The Spot On Peer Recognition Program has been a huge success since it launched in July 2009! Over 250 peer recognition programs have been sold, and Spot has traveled the world with his favorite Baudvillians, telling others about his program.

We want to continue to share Spot’s awesomeness, so we created a video that puts him in the spotlight. The video gives a brief overview of how the peer recognition program works and showcases all the products that arrive with Spot.

We hope you’ll find this video helpful whether you’re currently using Spot or just investigating peer recognition program solutions. If you’re already using the Spot On program, you can share this video with a manager or supervisor to help him or her better understand your program. Or use the video to brag to other managers about the great things your team is doing. If you’re looking for a peer recognition program, this video has all the details you need! It’s a great tool to use when getting manager buy-in and support.

If you're having difficulty viewing the video, you can also watch it on Baudville's website, YouTube or Spot's Facebook page. 

The month of December is a popular time of year for company employee holiday parties and formal recognition award ceremonies. How does your peer-to-peer Spot On recognition program fit in? You can honor the participants and key contributors of your program during the holidays by creating your own Spot awards.

The key to peer-to-peer recognition program longevity and momentum is keeping the program interesting and exciting. Activities and celebrations are a great way to keep your team pumped up about Spot. Your award ceremony also serves as positive reinforcement of your employees’ participation and will encourage and motivate them to keep recognizing one another into the New Year.

For year-end, host a small award ceremony in the office to recognize key program participants. You can create your own awards that best fit your culture and team. Here are a few of our suggestions:

Nominator Award for the individual who has completed the most ballots.

Top Dog Award for the employee who has received the most notes or tokens from peers.

Sure & Steady Award for the individual who consistently recognized peers week after week.

Star Trainer Award for an employee who trained others to use the program.

Create a Participant Award for everyone who participates in the Spot On program with our free downloadable award certificates.

Celebrate your Spot award ceremony by creating award certificates and giving the winners a Spot On gift, like a key chain, coffee mug or Character Pin. The gifts are all less than $10 each and the certificates are free, so you can afford to go wild with recognition!

What other awards can you think of? Tell us how you’re celebrating the Spot On program this month on the Spot On Facebook page.

A Spot On Character Pin makes a great award!

One of the challenges of any recognition program is keeping the momentum flowing as the newness of the program wears off. Here are a few fun employee recognition ideas that you can incorporate into your peer recognition program on a monthly basis or for special events.

- Have pet show and tell. Encourage employees to bring in pictures of their dogs and talk about them.

- Reward employees for using the program by awarding an extra token to those who submit a ballot for a peer.

- Have Spot pose with company leadership. These pictures will let your employees know leadership notices and supports their program.

- Encourage employees to take Spot home with them. Ask them to take a few pictures of Spot doing one of their favorite activities. Share these pictures in the office and with other Spot users on Spot’s Facebook page.

- Place Velcro on the token keeper doghouses so they can be displayed on a cubicle wall.

- Recognize multiple people at the end of a month with dog-themed giveaways, like Baudville’s paw-shaped sticky notepads.

- Take pictures of Spot in fun places and email them to all staff or post in a public place.

- Create a newsletter that shares Spot updates. Share stories on submitted ballots to give extra recognition to special individuals.

- Dress Spot up for special holidays like Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day.

Keep your recognition program up with these fun employee recognition ideas! 

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Brenda has been a Baudvillian (a.k.a. Baudville employee) for over seven years and is currently the Customer Service Supervisor at Baudville. She loves spending time with her overweight dachshund, Teddy Bear, and Spot. She regularly blogs about her experience implementing the Spot On recognition program in the Baudville sales suite.

When we created the Spot On Recognition Program, we made sure it came with everything you needed to start recognizing peers right away. But we don’t stop there. We’re dedicated to helping you motivate, engage and retain your workforce, so we’ve added extra tools in the Downloads section of the Spot On website to complement your program.

Recognition programs often start off to a bang when the program is new and exciting to employees. However, as time goes on that excitement can wane. It’s important to continually add fresh ideas and activities to maintain program momentum. For ideas on how to keep your peer-to-peer recognition program thriving, visit the Baudville blog for an article on the subject.
 
When you register on the Spot On website, you receive access to several exclusive downloads that add interest to your program and assist in communications. New to the Spot On website are printable certificates. We created four different certificate options, and all you have to do is print, write in the recipient’s name and present. Use certificates to pass out praise to employees who don’t earn the top Spot award, but have a high level of participation or are a close runner-up.

You’ll also find special Spot On ecards to use as part of your program communications, internal flyers to help spread news about Spot, extra user guides and clip art. All of these resources are available for free when you register to use the website.

We hope you find these resources valuable, and we know the only more valuable is to learn how other Spot On program users are using them. So tell us how it’s going! Post a comment on the blog or add a story to our Facebook page. We know these handy downloads will help with you program, but we know the best advice comes from peers who are using the same program as you.

 

 

One of the new Spot On certificate downloads.

As part of the Spot On peer recognition program, we encourage Spot program users from around the world to share their stories, advice and pictures here on the blog and Spot's Facebook page. We got our first feedback this week! Check out how Meredith is preparing to use the program this fall with her staff at College of St. Elizabeth. To share your stories, email our Spot On Specialist, Mary Jo, at spoton@baudville.com or post them directly to the Spot on Facebook page.

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Dear Mary Jo,
Thanks for your "Spot On" support. For years my Residence Life Staff (that's right, higher education loves Baudville, too!) had been using a similar recognition technique utilizing a stuffed animal named "Lucky."

At each staff meeting we would go around the room and tell everyone one "High" and one "Low" for the month. Then someone would receive "Lucky" who needed an extra boost. We started to see that the same people kept receiving "Lucky" and some of our staff members who really needed a boost or who deserved a shout out were not receiving recognition. When I saw "Spot On" I jumped at the chance to change things up a bit. When "he" was on back order I was disappointed but I could see how everyone wanted one. Despite being on back order, Spot On arrived quickly and now I can officially start the year off right focusing on positive attitude and employee recognition.

I'm already utilizing the link you sent and I talk up Baudville to everyone outside of my department (my department is already reaping the benefits of the "Attitude is Everything" package and recognition cards!). My staff is excited for the "Spot On" program and I know we'll be utilizing Baudville in the future. I'm already a fan on Facebook, too! Keep up the great job of encouraging employee recognition!

Meredith Beebe, Director of Residence Life
College of St. Elizabeth
Morristown, NJ

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Spot is IN THE HOUSE!
 
Spot officially entered the Baudville Sales Suite yesterday, and he left his paw prints all over! We had a kick off event to start the Spot On recognition program, inform employees about the program, and get everyone excited. Of course, we did a few special things to make the kick off a fun and motivating event.

Starting a recognition program with a kick off event is a great way to get staff informed about the program and excited to use it. We used the event as an educational opportunity to improve team building and have fun together as a group. We incorporated our training into the event, and I’ll write more about that next week.
 
We first gave each employee an introductory hand-out with information about the program. It was really easy to create with the downloads section on spotonbaudville.com. The pre-designed format made it easy to place our information and print off copies for everyone with the Spot On theme artwork.
 
Because you can’t have an event at Baudville without delicious food and snacks, we brought in a few treats for our staff. Our Spot On Specialist, Mary Jo, made a large batch of Puppy Chow for the entire team to enjoy. If you’re not familiar with this treat, you are missing out! We highly recommend making it for your kick off event, and we’ve posted the recipe below. 

Since the Spot On recognition is all about rewarding positive behaviors, we gave small bags of bone-shaped candy to employees once they completed their training (more about training coming soon!).  Because our employees are working with Baudville products everyday, we wanted to make our Spot On program extra special and unique. We customized our Spot dog, so he barks when you push his ear. It’s already a big hit with the employees!

We’ve posted more pictures about the Baudville sales suite kick off on our Facebook page. What are you doing for your Spot On recognition program kick off event? Let us know! Post a comment on the blog or Facebook! Send us pictures and we’ll add them to our photo albums. We can’t wait to see what Spot does!

Our Spot On Specialist, Mary Jo, serves  up some delicious Puppy Chow!

Puppy Chow
Ingredients:
½ cup peanut butter
¼ cup butter
1 cup chocolate chips
½ tsp. vanilla
9 cups Chex cereal in the flavor of your choice
1 ½ cups powdered sugar

Instructions:
Combine peanut butter, butter and chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for one minute then stir to blend all ingredients thoroughly. Add vanilla and mix well.
Place the 9 cups cereal in a very large bowl. Pour the peanut butter-chocolate mixture over the cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.
Add powdered sugar. Seal bag and shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool.

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Brenda has been a Baudvillian (a.k.a. Baudville employee) for over seven years and is currently the Customer Service Supervisor at Baudville. She loves spending time with her overweight dachshund, Teddy Bear, and Spot. She regularly blogs about her experience implementing the Spot On recognition program in the Baudville sales suite.

 

I am - BIG TIME. I love dogs (especially my overweight dachshund), cats, pretty much animals in general. When our new Spot On peer to peer recognition program was introduced, I thought "Great! He's so cute!" But I really didn't think about how to use the Spot On recognition program in a business environment. I wondered, "Would Spot be taken seriously?"
 
Just a few days ago, I was given the challenge to begin our own peer to peer recognition program in our sales suite of about 25 people. My only instruction was to use Spot On. My boss, Kurt Carlson, Director of Positive Mojo, was quick to help as we both decided to introduce MaryJo Chicklon as our Spot On Expert (you can email our Spot On expert at spoton@baudville.com!). MaryJo has been a customer service star at Baudville for four years. With her experience, great rapport with customers and awesome attitude, I knew she would be a great liaison for our customers.
 
MaryJo and I met and quickly had some cool ideas based on SpotonBaudville.com. We ordered the program, put all the pieces in front of us and brainstormed how we could begin using it as soon as possible. Then, we discussed some of our concerns. We already have a peer recognition program at Baudville; we knew we didn't want to detract from its success. How do we make Spot On just for our department?

Another challenge we talked about were all the various positions in our suite - inbound calls, outbound calls, artists, eCare specialists, Tech Support - how are we going to meet everyone's goals?
 
MaryJo and I wanted to encourage teamwork, helping each other, and also thanking others for what we sometimes take for granted every day. We decided to incorporate our corporate value "Nurture.” It seemed a perfect fit.
 
We also wanted to have all of our sales and support professionals know as much about Spot On as MaryJo and I do. Why not have peer to peer training instead of the typical "boss up front and showing slides" training, we thought? I immediately LOVED this idea from MaryJo and, after a few tweaks, the training will start on Wednesday with a fun Kick Off day in our suite. We've set up all the parts of the system in our Coaching Area so two people can log off the phones, get away from their desk and learn about the Spot On program.

 Employees earn a token for being trained and a token for training the next person! We've paired up our trainees so that they are training people in areas other than their own - again reinforcing the team attitude in our suite. Within 2 days, everyone will be trained and talking about Spot On with our customers.
 
It's only the beginning, but already the ideas are flying around our department: using paw prints or Spots as visuals to hang around our cubicles, tokens for helping someone, token for hearing someone talk about Spot On with our customers, turning in tokens for prizes, fun dog "treats" to go along with the Kick Off (have you heard of Puppy Chow? it's really a people snack made of cereal, chocolate and peanut butter- YUM). We often get more attention when there's food around an event!
 
We're finding Spot to be very accommodating to our needs, our suite, and as a great complement to an existing program. I'll let you know how the Kick Off goes next week!

Brenda and her dachshund, Teddy Bear.

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Brenda has been a Baudvillian (a.k.a. Baudville employee) for over seven years and is currently the Customer Service Supervisor at Baudville. Her two favorite dogs are her overweight dachshund, Teddy Bear, and Spot (naturally!). She regularly blogs about her experience implementing the Spot On recognition program in the Baudville sales suite.