We all know how important it is to hire good employees or to find good volunteers if you are working for a non profit organization such as a youth sports org. This can especially be a burden if you are on a tight budget. After reading an article in Fortune Small Business , and in trying to hire a full time employee, this article helped reinforce this fact. Diana Nguyen is 33. She started her career as a family physician and worked at an HMO seeing 25 patients in four hours. Doing this for sometime led Diana to branch out and open her own private practice. She kept trying to hire employees that weren't the right fit for her organization, and it hurt her business. While attending the UC Irvine School of Business extension program she learned how to find talented employees. This program enabled her to identify and hire an office manager who was able to grown Hguyen practice for her, while she focused on the stuff she likes doing, cosmetic medicine. And she is enjoying he

It's the time of year when parents are busy readying their kids for school, and everyone is wishing summer was just a couple weeks longer. We will take this opportunity, these last couple days of the summer, to spotlight certain products that are sure to succeed in creating lasting memories and building better lives through recognition. Enjoy! NEW RESINS These resins create lasting impressions in the winners minds, and definitely will cause the event that the winner received the award at to be a memorable one. Resins offer the unique opportunity to change up your awards without compromising quality, and even creating a greater perception of quality, while saving on costs. Resins come in many shapes and sizes. Some, like the bowling resin from PDU pictured above, come hand painted, while others are offered in different sizes. For previous jobs we have taken resins and used them to create custom team trophies for tournaments. These are great because no one has ever used

It's the attention to detail, as I am sure many of you know, that makes all t he difference in this world, and it just so happens it's also what we, as recognition experts, pride ourselves on. I was at a luncheon yesterday put on by the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce , and it was a great event. With much attention to detail, the program went off without a hitch. John Sparta, from Sparta Cycling , was talking about the Univest Grand Prix , giving us an update as to how it is coming and changes to be expected. With entering into a new community, it compelled me to fill out a volunteer form, because hearing this guy talk about what a great community event this is and how it's great for everyone involved was very refreshing to hear. I mean I knew the Pennridge community was this way because I grew up there, and I had a feeling that the Souderton community would be the same way, but hearing him speak really hit home. This guy, from New York, really knew wha t it took t

Taken from incentive magazine. Written by Jacqueline Durett and www.maketheirday.com Write a card to the employee, or even to the employees family, explaining the employee's positive qualities. Take a big project you are plannind on delegating and think about who it growth opportunity for. Take 10 minutes to have a performance free talk with your direct reports. Supplying lunch is even better.

Awards programs and choice have not always gone hand in hand. It was generally accepted that whatever the manager or boss thought was sufficient to give to employees to recognize achievements was sufficient and achieved the goals of motivating the employees. We know that to be totally false! People like choice but too much choice can be a bad thing. It's like Goldilocks, she didn't want to burn her tongue on the porridge that was too hot and the porridge that was too cold was not very tasty. It took her unt il the third bowl to find the porridge that was just right, and baby bear may not of thought it was the right temperature for him, even though it was perfect for Miss Locks. The point of this is there is not a one size fits all approach to this recognition thing. The goals themselves will often times be different. One thing is for sure though, you need to approach it with goals in mind and then approach it accordingly. Plaques and awards are the second most used re

For those critics who think that awards and plaques are just dust collectors, there is proof out there that shows this information to not be quite correct. Incentive magazine cited research that says 47% of companies surveys use plaques & awards for their annual compensation programs. With half of businesses planning to utilize awards and another 13% using awards spontaneously that means that 60% of businesses that use recognition programs are using awards and plaques to recognize achievements. So they are not just dust collectors, t hey are often starting points for stories that build not only morale, but connections to others in more ways than one. Retelling the story of how you got that sales award may not seem like a big deal, but to the person telling the story and the person hearing it, a bridge is being built that will connect these two for years to come, and that plaque on the wall epitomizes that achievement and is symbolic of the hard work and countless hours the per

Recognize your independence with this Liberty Bell Resin Sculpture from Bux-Mont Awards . These make great awards for an Independence Day tournament, citizenship recognition, and much more. Dimensions: 7 x 5.75 x 4.75 Finsih: Antique Bronze/ Black Base Plate Size: 5.75 x 1.25 Weight: 4 lbs. Price: 25.00