Customer Reviews

Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works - 2nd Edition

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You may pick up this 2009 edition of Make Their Day! to learn some things about improving your abiity to recognize others. It will certainly help you accomplish that. However, if you really take to heart the facts, examples and guidance that Cindy Ventrice provides, you will become a more respected and effective leader. Ms. Ventrice does a terrific job of showing you how to build a solid foundation of trust, respect, and caring that is essential if your attempts at recognition are to be believed and ultimately effective. It will help you establish or improve relations with others, and as Ms. Ventrice says, "Next to relationships, everything else is secondary."

Whether you want to create an organization-wide recognition program or just get better yourself, in your own department, you will find insightful information. And so many of the ideas shared have little or no cost. So even in tough economic times, you will deiscover opportunities to improve recognition without breaking your budget.

With nearly 30 years of supervisory and management experience, it was enjoyable reading about things that I do right, things that I had forgotten and need to re-establish, and to learn some new skills and/or methods. FASTER meetings was a particularly interesting concept that has great potential for helping people self-recognize.

As a manager I appreciated how Ms. Ventrice showed the importance of tying recognition to corporate values, goals, and measurement. After all, we want to encourage the right behaviors, ones that support our corporate direction, and to know if our efforts are achieving the desired results.

The first edition of Make Their Day made plenty of mine. And the second is even more valuable.

I have been coaching executives, from the most senior to the most junior, for more than 15 years and have used Cindy's book religiously with all of them. I have counseled thousands to read it and use the information tucked inside.

In a small package, Make Their Day can make a huge impact in your life and in the lives of those around you.

If your goal is to create your legacy masterpiece and assist others in creating theirs, you need to absorb Make Their Day. Then commit to the principles and ideas inside.

Without commitment, nothing changes. Not you. Not them. Nothing.

"I stumbled upon Make Their Day on Amazon when I went to purchase The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. I purchased Make Their Day on a whim and since have been blown away by the depth of content in this book.

This book is amazing - it is filled with practical examples of employee recognition programs! I have shared many of Cindy's ideas with my clients and they have implemented them with success. Employee recognition is on the rise in these tough economic times. I highly recommend purchasing this book for quick practical application!

Why do most employees feel unrecognized despite companies spending money on them? What different recognition programs could help fuel morale and productivity? Any manager or business library needs MAKE THEIR DAY! EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION THAT WORKS, which appears here in a second revised, updated and expanded edition with tested ways to boost morale and profits. From building recognition programs that work to partnering with administrators and checking cultural expectation to be sure recognition is meaningful, this is a business guide any manager needs.

This is my kind of book! Interesting stories, fun to read, with powerful insights on every page. Bravo!

Make Their Day makes you want more peers, more direct reports, even more managers, just so you can provide them all with recognition. This book is equal parts inspiring, practical, and wise. After each chapter you will want to run out to use the techniques - to create a more energized, passionate, effective and productive team around you. (And oh by the way, it will also have all of those effects on you.)

Cindy Ventrice is the expert's expert on the power of recognition. She describes the whys for deeper understanding, and adds all the what, the who, the how that you will need to do recognition the way it should be done. I have recommended Make Their Day countless times when I get all those sticky questions of fairness, effectiveness, finding unique ways to do this. As you can tell I am a fan of this book and for good reasons, I think. If it has a weakness, I think she could have made the book longer with even more examples.

- John P. Schuster, author, executive coach, public speaker

I am a huge fan of Cindy Ventrice. Make Their Day, both editions, are full of no-nonsense information and guidance to encourage employee engagement. Smart managers know that motivated and engaged employees result in higher productivity (increased profitability). One of the biggest take-aways is realizing that not "one size fits all". Read this book, take her webinars, read the blogs on her website, and her guidance will bump your leadership abilities up a notch....or two..... or three!

This book is a great follow-up to the first edition. We are now teaching a workshop at our college on the power of recognition based on the wealth of information and great ideas presented in this book. Cindy Ventrice really knows her topic and clearly explains what works based on a myriad of research. If you practice the methods described in this book you will have a much happier and productive workforce.

After spending 26 years as a high level executive in corporate America, I witnessed some diverse management styles over the years; those who were most successful seemed to focus much of their attention on maintaining good employee relations, using the very same techniques advocated by the author of this book, Cindy Ventrice. Those who treated employees like replaceable cogs in a machine, with no regard for their feelings, usually produced less than stellar results. Surprised?

What surprises me is that the vast majority of corporate America really hasn't figured this stuff out; maybe it's the pressure coming down from the CEOs to produce the bottom-line results necessary to stay employed. It's a vicious cycle; everybody's afraid of getting fired; finger-pointing and micro-management permeate the organization, while employee morale and productivity suffers. Sound familiar?

It doesn't have to be that way; for anyone who depends on maximizing employee engagement to be successful in their careers (that's you!), I highly recommend picking up a copy of this terrific book. Like all great concepts, the simplicity is profound; it's based on treating people with respect and dignity, thanking them on a regular basis for what they do, while giving them clearly stated goals to keep them fully engaged in the process called "work".

If you're the head-honcho, you may want to buy 'em by the case to dole out to everyone in management. You can thank the author later.