Over the course of 25 years, Tom has used his passion for entrepreneurship and marketing to launch numerous, highly successful companies. At each organization Tom has built, employee experience has been the cornerstone to building effective teams. His expertise and learnings resulted in the development of Kudos as a solution and system to promote and enhance corporate culture, motivate individuals and create great employee recognition & experiences.

Tom leads business development, marketing, and customer engagement at Kudos and is active in speaking engagements and thought leadership activities in the HR industry. He is passionate about the role employee recognition plays in creating a great employee experience and is dedicated to educating the world about what genuine recognition can do for people everywhere.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Often leaders are doing things that are fleeting and immaterial when it comes to recognition. Without a system and a purchased tool, good and bad managers alike will continue to recognize their people poorly.
• It costs approximately $5000 just to hire and train a minimum wage employee. For the same price, you could provide an employee recognition system for your entire organization and drastically reduce turnover.
• Tips to know when to invest in recognition:
  If you’ve started a business… it’s now!
  Go to the parking lot at 4:30pm. If it’s empty, you need it.
  Walk up to a conversation of your employees. If they stop talking, there’s an issue with your culture.
  Management and team players have an “us vs. them” dynamic.
  Just ask, “what can we do better?” or “where can we improve employee engagement.” The #1 thing that comes back is that people don’t feel appreciated.
• Even if you’re in the office, there’s a 300 ft rule. If you’re about that distance from a fellow employee, you may as well live on the other side of the planet.
• ASK your colleagues how they want to be recognized. SIMPLE!
• People seldom leave because of compensation, it won’t come up nearly as much in exit interviews as feeling unrecognized or under-valued.

Learn More

Connect with Tom:

• LinkedIn

Also mentioned on this episode:

• First, Break All The Rules – Gallup Organization
• The Making of a Manager – Julie Zhuo
• David Zinger – “The Godfather of Employee Engagement”
• Corporate Culture & Performance – John Kotter & James Heskett
• How Zapier builds its 100% remote team
• Gallup “State of the American Workplace” on flexibility being a major priority for employees