The 2020 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament was a planned single-elimination tournament of 68 teams to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2019–20 season. On March 12, 2020, the tournament was canceled in order to mitigate the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

It was the first time that the tournament had been canceled since its creation in 1939.

On March 11, 2020, the NCAA announced the entire tournament, like the women's, would be conducted with "only essential staff and limited family attendance" due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Some venues (such as those within the states of Ohio and California) enacted further local numerical restrictions on the numbers of those who could attend an event, which the NCAA agreed to respect.

It was also reported that for practicality reasons, the NCAA was considering re-locating some of the later rounds (including the regional finals, and the Final Four, originally scheduled to be held at the 71,000-seat Mercedes-Benz Stadium) to smaller venues within the same host cities.On March 12, the NCAA announced the tournament would be cancelled, along with all remaining winter and spring championships. Source: Wikipedia

Should You Worry About Employee Engagement During March Madness?

Employee engagement and productivity do not have to come to a grinding halt because there is college basketball on that day. An engaged employee is consistently engaged because the organization has created a culture of engagement and recognition. What should be assumed is that an engaged employee who’s ducking out a few hours early to watch his underdog alma mater crush their top-ranked rival worked extra hard, and without interruptions, before doing so. The employees that you should be worrying about are the actively disengaged employees in January, and July, and October.

The Importance of Employee Recognition

There are few things in the corporate world that I would consider “fun.” Most days are chock full of meetings, conference calls, and emails. However, recognizing your employees for achieving a service award milestone, is one of those things that should be a highlight of your day. It should be a chance for you to take a moment to show sincere appreciation for all your employees do for you and your organization. What is unfortunate is that many organizations have not created a strategic employee service award program that creates a culture of recognition within the workplace. By not providing employee recognition training, and not having a formal process in place, many times what should be a fun experience for all, is looked at as more of a burden or waste of time & money.

A quick story. I worked at an organization for about 5½ years right out of college. On the anniversary of my 5 years of service, I received an envelope on my desk with no explanation, my name misspelled, and a small coffee stain on the right corner. I honestly thought I was getting fired in the most inappropriate way I could imagine. As I cautiously opened the envelope I saw a letter from the CEO thanking me for 5 years of service and a small catalog of awards to choose from. The catalog consisted of 5 branded trinkets ranging from a stress ball to a hat. To top it off, it was going to take nearly 4 weeks for me to get the hat. I left the office that day feeling less appreciated than I did the day before. I felt defeated and unappreciated for the 5 years and countless hours of overtime I had given that company.

So, the point of the story is, just because your company has a Service Award Program, doesn’t mean that it is well-structured, nor that it is having the impact on your employees that you believe that it is. In fact, it could be doing more harm than good.

I didn’t expect my last post of 2018 to be about an old football game. And I guess, in many ways, it’s not.  

It’s about underdogs achieving the impossible. It’s about identifying what it takes to be successful and then doing it. It’s about what defines us, as a company and as people. And for C.A. Short Company, it’s all about our incredible employees and customers.

We’ll get into all of that a bit later. But first, football.

When it comes to identifying the benefits of employee engagement, there’s certainly no shortage of information. There are hundreds of studies, thousands of blogs, and millions of search results dedicated to the topic. You can easily discover how employee engagement decreases turnover, improves staff morale, and reduces safety incidents.

What you might struggle to find, however, is detailed information on how to measure your employees’ engagement impact on your firm’s overall productivity. We’re going to change that with today’s article!

Join us as we take a closer look at how small improvements in employee engagement can lead to big changes in productivity.

The other day, I was struck by an article I saw in The Wall Street Journal. As someone who has worked in the employee engagement, recognition, and safety industry for the last 25 years, seeing a title like The Rare Workers Who Thrive on Negative Feedback struck a chord with me.

It got me thinking about why so many companies today struggle to deliver quality feedback to their employees. Today’s article will take a closer look at why “negative” feedback is so important, as well as five ways you can make the greatest possible impact when communicating with your employees.

Earlier this year we met internally to talk about how we see our role in safety incentives in the workplace. And the one thing we all kept coming back to is that we are "all-in" on helping organizations build a culture of safety that drives increased performance and job loyalty.

That's why we took our OSHA-Compliant Safety Incentive Program to the next level by partnering with ProcessMAP, the industry's leading data intelligence cloud platform for Risk, Health, and Safety Management.

If an organization's culture produces a high turnover rate, the result is excessive recruitment and training costs. Research shows that employers spend up to 30 percent of the average employee annual salary for each turnover.

This means for every position that pays $10 an hour, it could cost around $3,000 to hire and train someone new. TweetThis!

Fines are on the rise, an agency is on a mission, and a landmark court decision is shaking everything up. What does all this mean for you? If OSHA® determines your business is a “repeat violator,” it could cost you an enormous amount in fines – regardless of when the violations occurred.

When it comes to a safety incentive program, what KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) should we be following? Choosing the right KPIs will rely on a good understanding of what is important to the organization and the defined strategy of the organization. A KPI is a metric that is tied to a target and represents where you are compared to where you would like to reside.

The S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Standard

In defining your organization’s KPIs, it is important to remember the S.M.A.R.T Rule that defines the 5 conditions of a good KPI. But according to the KPI Library, GREAT Key Performance Indicators need to follow the S.M.A.R.T.E.R standard to truly be valued.

OSHA®, the regulatory agency whose mission it is to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for U.S. employees, finds itself back in the news this month. This time it isn’t due to mandatory penalty increases or the fact that the bureau is still awaiting the approval of a new chief. Instead, it’s about the recent increase in inspections, despite the fact that there are notably fewer inspectors on the ground.