Early in my gaming career I wanted to find ways to create a positive workplace culture at the Golden Nugget. After much study and debate we settled on promoting the concept of ‘catching people doing things right’. We had lots of rules and a habit of disciplining people for every infraction – managers reveled in writing employees up. But then, while studying the causes for high turnover, employees in the housekeeping department told me that supervisors never seemed to recognize any of the things they did right. So, we ran a pilot program in that department, asking those same supervisors to give 2 commendations for every disciplinary write-up. Managers thought this was crazy but within 6 months turnover was down by 33% and employee morale was noticeably increased. All because those supervisors learned the importance of saying ‘good job’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘I am proud of you’. We extended that program to all departments and saw turnover drop throughout the company, a testament to the power of positive reinforcement and recognition. Most companies have lots of rules about what employees shouldn’t do – try listing what they should do and thank them each time they follow those rules. Let your employees know you are proud of them today.
Denis E. Waitley (born 1933): American motivational speaker, writer, and consultant.
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