Motivation Archives | HALO Recognition - Employee Recognition and Rewards

3 Simple Ways to Make Employees Feel Valued

June 7, 2018June 7, 2018

A recent TINYPulse white paper on employee engagement revealed that the percentage of employees who feel “strongly valued” in the workplace declined in the last year from 31% to 26%. That means only about one out of every four employees are getting the message from management that their contributions are meaningful. Everyone should know by […]

Stop Saying “Thank You”

January 30, 2018February 7, 2019

We did a piece a while back on how “thank you” can wear out its welcome in the workplace, and come off as insincere if overused. The law of diminishing returns says that the longer you rely on something for results, the weaker its impact will become. People, it turns out, get tired of the […]

Culture Change Fuels the Wall Street Brain Drain

March 1, 2017April 18, 2017

So-called “brain drains,” or mass exoduses of talent from one place to another, are a common occurrence in business, and are usually driven by more competitive salaries and benefits on the other side. However the brain drain currently being experienced on Wall Street is unlike any other – the top minds exiting the financial field […]

Some Workplace Perks Can Be Tricks, Not Treats

October 26, 2016November 1, 2016

Halloween is upon us, and I’ve got something that will scare you even more than David S. Pumpkins. What if I told you that some workplace perks were TRICKS instead of TREATS? Please try to remain calm, and I’ll explain. We did a webinar recently on employee happiness that showed how not everything that makes […]

The Era of the Empowered Employee

January 19, 2016February 18, 2016

Indeed.com, the biggest job site in the world, commissioned an end-of-year study showing that more than 50 percent of US workers are thinking of making a career change in 2016. Some of the chief motivators were a better work location, a higher position/title, and the biggest motivator was salary, with 79 percent of respondents listing […]

5 Fatal Flaws of Darth Vader’s Management Style

January 4, 2016January 4, 2016

Maybe you’ve heard of a small independent film called Star Wars: The Force Awakens that was released this holiday season? It is the continuation of the original Star Wars Trilogy, which featured the incomparable villain Darth Vader, a high-level management type in the Galactic Empire, whose mission was to eradicate the small band of rebels […]

Death of the Annual Performance Review

December 16, 2015December 16, 2015

Years ago, I interned at a film production company. I would read screenplays and evaluate each piece. I had the internship for one semester. And for the dozens of screenplays I reviewed, I had no idea I was filling out the evaluation form incorrectly. In class, my professor taught me a certain way to write […]

The New Face of Employee Fatigue: The Secret Service

November 16, 2015November 16, 2015

The U.S. Secret Service has not had the best time in the press as of late. There was the big prostitution scandal in 2012 which led to the firing of eight agents. In September of last year, a series of mishaps enabled a man armed with a knife to hop the fence at the White […]

Why Gratitude Makes Us Feel So Good

October 26, 2015January 24, 2017

Over the last 15 years, psychological science has made leaps and bounds in understanding the mental and health benefits of giving and receiving gratitude. Along with being a nice thing to do, it can increase our tendency to feel more hopeful and optimistic about the future, help us better cope with adversity and stress, bring […]

The Meritocracy Paradox

October 21, 2015

Many organizations fancy themselves a meritocracy, or a place where things like bias and discrimination have no sway and every employee is rewarded and promoted based on their merit and talent alone. America itself was founded on the idea of a meritocracy, and the idea of social equality is part of our national DNA. In […]

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