About a year after Greg Cook joined Prominence Advisors as director of analytics, he received an espresso machine at his doorstep.
The company had recently gone live with a new revenue cycle analytics application, pulling together different sources into a single application to allow clients to more consistently report on their financials during organizational transitions. Cook had done a lot of work staying up late at night to see the project to completion. At the quarterly company meeting, he was recognized for his efforts and then he received the espresso machine with a personal note.
“The note attached with it is something I value pretty highly, and the fact that they knew that I really like coffee, so the gift was tailored to what I like,” says Cook, who lives in the Netherlands.
The top reason most Americans leave their jobs is that they don’t feel appreciated, according to Gallup research. Indeed, companies with strategic recognition channels reported a 23.4 percent lower turnover rate than companies with no recognition program, a 2012 SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey shows.
A completely virtual company that focuses on health care technology, Prominence Advisors was founded in 2011 by Chicago-based CEO Bobby Bacci. Last year, the company was recognized nationally as well as named the elite winner in the Chicago 101 Best and Brightest awards for the way it recognizes employee achievement.
Prominence has no formal awards program, and that is a strategic decision, Bacci says. It has to be more organic, more tailored to the individual being recognized, he notes.
Bacci set the bar to recognize employees when he created the company and had only a handful of folks working for him. He’d send a book after a meaningful conversation, or a basket of coffee for someone who really appreciates bean blends. The gestures meant a lot to his staff, Bacci says, and as the company grew, it was important to him to empower his managers to do the same.
Every Prominence manager has a budget for employee recognition – although Bacci says they can go beyond it if they need to. “I look to our managers to try to be creative to get to know our team members,” he says. “If somebody’s been working really hard and they haven’t been able to spend a lot of time with their kid, give them Friday afternoon off. If you know somebody eats peanut butter and English muffins every day, send them a case of peanut butter from Amazon. We hire really smart people so we give them the autonomy to do what they think is right.”
Because the company is completely remote, the team gathers four times a year, for work as well as for play, and there is always time reserved to shout-out to those who went the extra mile on a project.
“The most important thing to the success of our business is retaining our talent,” Bacci says. Prominence has had barely any turnover in its tenure, in fact – not even a handful of people have left, Cook attests.
In fact, when companies spend 1 percent of payroll on recognition, 85 percent see a positive impact on engagement, according to the 2012 SHRM/Globoforce Employee Recognition Survey.
“We look at rewarding and recognizing people as not being on a schedule,” Bacci says. “I think it’s more disheartening for folks doing hard work all year to only get rewarded or recognized at the end of the year. We try to keep a good pulse on the excellent things that people do and reward them more immediately to reinforce the behavior that makes our company successful.”
With nearly 40 employees, Prominence helps health care organizations digitize medical records and leverage data electronically. The company focuses on helping hospitals achieve better medical outcomes by using data strategically and efficiently, Bacci says.
After one employee demonstrated the Aeropress coffee maker to the team, Bacci bought the item for everyone at the end-of-year meeting. The company recognizes personal milestones like birthdays and anniversaries, moving to a new home and other important outside-of-work details.
The recognition goes both ways. Employees got together to give Bacci a gift certificate to the Trunk Club – “I guess it’s a sign that I needed a new wardrobe,” he jokes. Cook sent a basket of wine to a team member who excelled at a last-minute sales project. “She really likes wine,” Cook explains. “I told her to take an evening off and have a nice bottle of wine on us.”
“It’s permeated our culture quite a bit,” Bacci says. “You don’t need a formal program to make people feel the work they do is important. Get to know your employees. Make sure they know they’re appreciated.”
“Offering people something that is not monetary, something more tangible, they tend to appreciate it more because of the extra thought that goes into it,” Cook says.
Note: For more on Chicago-based Prominence Advisors, visit www.prominenceadvisors.com. Information on the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For program is available at www.101bestandbrightest.com.
