege of meeting, I mean, uh you'd love this example. So that that theory, a lot of people talk about, you know, family, right? Being being a, we're a we're a family at work. But, you know, does it actually, is it really real or is it just lip service? Here's an example. One of the gentlemen who works in the yard. So if people order a bunch of lab lumber, he's the one who makes sure it gets in their car safely. He he got off his his um forklift and he said, Oh, hey, yes, you know, I'm happy to meet you and tell you about our our our you know family here. And I said, It's so funny you said the word family because I noticed there's a sign here in your lumber yard about we are family. He said, Oh, yeah, that's actually a customer. I was I was loading up her car and she said, I don't have room for this. You know, could you throw this in in the skip? And he said, Oh, no, no, can I keep that for our family? And she said, she assumed that it was for his own biological family, but he meant it was for our family. So they they hung it up on the wall. I I literally have a picture of it. I don't know if this is going to be um physically here up, you're going to share this. But I mean, this is you you really tell, you can really see. So here's the owner, Jamie, holding this, like with the sign posted in their work area. So, you know, recognition, it's so easy to get caught up on trying to get it perfect. And really, you're you're trying to make it real. And one of the ways that I know in doing this work with hundreds of organizations is when you speak with all the different people in an organization, various roles, back office services, front of the house, so to speak, you know, people who are working with the customers, um, the owners through to the newest, youngest staff. If everyone shares something similar about what their culture is, that tells me it's real. And this is a great example of it being real.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

That's uh yeah, calling your work a family is the highest praise you can give to this organization.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And everyone said that word. Everyone, without me asking, when I just said, So tell me what it is about this workplace that is different and unique.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Um, go for it. Yeah. How do you think they managed to achieve that in practice? Like, what do you think they did different to get to a stage where everyone feels they belong, they're part of a family? I mean, family is the strongest bond you can have.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Right. So they this is what they shared with me. They deeply care about each other. They're asked for their opinions. They they know that if they didn't show up tomorrow, people wouldn't be bothered by them not arriving. They would be worried about them and they would check in with them. The they do whatever they need to do for the customers. And then when they do that, somebody else notices it and acknowledges that. That they they they greet, they greeted me with a smile. They didn't know who I was. They knew just assumed I was another customer. And they greeted me with a smile. So they they have a positive environment where where they have they smile, they they greet each other, they know each other by name, they like each other, they're they were joking around with each other. And I would walk into a new part of it and they were they were having a conversation, um, not gossiping, but like a conversation about what what new products are in and what needs to happen. So they were, they genuinely were relating to each other as people. So one of the things we know when we look at the Gallup 12, which is actually 13 questions, they have a question zero now. Because I guess you can't have half questions. Um, one of the questions that has stood the test of time is I have a best friend at work. So, how do you create a sense of family no matter what, if you're remote, if you're global, if you're all in one small office? You have to have close relationships at work. And the more we can create spaces and context for that to happen, where we're not rushing through our meetings, pressured by KPIs, where people maybe don't feel a sense of connection to where did those come from? They don't know or don't get a chance to celebrate, if their contributions to them mattered, when people are constantly being told that they are going to be replaced by AI, their work doesn't matter. You know, some of that, those messages that people have, maybe not from their workplace, but it could be from their industry, those chip away at a sense of belonging, of contribution, of mattering. And let's face it, the most important thing that that organizations can do right now in the midst of a loneliness epidemic, are young people are lonelier than any other time in history. And they are more possibly digitally connected than any other time in history, but they're lonely. So, what I like to remind the people that I have the privilege of speaking for and serving is you get a chance to be the person who fixes that for people. You know, so so again, I'll share you with you another example of how they this organization does that. And this was an idea of somebody in the organization, and the owner said, run with it, do it. So now it's become a regular thing. They partner with the local high school, and and students who are in the technical uh courses are able to enter a competition. They physically come on site, they use materials from this organ, this castle building center location, and they they enter a contest of designing, building something. And then the person who wins can go on to compete, including the seniors get a chance to compete internationally. So now you've built, talk about family. You've extended your home your work family to other families in the community, some of which may shop and some of which may not. And you're building a community of trades professionals when we have a huge gap in Canada. And you're encouraging trade excellence by encouraging people to go, not just like come for a tour of our, you know, and or do a co-op placement. It's no, like I want you to get serious about building a career in this field. So this is what it means to like have a sense of mattering. How can I matter to my colleague? How can I matter to my community? How can I matter to solving some of the issues that we have, such as labor shortages? This is the calling. I think every organization that has a big why is they want to contribute to something bigger than what is right in front of them. And most of us are caught up in just what is the most pressing email or task of the day.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Do you know what I hear as you're saying those stories? I hear thoughtfulness. I hear pose, think, consider the person opposite you, the work that you're doing, the connection that you're building. And we're always rushing so much. Do you think this is what fails appreciation and recognition at work? The fact that we're always in a rush, always onto the next axe, task and the next the next task.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Absolutely. You know, we had a time in our life when I was climbing the corporate ladder. I had achieved a point in my career where I never thought that I would get, let alone before the age of 40. I was on the senior leadership team of a large community hospital. My husband was a teacher, um, having wonderful impact with his students. Uh, but we're both commuting opposite ways out of town. I was half an hour this way, he was 45 minutes that way. So our kids are in before school care, in school all day, and then after school care. And, you know, we missed the signs that my son was being very severely bullied at school until it re reached a point of an absolute mental health crisis. And it was a very dangerous environment. He was in grade four. I have full permission to share this story's listeners. Don't worry, I'm not sharing anything that our my whole family gives me permission to share. And we missed, I, despite the fact that my master's of family therapy, my husband, for the first 10 years of his school career, he worked with at-risk youth, the youths who had suicidal ideation, who were couch surfing, who had serious mental health issues, some, you know, incarceration in and out of the juvenile justice system. So he was used to seeing the signs because that was part of his job, see the signs before it gets worse. But we both missed it in our own son. Why? Because we were so busy. We were getting them to swimming lessons and hockey and gymnastics and birthday parties and events, and then on top of getting the homework done, teaching them how to read, making sure that they got to the park once in a while, uh, you know, and then our own careers. So it's it's not that we're we're walking around wasting time. You know, I mean, sure, maybe we scroll, but you know, that might be like a way of kind of offloading our day. Who knows? But this was not us spending time on our Instagram. This was just simply trying to get through the day because we're so busy and we missed this. So we had to take a huge pause because we we obviously were not just missing this, but we, you know what we began to notice when we were, when we put the pause on, how little we were seeing all around us. We had stopped saying thank you for anything in our house. It wasn't thank you for putting the dishes on the dishwasher or in the dishwasher. It was expected. I never, I realized I had never thanked my husband for dropping off the kids to before and after school care because he's a parent too. I'm not gonna thank him for doing his job. Um, I thought it was being all feminist, you know. But actually, if I want him to keep doing it and for him to feel supported in it, I do need to thank him for doing his job. Just like I want to be thanked for making the dinner. Yeah, we have to eat, but I do want to be thanked for making the dinner. So, you know, part of it is slowing, it's noticing that life is just chaotic. And if we don't notice, then we may miss it. And also, it's not that we have to, we get to. We get to be the person in somebody's day who notices them more intentionally and deeply than anybody else has, possibly even their closest family or their boss and and their closest colleague. What a privilege that is in the world to be that one.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

But yeah. You know, I actually took a note of that. Like you get the chance to fix that, to be that person who notices somebody else. And I'm really sorry for what your son went through and you guys as a family. Um thank you. But also how amazing that you're on the other side and you recognize the pause that you need um you need to take. And uh yeah, that's one of the things about parenting that absolutely terrifies me is like what are you missing? Because you're rushing to get to give them everything because you're doing it for them, really. But then you're missing the most important things and yeah. And that's so often what happens at work as well, or at least that's what we see. But very often when we ask people why are you not saying thank you, it's over that's their job while they say thank you. But also, I just don't have the time. I'm literally on the train on the next thing, um, and I just don't have time to pause and reflect. On the contribution that the person has done for me. How do you think we can we can fix that?

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yeah, well, you know, your your advice earlier around is it about the noticing? Uh I would say that is great advice for people, is because when you are noticing, and I my brand is frog, forever recognize others' greatness. So the forever part is the always be scanning for the ordinary, the extraordinary that that actually happens in our ordinary life. Because there is extraordinary frog, forever recognize others' greatness. I love this. Yeah. We we want to we want to frog people all the time, you know? It's because if we are forever doing that, it is first of all, it becomes part of our character. I mean, who doesn't want to be known as somebody who's caring, who pays a close attention, they're compassionate, they are aware, they are adaptable. You know, these this is these are parts of, I think, how a lot of us see ourselves or would like to see ourselves and be known by others. And and it's part of your noticing um practice is when if you are forever recognizing others' great greatness and you're not just waiting for the long service awards event or somebody's work anniversary or a birthday or when they have a baby or when they're new or whatever those milestones are. And don't get me wrong, it's very important to celebrate milestones. I I fully acknowledge that. But we often in organizations we overly process and systematize things. And we can't systematize the human experience. We can definitely treat people fairly and consistently with having processes and procedures, and that is because that demonstrates fairness, which is great. And people don't want to be treated like a title, a number. In fact, a number of the people I spoke with today, that's part of why they love working in this organization, is that the where they did this similar work somewhere else in a big box store, they felt like they were just an employee number. They were somebody who filled a ship, there was somebody who was assigned to that department that particular day. So, you know, when we are thinking about how do we do this more effectively in organizations, if you believe that greatness is all around you, your only job is to notice it. And when you notice it, you get to do something about it. The do something about it could be if you have thank, you know, your thank box, right? You create a board. You could say, you know, well, let's let's acknowledge the unsung heroes this week. And the unsung heroes that we decide are procurement, you know, or finance. Fill a board of why they have made a difference for you. What do they do for you on an ongoing basis? Who is somebody in that department who has helped? Is there a time where they really manage to serve you in an incredibly important way? Why are they valuable for our suppliers or partners? Um, these are the that would be a beautiful pop-up experience that you wouldn't maybe think of as recognition because you don't work alongside them. So great, create visibility opportunities, noticing practices of the people who are the invisible behind the scenes people who keep your organization running. And then, of course, notice the people all around you. Notice your peers. If somebody said, oh my gosh, like they're really struggling, then the recognition for that person may be, how are you doing? Or can I, can I lend you a hand? Or wow, I I know you're going through a lot. I am so impressed that you're still showing up to work every day. Um, is there anything that I can do to make your day a little easier today? The noticing isn't just praise, like yay. It's also, I notice that this is challenging or you're you're having a hard day. I care about you. I'm going to check in with you. Um, the noticing, of course, is specific compliments and acknowledgments. Um, you know, one of the fun things that that I like to do with people at events is I have these compliment cards where we ask people, what's the best compliment you've ever received? And uh we we summarize them, we theme them, and we have 52 different compliments. So everything from, you know, I always value having you on my team to you are resourceful and resilient, to you combine creativity and practicality so people can physically give these to their colleagues. We at events we create recognition ripple effects, including with people that they don't know, because that is how visible people's greatness is. You know, the ultimate frog challenge I like to tell people is when you can show up and you're, you know, you're assigned to a table, let's say, at a at a corporate event, and you're, you know, you obviously know about your shared greatness because you all work for the same company, but maybe you work around the world and maybe you work in different parts of the organization. So my challenge to you, this is one of the things that I say to people, my challenge to you is to pick randomly five of those cards and go and give them to people you've never met, but that you can already see what their greatness is. Maybe it's a question that they asked, maybe it's how they made other people feel when they came and they sat at your table. Perhaps that you noticed that they ate really healthy food. What are those things that are so visible? And you want to catch the opportunity to share with them. Would this be true of you? You seem to be the type of person who combines creativity and practicality, which by the way, this is the perfect compliment for you, is it not? This probably this is you. I bet you your husband would tell you in the business that you film. I think they would he would say that. That that's both of you.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's absolutely fair. I honestly I love that. It just imagine the conversation starts. I imagine the level that you start this conversation at already by just using this card, you're already connected to this person. Their guards are already down because you've noticed something positive about themselves. You encourage them to be that person as well. It's uh it's powerful, it's really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

And when people realize how powerful it is, they stop thinking of it as something nice to do or a fill-in thing. You know, because as you could probably imagine, the CFO or somebody who is really having to take keep a close eye on the bottom line, they may think, well, I mean, we don't really have the money to put towards recognition or we seem to have this big budget. Are we sure we're getting return on investment for it? So if you think that it's just giving out cards and cards mean nothing, well, then you're forgetting about the fact that that creates maybe a little relationship snack, you know, a little relationship moment. And who knows, maybe you're gonna realize that you're actually on the same project, that brand new major strategic project, you actually are both now on it. And so now you have a connection. You're probably more likely to reach out to each other, to assume positive intent because you've now had this lovely relationship exchange based on seeing each other's greatness or one person seeing the greatness of the other, and therefore the greatness in that person who initiated it is very clear and obvious too. Um, so you know, it it builds these opportunities for connection in a very disconnected world, right? It also builds, if you're if part of recognition is checking in with somebody, it makes it less likely they're going to go off on stress leave, um, sick leave, leave the organization because they don't feel supported or that they can't manage. If you are acknowledging somebody for their intention, their purpose, and they just they shake it off and you say, no, honestly, I you you make such a difference here for the people we serve. And they're like, no, I don't. Well, maybe you're you're actually catching somebody from not just leaving the organization or presenteism, where people are disengaged and they're just showing up on the job, retired, you know, quiet quitting, so to speak, right? Maybe they will, they will with you or on the row reflect about, well, maybe I am having impact. Ask them every day. You know, I'm curious, like you've, you've, I've seen the impact you've been having. What impact did do you feel that you've had today? Um, you know, similarly with yourself, right? How what I wonder, I'm I'm asking other people about the impact they've had. I wonder what impact I've had today. So, you know, you can, you actually are are making it less likely that people will be on the job retired. So presenteism, you're less likely to have sick time, you're more likely to retain great people. And not only that, you're more likely to create the conditions where innovation, continuous improvement, and agility, which we need. I mean, we've always needed it, but particularly in this current reality. Because if you feel psychologically safe and you feel valued for who you are, then you're probably going to be sharing your best ideas. And you're definitely going to work safer too, psychologically and physically safer. Um, so there's a lot of sectors, and you know, we could spend a whole conversation just talking about that. There are so many sectors where if people don't feel seen, heard, and valued, they are not perhaps going to work as safely as they need to. And there are a lot of if people are listening to this podcast episode and you work in an industry where it's possible somebody will not be able to get home safely to their family, you need to be looking at recognition as an absolutely non-negotiable part of your safety program. Recognized people work safer because they're valued and they value other people and they feel comfortable enough to speak up.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

I mean, I have so many questions on that. Everything that you said. This is exactly, I mean, I'm not sure people have thought about recognition in in that way, but it's such a key moment as part of your procedures. Because we think about procedures as, you know, this is necessary, it's the law, we have to have them, etc. But recognition is something that you need to have in your procedures, this social connection, this belonging, this safety. And uh it's a great value for people to understand that and to include it. I was gonna say as well that um this is something we see in our analytics um on the platform as well. We I specifically point the direction to our clients, to the people who are not as visible on the platform, who are not appreciated as often, or are not appreciating as often because, and not to go and tell them off, like why are you not participating, but to to understand if there's a problem, if there's a quiet quitting, as you say, or if they're disengaged, or they're just they're just not happy because their efforts are not appreciated, or maybe they're not doing the best of their work because they think they don't matter there. So there's a problem to be to be fixed there to to help it progress into a better direction. Absolutely 100% agreed that we have to look into those um into those areas as well. And when you were saying about the policies, one other area that I was talking about as well the other day is maternity leave. Like we have all those procedures on coming back to work, and very few of them include the social aspect of it and how difficult it is to re-enter the workspace when everyone's moved on, all the connections have moved on, and you've been out of the business for nine, ten months, however long it is. Um, and a lot of people don't acknowledge the importance of that and to welcome, you know, welcome the new parent back into the workplace with the stories of what happened or the new connections of what happened. So they feel confident that they've not missed nine months of social interactions. Um and I think there's so many different policies at work that we look at in isolation and we just need to connect them through recognition and appreciation.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah, yeah. Absolutely, because really what we're talking about is the employee experience. And, you know, we when at the beginning of COVID, when people were really struggling with uh changing policies and trying to figure out what is procedural justice when some people could work at home and others were frontline. And there was we were we had a lot of things that we were wrestling with, on top of, of course, the biggest global healthcare crisis of our lifetime. And part of why we were struggling is because we had been thinking of policies and practices in very disparate parts. We weren't connecting them because what connects all of them is is the employee experience journey. So one of the things that our team did, because you know, we organizations continue to grapple with this, is we said, well, obviously we don't have a strong foundation of what the employee experience journey actually is. And what we figure, what we learn through our research, through speaking with clients, through our own, my own 25 years in work psychology, but also the 11 years that we've been serving clients, is that the employee experience journey actually starts well before somebody even applies for a job. It's when people are exploring options. So think about what it's like for a young person, maybe uh you're a high school student, and you watched what it's like for your parents who went through COVID as a nurse. What are they saying about how nurses are were valued and appreciated there and how they put their life on the line? How are they feeling now? Do a lot of people say, Oh, I would love to be a nurse. For many generations, people had nurse and then the next generation, you're nurse, the next generation, you're nurse. Now nurses are a lot, not all of them, but many are saying, don't go into nursing. So that explore is an important part, both it can make or break an entire industry. So if you have people who um who are seeing this, this, you know, the possibilities about how they will be treated safely, fairly, respectfully, that they could have some flexibility, any of the things that they value, they might say, yeah, I'm I would like to consider that to be a career opportunity. And it's not just a career as in a job or a title. It could be, I want to live in this region. You know, maybe you want to still live in your community, even if it's small. You might say, well, what jobs exist around here? What roles exist? I could work for the town, for the city. I would have never thought about that. What type of roles exist there? So it starts in the explore phase, which can be elementary school, high school, college, university, right through to not retire transition. Because people may be leaving their formal full-time work. However, what organization doesn't have project work, they have maybe gaps in the schedule when people are going on vacation, maybe they have upturns in the in the volume of service delivery or a product delivery. So it's there's the looking at the employee experience journey from well before somebody needs a job. And then things like, you know, when you were mentioning about coming back from maternity, that re-entry point, how do we onboard people, even though they've worked here for a while, how do we make sure that their transition back is is good? How do we make sure if somebody's brand new on the job that their first day on the job, there's somebody there to meet them? They have a computer, they have a or they have a log on, or they have a, they know where the cafeteria is, they know where to fill up their water bottle. Heck, they brought them a water bottle. What? You know, so these are the things that we can we can have intentional care within our organizations and also then look outside of our organizations and say, how do we, whether we be an industry, we be uh a local businesses, we a community, become a place where people choose. Because when people choose you, they are more likely to be engaged, they're more likely to stay. And when they choose you, because really emplo people staying employed is that they've still chosen you today. And if they come back tomorrow, they've chosen you again tomorrow. We're in the business of earning people, not hiring them. So we have to earn people every day, not the other way around. If we try to earn people every day, they will be loyal to us. They will give more discretionary effort. Anybody, if we think about our past, the best bosses we've ever worked for, do we give more effort to them? Heck yes. We will answer their phone when we're off. We will, we will put extra effort into that initiative. We will say yes to the special projects because they care. It's an opportunity to grow, to learn. You know, you're not being taken advantage of. So I think, you know, that's that big picture, I think, view that we have to have. Rather than individual policies and individual rules and silos, it's like none of that works. So, what does looking at the employee experience and building in meaningful places to recognize, connect and communicate, uh, learn and grow from each other, share what we're passionate about. You know, like somebody loves yoga, what where's an opportunity even once a month for them to make that available at work? Somebody loves painting at your annual event that you have, have them paint a mural as they're hearing the conversations happening. Like, there are so many examples of companies that, you know, I've I've again I've I collect these stories of people who live this. You know, the the childcare professional who loves to do stained glass, and the executive director found out that she loves this. So said, Well, would you make enough for early childhood education day? Because I would like to give everybody a special something. Could I hire you to make that? And so everybody not only got a one-of-a-kind, custom created little mini, it was a frog, so that's why I know about it, because she sent a picture, a little stained glass frog that they can put on their on their window if they want it hang from their window, or use it as an ornament, and it was made by a colleague. Like that is care.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

And it's not a huge thing, is it? She was gonna spend the money anyway. Yeah, you just need to be thoughtful in the relationship and learn a bit about the person. Can I just go back to the employee journey? Because I love that you said that it begins before you even join the company, before you even apply for the company, because that's that's where I think your levers play a big role as well. Because they are the advocates of your business. If, of course, they live on good on good terms, they felt appreciated. And even during the leaving process, they are gonna be the people who are gonna be most vocal about your business. They are gonna be the ones that are gonna be sharing their experience and encouraging other people to join. And I still it still battles me that people don't understand um the importance of sending people off the right way. Also onboarding in the right way. We see a lot of tank boxes actually created for onboarding, sending a tank box the day before uh somebody starts with messages from their colleagues and some internal jokes and comments, and you see them starting on day one already feeling the culture already feeling the emotions that go within the team, which is a great start. You're already one level above everybody else, which is incredible. Um and you mentioned a few times in the conversation so far the ROI and the financials behind appreciation, and we get a lot of clients who become very emotional on calls as well because they understand the need for appreciation and recognition, but they can't relate that to their management or their the board of directors. What advice would you give to them? How do you think they should tackle that? And I've got actually a good question for you. Maybe we should start with that one. Yeah, do it. Yeah. If you have 60 seconds with the CFO, how would you explain the value of appreciation in commercial terms? Let's start with that one.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

I love this question because it is very a very common roadblock. Here's what I would say. Oh, you're your CFO. How I would say to you, how many employees do you have? So let's say you share with me, I have 100 employees. Okay, great. Um, and what is their average salary? So maybe their average salary is $60,000. Great. Did you know that disengagement is currently costing you $346,000 and eight three hundred and forty six thousand eight hundred dollars? I mean, we we every year what we do is we dig into the research about what is the cost of disengagement and we build it as a calculator. We'll I'll give you that link so you can put it in the show. Notes. So they'll say, okay, well, that's a very expensive problem. Let's find out if there is a cost of turnover. So do you have turnover? Yes, 20%. Okay, so for 100 people, turnover 20%, average salary of $60,000. That's a $600,000 problem. So if we could reduce that turnover by 10%, you would save $300,000. It's pretty hard to dispute that any efforts, especially something as low lift as recognition, and even if you invest in a program, a platform, some training, some tools such as compliment cards, encouraging people, doing some messaging, encouraging people, acknowledge your peers. Let's, you know, did you know it's procurement week? What is procurement? Glad you asked. Here's what procurement is. I keep using that as an example because most people don't know that there's a department in the organization that has to make sure the pens get ordered and ordered in an ethical way that have to do the request for proposals. So if we can get some kind of return on investment, I think that's the easiest way. So that's what I would do with the CEO, CFO. I would ask them for their data and I would put it into our calculator and I would tell them according to the data that exists, that is, you know, fresh data, as in every year we update that. This is this is how much it's costing you. So the question is, how much longer are you willing to lose $600,000 from 20% turnover? Or I'll say, how much longer are you willing to lose $346,000 a year due to disengagement? What if we can improve engagement? What would that do?

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Imagine how much more you can achieve with this money if you have this fear. And you know what?

SPEAKER_01 46:00

We're all responsible for a healthy bottom line. So this is something that I'm sure many people, I you know, I'll I'll sometimes calculate live in front of an audience. Um, what that is, is I will ask people, so tell me, like anyone here want to have a turnover challenge in their organization. Lots of people put up their hand and I'll do a calculation. Okay, so how many people do you have? What's your average turnover rate? What's the average salary from the CEO to your hourly wage worker? Like, give me a ballpark, and we calculate it. It's in those rooms, it's been millions of dollars. So I'll say, it's really good that you took the time to come to this conference and that you didn't sleep in today. I love that. Because if you take one thing and and literally we have, you know, to go back to the employee experience mapping, um, with uh a developmental services organization, they have about 300 and about 130 people. Their turnover was 25%. That's a high turnover, and that creates a lot of chaos in an organization, especially when you have vulnerable people you're caring for. We did employee experience mapping. So we brought a cross-section of people, not even 20 people. I think it was 16 people together, from the CEO to an hourly wage, newer employee, people experienced, and then of course, middle managers. And in one day, we examined their entire employee experience end to end and where recognition's happening, where it could happen, and what would you do to improve the employee experience if you had any option, any amount of resources, anything you could possibly do. And we identified a few key projects, we identified all the low-hanging fruit through fruit that we can be, you know, tried. And then we identified one outcome measure and three process measures. In other words, we don't want to wait until the end, a year from now to gauge turnover. We want to see what it looks like on an ongoing basis. In one year, by simply implementing three initiatives and those low-hanging, easy, hardly takes any time tasks work, their turnover went down to 12%. They saved so much money, but also they built so much quality of service, their uh, their satisfaction ratings of the people that they support and the family members went up, their employee engagement rates went up, their retention, you know, as I say, improved, and of course their financial bottom line improved. So that's a stronger all-over organization. And it only took a day to map that. These sometimes people think that we have to change the culture. It's so much work. It takes, it takes a focus and intention. But really, people planning is something every organization should be doing anyway. But how many even pay attention to their people measures? Imagine if we paid attention to our people metrics as closely as our financials. Imagine if your board of directors said, Well, this is ridiculous. Why are you giving me my balance sheet? What about the employee balance sheet? I I'm missing a balance sheet. We that's the kind of positioning that we need. If we want to demonstrate that we truly genuinely care about our culture and our people, then we need to be asking about the people balance sheet.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

It's a no-brainer. Honestly, as you explain it here, it sounds like the most obvious thing that we should do in an organization.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Because you can't, you're not getting the full picture if you're only looking at the financial balance sheet. Well, how do you know what's going into that if you don't know how the people metrics and and what can happen is people will say, My biggest cost are my people. We need to cut people. Do you need to why are you jumping to we need to cut people? You don't even know what the people metrics are. So how do you know that's the right answer? That would be like saying, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna buy this house because I I really like the look of it. Well, aren't you going to do a, you know, have somebody take a look at it? Aren't you gonna test the soil? Aren't you going to, no, no, I just, I just, I mean, I know what that house looks like. I know the number. So I'm just gonna, I don't know. It's I like, I like it. It's green. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, it's the green house. That's well, but your financial data is a reflection of how your employees, your customers, the trends in the industry, your quality, your RD pipeline, your reputation, the industry. It is it, and then like dozens of other things. But what do we do? We focus on AI. Who's the political party and and what are the trends? We get so micro, which I'm not saying don't be a really looking ahead to what's coming down by all means. However, we get so focused on shiny object syndrome, which is uh a fact of human nature, it's not just a workforce dynamic that we lose sight of the fundamentals. And it just kind of comes back to what one of the things we talked about at the beginning of the conversation. Why do we miss recognition? Because it's one of the things we've known how to do since we were before we had even had language. And so, why do we undervalue the thing that exists all around us, the people? It's just because they've always been there, they are why you're there.

SPEAKER_00 51:42

Wow. There's so much to think about here. There's so much to take away. The people balance sheet. I bet not many people ask this question. I've got one last question for you. That's okay. I know, I know I've taken a lot of your time.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

I love it. I could talk about this forever, as you can imagine. Yes, as I know you could too.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

Um, but I guess if you if you're just starting out with appreciation, if you're sitting in your role and you want to to start an initiative, what's the first thing you should do? Recognize the person that you work with most closely. What was it? You get the chance to fix that, whether it's their mood or how they feel or how they feel about their work, you get the chance to be the person to change it for them.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

And then you and them, you and this person are now champions. So then you each recognize people, and now you've got four champions. So this is the compounding effect, right? And they say, I think it's James Clear, you know, one of the gurus of habits. Atomic Habits sold 25 million copies. He talks about 1% better. And if you are focused on 1% better every day for 365 days, you're 37 times better than you were at the beginning of the year. If you recognize one person every day, you will be 27 times better at recognizing and more, and you're not only you consistent, but you're also going to learn a lot along the way. You're going to have a lot more relationships, you'll be more engaged, feel a greater sense of purpose. And those folks who are being acknowledged, they're going to ripple it out because it's, again, it's human motivation. This is not performative. It's not saving up all of your energy around planning the perfect employee appreciation day. You've got ice cream trucks and you brought in a magician for the kids and you've extended the to family and you've got custom cards. Those are amazing. But imagine if you took all of that energy and you put it into only one day. And then you have some people who are like, I don't feel appreciated the rest of the year. I'm not showing up. And other people say, Yeah, but I don't have a family. I'm, you know, I'm I travel in for work. I don't have anybody that can come. Now all of a sudden, this beautifully orchestrated, it could be the most perfect event that you could have ever built with the budget you have, the time you have, you've lovingly curated it. But if people didn't feel appreciated the other 364 days of the year, or not by the person that they work most closely with, or the person that they report to, or the and never hear from the customers that they support, how do you know you matter? And they may not even be there for your most beautiful, perfect event. They won't be there to eat the ice cream, to see the magician, to to feel feel fart of part of something scrumptious. Start simple. Start simple. Start simple. Right. Start real. Start authentic.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Yes. Wow. Uh I mean, I'm extremely grateful for your time. There's just so much that people can take away. And just just start. Start appreciating people. Start thinking, start being thoughtful in your relationships as well. I'm really grateful for your time. Thank you so much for all the input that you've given us today. My pleasure. Thank you for asking. I hope this episode gave you some practical ideas on how to turn appreciation from a nice to have into a business priority. If you like the episode, please reach out and share your thoughts with me. If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it too. Thank you for listening and don't forget to share appreciation.