AUGUST 26

“Play it for me, Sam.”

—Humphrey Bogart, actor, in Casablanca

ENCORE! ENCORE!

When things are flowing along smoothly; when people are working in concert—those are the times to applaud their efforts with recognition. Chances are, they’ll give you an encore performance.

We’ll never forget the words of an employee in the operations division of a major investment management company who had just received an exceptional achievement award for assuming double duty while his boss was out on a five-month maternity leave.

He said, “People in management at most companies probably don’t realize how the worker bees feel about their jobs day to day. It means so much to us if they take the time to recognize us—whether through a formal program or just a verbal ‘good job’ now and then.”

The employee paused and we asked him, “Would you do this type of action again?” He nodded. “After the kind of recognition I got today, you bet I’d do it again.”