All I Want for Christmas

I once had a really great boss.  She spoke honestly, listened sincerely, never took credit for someone else’s work and balanced her own heavy workload with coaching and developing the people on her team. 

She was one of those rare people who can make a run to Starbucks feel like mentoring.

One year at Christmas I got my regular Christmas bonus and a small gift from my boss with a card.  It was an orange cinnamon scented candle from L’Occitane, exquisitely wrapped.  Just a simple gesture of thoughtfulness.  The card included a hand-written message thanking me for several specific contributions I had made over the year.

Now, I’m a rational person.  If I had to choose between a scented candle from my manager and a cash bonus, I’d take the money. 

But the gift meant more.  In particular, the thoughtfulness behind the gift and the personal message that said she was paying attention and valued my work.

If you manage a team, you may not be able to give your team a Christmas bonus this year.  Fortunately, that needn’t stop you from giving small gifts of your own with a personal message of thanks.

I’ve had several other great bosses with different strengths and personalities but one thing they all had in common was that they showed appreciation for my work.

Human assets only appreciate if you appreciate them, after all.

So, don’t give people  the same old song this Christmas about how there’s no money for raises or bonuses.  Why not give them something to sing about?

Merry Christmas!

Picture courtesy of L'Occitane website.  No free L'Occitane products were received for mentioning L'Occitane in this post.

Laura Schroeder is the Product Manager for Compensation Solutions at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has more than twelve years of experience designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions in the US, Asia and Europe.   Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in national and European trade journals.  She currently lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys reading, writing and spending time with friends and family.  

Comments

[Paul Weatherhead]

A touching post, Laura. Thank you & Merry Christmas!

[Margaret O'Hanlon]

Laura, thanks for reminding us of the important stuff! I hope this Christmas brings you more warm memories.

[Derek Irvine, Globoforce]

Excellent post, Laura. Thank you for sharing it this Christmas season. I fully agree that a thoughtful, personal show of appreciation will go so much farther than an impersonal, offhand, "thanks" or even cash. In fact, the more specific, actionable and authentic you get with your appreciation, the more meaningful and long lasting it will be. I wrote more on those three points here: http://globoforce.blogspot.com/2009/11/specific-actionable-and-authentic.html

[Laura Schroeder]

Thank you Paul, Margaret and Derek. I hope you all enjoy a wonderful holiday season and I'm looking forward to more great posts from each of you in 2010.

[Wally Bock]

Great post, Laura, with a powerful example. It is amazing how important the human touch is and how easy it is to provide.

[Wally Bock]

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/12/30/123009-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

[Laura Schroeder]

Thank you Wally for including this post in such a great list.

[Nishith Trivedi]

Brilliant writing. If I may add a cultural dimension where practices of gifts and personal notes are quite common across westerm world workplaces. However in India such practices are never really encouraged nor fostered though the benefits are so obvious. It would be interesting to see in the changes happening at our workplaces post the aftermath of 2009, how companies in fast paced economies like India would start looking at adoption of cultural changes that support such practices.

[Laura Schroeder]

Thank you Nishith for bringing a multi-cultural dimension to the discussion.