126. Redefining Employee Recognition

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello Craig.

Speaker 2: 0:05

I can't do that voice. I just left it dead air because I knew you'd respond.

Speaker 1: 0:10

I'm not great at just sitting in still air. You know I got to do something. I got to say something. I know it's weird when people just look at each other, stare in the eyes like who's going to do something. Are you going to do something or am I going?

Speaker 2: 0:23

to do something. It's weird, fun fact, it's actually easier for me to put in the intro music when we do the ramble than it is when we don't, because then I have to move all the tracks to the right and then I have to sync up the welcome back to corporate strategy thing with the music and it's. It's just harder, it's better when we do this I like it.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Do you remember back in the day when we had you the claps yeah, the ogs who listen to this podcast? No, because we snuck a few in there and shouldn't have. We used to have like these sync these claps to get everything to sync up perfectly. It was a whole mess before we moved to discord for everything you know that.

Speaker 2: 0:58

That reminds me actually, like you know, our theme music. We've been using it for a long time. Uh, julian avila is the the creator. You know we just pulled it from a kind of person who shares their music. We credit in the show notes. But like I'm totally open to changing the song if any of our listeners are musically inclined or like know someone who wants their, their song on the pod. You already know our vibe. I agree, we made it. You know, like that wouldn't be awesome. We can make the change, but you know that's the best side.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Welcome back to Corporate Strategy, the podcast. That could have been an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and it's been a long week. I got a case of the thank F. It's Fridays right now. You know what I'm saying, although they're going to hear this on Monday, so it doesn't really matter. Yikes, well, I'm just mellow.

Speaker 1: 1:46

monday just, I'm just suffering an outage. Yeah, you're, you're suffering I'm an out, I'm in an outage. Are you in an outage? You are an outage. That's how I feel. What if I could just be an outage to the world?

Speaker 2: 2:01

yeah, no, I mean, this is big news for today, like we're recording this on the day of the big out and oh, what a morning. It was funny because when I my wife was the one who brought it up to me she's like have you heard of this company called crowd strike? And I'm like have I? I?

Speaker 1: 2:17

know people that work there.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Uh, I've even I want them to be partners of of my company, but that's neither here nor there. That's's a, that's a Bruce project, the. The outage obviously that has happened is CrowdStrike pushed a software update and it has just knocked out healthcare, fintech, airplanes, like everything, cause everyone uses it, crowdstrike, and, like you know, I'm not going to insult them. I think they're the best in the market at being an antivirus software. Like they're really, really good, and you and I used to work for an antivirus company, clark, so like we know what good is and I do think CrowdStrike is the best. But I agree the message of always test before you update.

Speaker 1: 3:02

Yeah, it couldn't be more true right here. Yeah, I, my vibe check is thank god I'm not these guys.

Speaker 2: 3:08

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about talk about, like you know, I'm just thank god it's friday, they're just like well, our weekend is gone.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Yeah, they don't know the weekend no, it's like weeks, because this is so big and even in we've got consumer-facing and obviously business-facing applications and our apps were affected. We literally started seeing issues because we rely on, I think, some Azure services through Microsoft and we started seeing issues and we're like, what is going on? It's got to be something on our side. And like an hour after that, we start seeing like the reports of the outage and we're like, oh crap, this is a huge issue. This is not just us, this is everybody.

Speaker 2: 3:48

So here's what's scary is the Azure issue is not related to the CrowdStrike issue, as far as I know. Oh good, totally separate. I had lunch with a gentleman who works with VMware soon to be Broadcom and was giving me a little bit of the scoop-de-dupe. It's bit of the scoop de dupe, it's. Uh, they're separate issues, which is more frightening. Yes, two major business critical components the antivirus and the, the freaking cloud services that 50 of the world use, go down on the same morning, holy insane, insane.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Okay, wait, so was office 365. Was that related to the crowdStrike issue?

Speaker 2: 4:25

No, I believe Because it was 2.0.2. Yeah, oh is it down.

Speaker 1: 4:29

It was. I think it's back up, but it was last night.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Office 365, it can suck it, you know, like jeez your platform.

Speaker 1: 4:37

Holy cow, bill Gates is having an awful vibe check right now. Sorry, billy Boy.

Speaker 2: 4:45

He's invested, but he's not responsible that's satya. Nadal is their ceo now I wonder how much building cares. You know, with him.

Speaker 1: 4:48

I I always do. Under that it's like once you step away, I mean there's got to be a thing like it's your baby. If you raise this child from the ground up and you put it out in the world and you step away because it's its own functioning adult, now there's no way you don't see your child on the, on the news and a mugshot comes up and you're not like feeling it a little bit in your heart. You know what?

Speaker 2: 5:11

I mean for for reasons undisclosed. I really like this analogy, and that's all I'll say oh, there might have been some deep-rooted truth in there.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Maybe some news hits. It was good it was good.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Yeah, I mean, this is just crazy from the fact that and I had a massage this morning because I have this really bad oh good for you twitch in my trap. So I have it worked on every three weeks and my masseuse, who's not technical at all, like heard about this and she was asking me because she knows I work in tech. And she was asking me, she knows I work in tech. And I was basically like it's really bad and I hate technology. Our society is so wrapped up in these corporations that and we have a lot of reason to be concerned about the outcome either way it goes. But at the same time, like corporations run everything, like who are we kidding? It doesn't matter who wins anymore, the corps have already won. We are like in cyberpunk 2024. Like we're just vastly approaching this. Corporations can determine the fate of the human race and, when they fail, of the human race and when they fail the human race fails.

Speaker 1: 6:27

So, oh yeah, good time to be. A lot of scenes. Who do you think's funding all those campaigns and, like you know, making the huge pushes in the political direction too. It's a little scary to think about that, but I agree.

Speaker 2: 6:37

Capitol musk openly announcing he's donating 25 million to the trump foundation every month up to the election. Like that's huge, that is huge, Right, Absolutely, you know. We want to say, like you know, we're America, United States of America, land of the free home of the brave America. Like.

Speaker 2: 6:55

America rocking your head right now and you have a bandana on playing the guitar, raising the flag you know, like that's us right, but at the same time, like is America really the land of the free and the home of the brave if everything is decided by the almighty dollar?

Speaker 1: 7:13

Now, those are questions on a Friday. I don't want to ask.

Speaker 2: 7:17

I don't really want the answers either, because I don't think I'm going to like what I'm going to hear.

Speaker 1: 7:21

Yeah, there's like that ignorance is bliss moment and for those types of things that happened way above our pay grade and are you know where we are in terms of life and world, like those things I just don't want to know. I think my life would be worse if I did well, yes, outage man yeah, this is just insane.

Speaker 1: 7:39

So, yeah, this has got to be one of the biggest outages of all time. Yeah, it could be at least in a long, long time. And yeah, so much so that I know some people who work in the airline industry and they were like, yeah, we basically had to cancel all of our flights. And I know people who are traveling for business, that are in my day job, and they're like I got stuck, everything got canceled. And the crazy thing is, it's such an airline thing, travel sucks sometimes. Everything got canceled and the crazy thing is, it's such an airline thing, travel sucks sometimes. Yeah, they didn't really cancel the flights until like midnight, so everybody's just waiting there for hours and hours and hours once the outage happened and they're like, okay, are we going to like get on this flight? And then they just decided to cancel them all at midnight when they realized there's no way we're recovering from this.

Speaker 2: 8:20

Can you believe we bailed out this industry. Like our tax dollars, all of our tax dollars went to help this industry when, oh no, I got the covid, oh, I can't sustain myself because I don't know how to finance. Like, we help these people, I don't even want to call them. We help these companies, these billion dollar companies. And a little outage, you didn't have redundancy Like come on.

Speaker 1: 8:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:45

What's your money going towards?

Speaker 1: 8:47

It's absolutely insane. And also just the recovery on the Twitter, on the X, on the Reddit, whatever. I hate everything that this has caused, those poor system administrators who are like, oh man, we have to go in and update every single or rollback or recover whatever. It is every single one of these servers that has now just been absolutely demolished by this update. If you're a sysadmin out there, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Well, on the one hand, job security that's the whole point of our podcast is how do you make the most of your corporate situation? Hey, you've got employment for years now. Because of this, like, hey, we gotta, we one, we gotta up our redundancy, we gotta up our resiliency. Um, you know, one app goes down, everything go down. That's not good. We got a budget for that. So congratulations, you just earned some self-value and self-worth, as long as you don't work at crowdstrike but like geez.

Speaker 1: 9:43

That was a really interesting time, if you're a corporate employee, to offer up solutions and it could make you look really good in the eyes of those grubby corporate overlords. Just saying you get ideas on how you can protect your organization in the future or put together a plan and you start proposing that could be really good for climbing that ladder.

Speaker 2: 10:05

I'm going to quote the marketing from the recently released as of today movie Twisters. You don't face your fears, you ride them. I like that.

Speaker 1: 10:16

Ride or die, ride or die baby America. Our European listeners are just like oh man, can this end.

Speaker 2: 10:27

I feel like the European listeners might just listen to this podcast to see like it's almost like an effort of gratitude, right like I want to hear how painful the american corporate life is, so I could be a little more grateful for what we've got going on over here it's just all about context.

Speaker 1: 10:42

It's like, okay, grass is not greener over there. Obviously I've been loving the president almost gets shot. Our windows, just all windows decides to get crashed because of cyber security, like what is going on here in america.

Speaker 2: 10:54

Yeah well, I think he said almost gets shot. He did get shot. He lost a quarter. You're right, you're absolutely right, but there is people that believe he was not shot or are putting out the theory that he was not shot. I don't know. I don't even believe anymore. But yeah, what a time to be alive. What a time to be alive.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Hey, I do want to shout out our European listeners, because one the conversation this week about management training has been great and I love the European angle there. It's so good. If you're not in our Discord show notes link tree, get in there, it's. It's a good. It's a good time. I also want to shout out squid boy, yes. Frequent content contributor, guest on the show. Just discord maniac, we love. Squid boy landed a promotion in this tumultuous time. Way to go, squid boy, congratulations. That's the best news of the year so big, big, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:43

That is incredible. So happy that that happened for you. I know there was some turmoil happening, I think, in the organization before, based on previous comments, so it's awesome to hear that things have turned around, and it's always great to hear when an organization decides to recognize someone for what they do, totally unexpected and out of cycle, and that actually is something I was hoping we could talk about today for our topic.

Speaker 2: 12:10

Oh snap, well, before we do, I just want to point out the interesting irony of Squidboy, a cybersecurity expert, promoting or posting about his promotion at the same time that CrowdStrike went down. Coincidence, I don't know? But let's get into our topic.

Speaker 1: 12:22

There's a really interesting parallel. We know it wasn't you squid boy, maybe, or do we? Maybe that was like the bribe. Is that you guys give me a raise? It better be what I want, or else I'm taking down the world let me show you what I can do.

Speaker 2: 12:39

Cracks, knuckles, fingers on keyboard by crowd strike get out your flippers, boys.

Speaker 1: 12:44

We're doing this. So, yeah, I wanted to take obviously crazy news and feel bad for you if you work at Microsoft or CrowdStrike or you're just a sysadmin that has to clean up the mess of what happened here. I know I have teams that were up pretty late last night making sure everything on our end was good to go and when things finally got back online, I know we had to make sure that everything was set and fresh. We were a lot of late hours Not a lot of sleep happened last night, but I wanted to take this to a positive angle for this pod to talk about. Based on Squidboy's example, what are other things that companies can proactively do that are not cringy to recognize and ultimately say thank you to the great performing employees?

Speaker 2: 13:38

Clark, it's super easy. You throw a pizza party into a podcast. Thanks guys, it's been great You're on mute. See you next week. Terrible topic. Yeah, hey guys, Friday we're going to have pizza in the break room. It's been great You're on mute.

Speaker 1: 13:44

See you next week. Terrible topic. Yeah, hey guys, Friday we're going to have pizza in the break room. There's going to be two flavors. So if you're vegan, sorry, that's it. That's it.

Speaker 2: 13:56

Is that all we can think about? That's all a company can do to recognize good work.

Speaker 1: 14:00

There's so many things like this that are just so cringy. I actually think some things my company does now are pretty interesting and good, so I thought I'd share some of those. You want to hear that, yeah, so, because some aren't bad, and then some are just useless and bad and boring, and so I wanted to talk about, like, what things could work, and then also some things that just suck and are really annoying, that we probably all face for sure, for sure do you want me to start? Do you have any ideas?

Speaker 2: 14:28

I mean. So the things that I see, what do you see? And you know this is deeply personal, I believe, because I think some people you know there's the love languages, clark yeah, I think there's also the accomplishment languages. Like some people and this ties deeply into CAC as well Some people do not care if you tell them they're doing a good job.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Not words of affirmation.

Speaker 2: 14:53

Right. They don't want words of affirmation, they want words of I'm paying you more money and that's all that you're ever going to be able to do to motivate them. But then there are some people who really like the spotlight. So you know my company and my previous company. I think every company I've worked at and every job I've had there's always been the we're going to give you shout outs on the all hands, recognize your work, put you up on a slide and say, hey, everyone at the company, this is what good looks like. Be like this person. And that can be super motivational. But I think it can also be demotivational, because there's one thing I know, it's what management sees is not always what fellow employees see, and there's been times when people have been recognized and I was like get out of here. Why?

Speaker 1: 15:37

I have certainly been part of that too. Like that name comes up or someone says I just am so thankful for this person and what they did and you're just like this person is the worst. They always slow us down, they always are just an alarmist or whatever, and they are not productive whatsoever. We end up always bypassing them.

Speaker 2: 15:54

So would you rather that person gets financially rewarded or rewarded in the all hands? And thank God we're not in the room anymore so I can at least turn off my camera and like make the disgusting vomit face?

Speaker 1: 16:06

I don't want that person to be recognized at all.

Speaker 2: 16:10

So what can you do, clark, I feel like you've got a better lead on this.

Speaker 1: 16:13

Yeah, yeah, I mean what you said is it's really interesting, because when you think about a big corporate environment, you're not always going to be able to cater to every single person's love language. If you will, your corporate love language, or how you feel valued and honored and so on, and also you can't just go willy nilly giving everybody bonuses. I guess not just always how it works. I think it's a balance of all those things and maybe that's why it's so cringy Now that I'm kind of thinking about it, because some people might be really happy about it and some people might just be like, okay, like this kind of sucks, I didn't care about that, so be really happy about it. And some people might just be like, okay, like this kind of sucks, I didn't care about that. So maybe that's why there needs to be multiple efforts to try to like cover the realm of all those love languages. So let's talk about it. I know like the pizza party is such like the stereotypical thing it's like man great job on the release guys.

Speaker 1: 17:04

You stayed up all all night last night. You did such a good job. We're buying pizza today and like yeah, so cringe, and it's.

Speaker 1: 17:14

It's because it's like, man, you just forced all these people to spend time away from their family, to work additional hours, probably going to overtime, and everything like that. Most of these people are salaried, probably in this case, and you're just throwing them a pizza party which just sucks. So how do you recognize those people in a way that will feel valuable, or should you at all? I guess it's kind of the question I had, because that's maybe it's just an expectation of the job, that that's going to happen sometimes and that's just your duty.

Speaker 2: 17:44

So that's the question, right, like I think that's the real topic is do you do anything at all? Because everything requires budget, right, even the pizza party comes out of a budget somewhere. If you don't do the pizza party in the budget, then what does that money go to? Otherwise, right, if I was king for a day, I would say let's find ways that we can allow them to spend the budget in ways that are meaningful for them. Like hey, y'all busted your hump, you worked all night, you dealt with the CrowdStrike thing. We want to recognize you by buying you all new keyboards. Like go, expense a keyboard under $200 and, you know, chuck your own in the garbage, get whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 18:30

I love the idea of give them the autonomy to do it themselves. Don't do it for them.

Speaker 2: 18:36

Right, and every sysadmin worth their weight in gold is going to be like oh yeah, I want to go get a nice gaming keyboard with lights and all that crap. You're still buying something that's work-related. You're rewarding them to continue to work, but the autonomy part, that's huge and it's their choice. They get to go out and freedom choice they want.

Speaker 1: 18:54

Yep, you're not kind of prescribing it, man. That should just be the way. The way a lot of this works is hey, here's a 50 gift card, like you guys, go do whatever you want.

Speaker 2: 19:05

You know you can buy whatever you want with it it could be, you know, as simple as like hey, I just want to go out with my family. I haven't't seen them. All week I've been grinding in here sweating in the narc room doing this I was going to call it the narc room Doing all this work narcing out the Colombian drug dealers. But instead I'd like to take my daughter out for dinner. How meaningful would that be? Like, hey, this dinner was paid for by Big Corp. Drink up, daughter. It's yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:34

how meaningful, would that be like hey, this dinner was paid for by big corp. Drink up, daughter. It's great, drink up. How old is the starter? She's 12.

Speaker 1: 19:38

Okay, fair enough, she's old enough you start them while they're young you know I I like where you're going with this, though, is yeah, so many things are just kind of prescribed. Hey, you know, everyone's gonna get even if it is, you know, a 50 gift card, but you can only use it for these things. Or we're gonna throw a pizza party, or we're gonna do like an activity, we're all gonna go bowling, like something like that. I love the idea of just saying like hey, here's some options. Maybe that's really what's missing in all this is the people who decide, aren't the people who actually are having to reap that reward?

Speaker 2: 20:15

Maybe that's it, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's exactly that right. But here's the real question Does upper management want a pizza party, do they?

Speaker 1: 20:30

think they're going for steaks. They don't care about pizza, they're probably not going to show up to the celebration. Come on. It's almost an insult right Because they would never do that.

Speaker 2: 20:39

When upper management goes out to eat and I know because I'm upper management you go out for expensive food Period, you expense it and the company pays for it. When system administrators get rewarded rewarded they get pizza from dominoes down the street. Who knows how old that cheese is. It's determined by someone who's completely disconnected from the reward and the work and they think this is acceptable. Right, I think like the problem here is the disconnect in lifestyle of upper management and your individual contributors.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Right, yeah, the disconnect of lifestyle and then the fact that there's no choice. I think what always gets dangerous is like all right, each team kind of decides whatever you guys want to do, and then someone's always not going to be happy with that, right, because it's like, well, the group, the majority is going to decide, they end up going bowling. And then Bruce is like, well, the group the majority is going to decide, they end up going bowling. And then Bruce is like, well, my little fingies they get stuck in the holes.

Speaker 2: 21:35

I don't like to bowl. That's not real. I don't like that. You know that off the cuff.

Speaker 1: 21:39

I know I said that before.

Speaker 2: 21:40

Yeah, that's why I never went bowling in our previous outings. My fingers get stuck in the holes and they always get hurt.

Speaker 1: 21:48

I love that. I know you this well. That's incredible and the fact that I said fingies because I knew you were just thinking it.

Speaker 2: 21:53

Yeah, I mean my poor fingies. I got big thongs.

Speaker 1: 21:57

But I think that's the challenge, Like they always give it to the team, and then somebody's always not happy, you know, and so like there's still, there's autonomy from like a team level, but then there's not the ability to have the choice and each person could just be living different lifestyles in general where, to your point, some people just want an afternoon off. It's like maybe if you could give that the best of both worlds. Hey, bruce team, you guys did awesome. Here's a couple options for you guys. One, you can opt for a $50 gift card. Two, you can take an extra vacation day. Three, we can throw a pizza party or you can get a personal pan pizza delivered directly to you in your office. What if you got a menu of choices and they're like we're going to support whatever you want. Vote in the system, send it in and we're going to do it.

Speaker 2: 22:46

I don't think anyone wouldn't pick a Friday off. That's the problem. If you're taking a friday you get friday off, that's it done. You've just given me the best reward. In fact, for for many, that's probably better than money, is true? Hell yeah, give me that friday off, it's very true? Yeah, I mean that could be. I'm surprised it's actually taking us this long to get to the time off as an option, but honestly, the ultimate incentive is not working after you've worked really hard.

Speaker 1: 23:14

It's very true.

Speaker 2: 23:15

I mean if anything.

Speaker 1: 23:16

I hate to say this, but if you worked extra and I do this for my team I tell them I'm like, please head out early. And I literally one time had to sit with somebody and I was like, hey, what meetings do you have this afternoon? Because they weren't going to sign off early. And I'm like, skip it. Tell them next week Like you worked all night last night, please do not attend a meeting this afternoon, Please take the time off. And so, oh, it just feels so inhumane to be like, yeah, we're going to give you an extra day off. It's like no, no, no, you just worked extra this week.

Speaker 2: 23:48

It is funny, you give hours but you don't get them back. Yep, and I get. That's the whole point of a salaried position, but the idea, you know, it's the idea of the thing.

Speaker 1: 23:59

So let's make a tier list.

Speaker 2: 24:01

Let's do what the pro gamers do and let's make a tier list. S tier S tier Time off, work cold hard cash, that's.

Speaker 1: 24:12

S tier. You think, think so, you think cash is up there, it. I think cash all depends on the amount. That's true if it's like 25 bucks. I'm like the garbage I don't want that, I'll just work man like really 25 bucks, are you kidding?

Speaker 2: 24:29

I want to have to pay taxes on it.

Speaker 1: 24:30

That's the kind of money I want, you know yeah yeah, you know, if it's like a hundred dollar gift card, then I'm like, okay, right, you know, a hundred dollars that could be worth something. It was prime day. The other day I get a couple things. Oh, don't, don't even know, sorry, I know, I know, I know, I'm sorry, I know you hate them.

Speaker 2: 24:47

I didn't mean to go there. We't need to make a holiday about spending at the largest corporation in America. We don't need to do that, but we did.

Speaker 1: 24:56

Oh, we already had a few of those Christmas, valentine's Day. I can name a few more if you want, anyway does anything else fit in the S?

Speaker 2: 25:02

tier? Anything else?

Speaker 1: 25:04

Yeah, time off work. Axable money? Yeah, because both those things are independent, I can be on my own and I can just enjoy it and it's. It's an acknowledgement of time spent, time served and time recuperated yes, yeah, I agree, I think those got to be s tier yeah, a tier oh man, this is getting tough. I mean because, like, what else is there?

Speaker 2: 25:33

you can do the acknowledgments in all hands your shout out in your slack channel.

Speaker 1: 25:39

That doesn't feel like no, if you're really like desperate for that validation, or maybe just words of affirmation is your thing and it's not bruce rise thing. Maybe we've been shouted at enough, bruce, maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's up there, I mean a whole company town hall, your face up there smiling bright, talking about how great you are. That could be nice. That could be A tier.

Speaker 2: 26:05

I just feel like that's still, that's gross to me. A tier. I'm thinking like it's like the keyboard, you know, yeah, but that's not like a I'm just even thinking about like that wouldn't be a choice in an email.

Speaker 1: 26:18

Hey, choose this. Do you want to be recognized? Like that just feels so cringe, I know no-transcript. Oh, I hate that so much.

Speaker 2: 26:39

Okay, I mean, is there anything A tier, or should we just skip to B?

Speaker 1: 26:42

I know that's what I'm kind of thinking. I'm like, is there anything A tier that you can go with?

Speaker 2: 26:49

A Chili's gift card.

Speaker 1: 26:51

Don't you half off apps me boy. I swear Like a team lunch option. Yeah, do you hate that?

Speaker 2: 27:02

I, I'm okay with that If the team gets to choose together each team gets to choose.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Hey, manager, you got this budget for your team. It's 50 bucks ahead, or whatever it is. You guys go. Yeah, drinks included, dessert, whatever. It's 50 bucks a head. You guys go out and you get lunch whenever you want you guys go. I like that. I think that could be A tier. I like going with my team. Yeah, I think that'd be fun.

Speaker 2: 27:26

I agree, I think that'd be fun. I agree, I think, unless you hate your team, that's an A-tier reward.

Speaker 1: 27:32

Yeah, I think forcing an activity can't be A-tier, because no one's going to be happy. Everyone's always going to be upset with an activity.

Speaker 2: 27:42

Right Like bowling going to an arcade. These things appeal to certain individuals, but not all, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Even at home a mixology event where they like send you a kid and you're like you're mixed. Really somebody's gonna hate that. Yeah, you know. Yeah, there you go, okay. So I think that's a good one for for the beats here yeah, an event not in your choice it's, it's a. It's a lunch, everybody's got to eat. You know I mean. It's a lunch, everybody's got to eat. You know what I mean it's got to be up there.

Speaker 1: 28:13

Everyone's got to eat. I think it's A tier. It's up there and then yeah, b is like an event Activity, optional activity. It should be optional. If it's a forced activity, then it becomes C tier instantly.

Speaker 2: 28:28

Instantly, you have to come bowl with us. If you're not bowling, this will be reflected on your performance review.

Speaker 1: 28:34

It's everyone comes or we don't get it at all. So you're either going to bowl or everybody suffers, Bruce. Yeah, no yeah no C-tier Gift cards that they give you dollars to reward, but it's a special store that you can only get like branded stuff your company put on there. You know what I'm talking about right, oh, I know what you're talking about it's like a mug with our company's name on it and you're like I don't company swag store yeah, the company swag store. Like a gift card to that yeah, oh, that's so.

Speaker 1: 29:10

That's so bad.

Speaker 2: 29:12

But it's a Yeti mug. Yeah, it's a Yeti mug. That reminds me how miserable I am every day. Thanks, is there an?

Speaker 1: 29:19

option to not have the logo. No logo on it. Is that possible? No, usually those are pretty bad.

Speaker 2: 29:26

They are, they absolutely are. It's garbage, it's trash material.

Speaker 1: 29:32

D tier, d tier, d tier. What's lowest tier again?

Speaker 2: 29:37

I mean, we can go all the way to Z if you want, but I think half of it will stop.

Speaker 1: 29:43

Maybe we skip E and we just go straight to F, d tier, though I think Pizza Party's getting to D. I don't know if it's the last. Maybe it's the last. What do you think?

Speaker 2: 29:56

I don't think it's the last. I think the last is the recognition based on the slide recognition. Yeah, that's F tier. For me, pizza parties D tier, because you know you still get, like most people like pizza. It's just an absolute slap in the face.

Speaker 1: 30:13

Yeah, you get to have like a social event, you know, so it's not bad. You get the team together. Yeah, it's not too awful.

Speaker 2: 30:22

It's not awful, but it's just the lowest amount of monetary reward for effort. I think you can do.

Speaker 1: 30:29

Yeah, absolutely. It's like yeah, the Hungry Howie's $5 pizzas. We got you three. Thanks for staying up all last night.

Speaker 2: 30:35

Yeah, the diarrhea that comes with it is also free, so you know yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:40

If anything, you should just take a sick day after you eat that and be like you guys did this to me.

Speaker 2: 30:44

Those are my hours. Guys did this to me when you made me hungry, howies. You should have known there was going to be consequences and your feedback report.

Speaker 1: 30:53

For that year I had to take extra sick days because the company forced me to do a team pizza party and it made my bowels just explode I had to hire a maid and it cost me more money.

Speaker 1: 31:08

Oh, I'm dying, that's incredible, oh man, yeah. And then after it's got to be shout out, shout outs, shout outs. Maybe, like the town hall isn't that bad, like shouting out a whole entire team, like that's a nice thing, you know. But like you know what I hate the recognition platforms like we can celebrate like you mentioned in slack, right?

Speaker 2: 31:33

yeah, I was gonna say like below f tier, we're talking like x tier. Do you remember the applause wow award clark? Oh yeah, I do. That's the worst. That's the worst. So, for context for our listeners, clark and I worked at a company where there was a recognition platform and you could say this person deserves a 25 gift card, 50 gift card, 100 gift card and obviously the more monetary increase you suggested, the higher up it had to go to get approved. But there was a level that required no approval and it was the round of applause where you would literally go into the platform type in someone's name, say they deserve a round of applause for actions performed, and they got an email saying congratulations, here's a round of applause, for you was not actually congratulating anybody, they were basically telling them to go F themselves. That's a belief of mine. That is not a reward, it was a slap in the face. It is the ultimate. Like I hate you. Please die.

Speaker 1: 32:38

Do you remember, though, didn't we, like we had that system at one point, where we were all just giving each other gift cards back and forth because there were no approvals?

Speaker 2: 32:46

There was a time when the $25 one did not require approvals, and as bad as we were we were nowhere near close to sales.

Speaker 2: 32:53

Sales is why I disliked that they had a chain going. They had an actual chain. So, like they written it down, they planned it out. So, like you know, tina would give it to Jerry, and Jerry would give it to Matthew, and Matthew give it to Jonathan. Jonathan, it's a giant circle. It's so funny they were getting thousands of dollars off these $25 rewards because the circle works. I'm just saying it's like a giant human centipede of monetary rewards.

Speaker 1: 33:21

I love that. It was so funny. There'd be days where we'd walk into the office and be like, hey, you held the elevator for me, giving you an applause award.

Speaker 2: 33:28

it's $25 it was so ambiguous because you could say, yeah, they went above and beyond. You know, their attitude and motivation was just outstanding. What they actually did was they didn't talk to me today, and I really appreciated that.

Speaker 1: 33:44

So for that $25 to you, jerry, thanks oh, that was so good, man, the good old days. Yeah, that one's gonna be like low, low, low on the list, like if there's a word and you can game it, then yeah, please game it, but it's still a bad one. It's like because eventually just turns to noise, like we talked about in our last episode, it just it all kind of blends in, like we have a whole like applause recognition system right now. I've never used it. No, people have probably said stuff about me and it never acknowledged it. Just because it's it's just doing your job, it's simple things, and there's so much noise in that channel. I'm like I'm not, I'm not going to participate in this this means nothing.

Speaker 2: 34:23

We, we have a shout outs channel and, uh, I'm sure some people I work with have noticed that, like I don't, I don't participate there very much, and just the reason is is, like I, a lot of the shout outs are just for doing your job, and I don't think you deserve a shout out for doing your job. You deserve a shout out for going above and beyond. And, like I do, I do believe when, when you make something that's so LinkedIn, plain Janeane you've kind of ruined it for everybody, because now it means nothing, because, like, if I get a shout out because I did go above and beyond.

Speaker 2: 34:53

But then I see the person right next to me is like you get a shout out for showing up to work today. It's like, well, this means nothing, right? This is a waste of all of our time. So I've got to be careful with those things. I think they can be great, but they have to be. There has to be rules set in place, right 100.

Speaker 1: 35:10

Agree, yeah, that's a pretty good tier list. I know like back in the day used to be like parking, like get a parking spot closer to the door. Yeah, you can't do that with remote work. Doesn't really matter anymore. You know, no one really cares yeah trying to think of like other recognitions. I think we hit a lot of like the main ones that corporations do yeah, I mean some of them do like inclusive vacations, all inclusive vacations, where it's like we're going to Hawaii but then someone's not gonna be happy with that.

Speaker 2: 35:35

Well, I was going to be like sales gets to go to club at a lot of places and that's a big deal, right? Like that's the issue yeah, but it's supposed to be like a recognition event because, like all, sales yeah, fair ceo's like an event your hand and spitting your drink like it's supposed to be a good time oh, sounds great.

Speaker 1: 36:08

You just make it sound so appealing yeah I agree. I agree like that's actually not not too bad. It's like if the company has, you know, some sort of in-person recognition event or they give you, like, the ability to go to a conference, like, hey, you guys did so great, we're all going to give you, you know, passes to go to this conference this year that we know you're excited about, that could be a good one that's an eight tier.

Speaker 2: 36:32

I'd put that under eight tier. Yeah, I put that on eight. Beneficial for the company but also you get out of doing your job for a week, you get to travel somewhere, you get to go learn something you know, get some free meals like that's a good one I do.

Speaker 1: 36:42

Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah, I paid for, like the travel optional. You know, if you want to go, go. If you don't, it's cool, but at least you got the option to do so. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:51

I like that, and you know, if everyone else goes except for you, you've got an easy week ahead of you, that's very true.

Speaker 1: 36:56

Your whole team's going to be gone.

Speaker 2: 36:58

Yeah, you can just say oh yeah, system's I like that.

Speaker 1: 37:05

I'm trying to think if there's any more. I think those are all the really good ones. I think the moral of the story is like corporations just do this so wrong and it's because of they assume everybody kind of fits into a box of recognition, and I think what we've untitled today. It's like it comes down to love languages and what you appreciate, what you appreciate, and really the best solution is give the power of autonomy and choice and have some options so that people can get what they want. That'll make them feel valued. Otherwise you're likely going to do something cringy and everyone's going to hate it yep, I think that's.

Speaker 2: 37:40

The thing is that you unfortunately this comes from the top and the top does not listen to this podcast, but you have to respect the intelligence and attitudes of your employees. That's what this comes down to is like understanding the people that work for you and, unfortunately, a lot of times they don't yep, I agree, I think we did it it was a late one. It was a late one that would be fun I liked it that I'm surprised we've never talked about this before. That would be fun. I liked it.

Speaker 1: 38:08

I'm surprised we've never talked about this before. We've always talked about how crazy yeah, how many episodes are we in.

Speaker 2: 38:11

now we're at 126, 127? At 127 episodes, we've never talked about the corporate reward structure, which is wild to me. That is wild, yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:23

Well, cool, bless you, we did it All right, I'll see you guys. Later Pizza parties here. Bless you. We did it All right, I'll see you guys, later Pizza parties.

Speaker 2: 38:28

Here we go Peace.

Speaker 1: 38:29

We do need to play a game. We do need to play a game.

Speaker 2: 38:31

Every week. What's it called Clark what?

Speaker 1: 38:33

do you mean? How do you play On this one? I am so excited about this one because it's not me, it's you and there are some bangers. So, yeah, what do you mean? A game where we have a Discord channel. Get in on the fun. Go to the Discord and we do awesome radio. We explain a meme in words out of our mouth holes for you to absorb through your ear holes and be able to try and visualize for yourself. And that's why you got to join the Discord so you can see the real thing after we try to explain it with our mouths.

Speaker 2: 39:04

Yes, so this week we actually got two. One came from individual contributor, one from chief pod topic officer, squid boy, and they're both bangers. Fortunately, I'm glad I prepared because, uh, these ones are intense. So, individual contributor posted one.

Speaker 2: 39:22

This is. This is a. This is a video, so I had to describe an entire video. I'm glad I watched it beforehand, otherwise it'd be kind of rough right now. But it showcases an individual in olden times. Olden times, you know, let's say the times when kings pulled swords from stones, let's say. And what starts off as a pretty, you know, saturday night game show type trial. He's moving across this sort of rickety platform, dodging these leather things that are trying to whack him, knock him off the platform into the water. And then suddenly the game changes and he's trying to move through swords, knives, floating axes, things that would kill him in one hit had he been hit, and I just. The entire clip is bonkers, because why did it have to escalate so quickly?

Speaker 1: 40:06

It seemed wholesome fine at first, but then it got bad and the caption is ace interviews with this one weird trick, which I just love it's almost like you could put this, too for like a project that's starting off where, like it starts off so easy, and then you're like, oh crap. Like you hook up to the mountain and you're like we haven't even started here.

Speaker 2: 40:26

This clip uh, this clip is every project I've ever worked on. It's so true, so true.

Speaker 1: 40:32

It's the second. An executive says this should be an easy upgrade, right.

Speaker 2: 40:38

Crowdstrike RIP. That's when the metal spikes come out of the walls. The second meme, which is not a video video, but it's somehow more difficult to describe imagine, if you will clark, a young lad, a young toe-headed boy, nom it on some pizza. But it's not just a slice of pizza, it's an entire pie, and he's somehow managed to chomp his way into making this entire personal pan pie into a ring of Saturn that is around his head. He's just chomping around the center of this pizza as if he were like a squirrel chewing through a watermelon lost in the sauce, avoiding the crust at all cost. Do you like that? It's pretty good, right.

Speaker 2: 41:25

That was actually really good, that was great I could write an album, but this isn't the only thing we see in this image. In fact, below it is what looks to be a world-renowned chef, someone who might take two slices of bread, put them on your head, call you an idiot sandwich Holding what also looks to be a camouflaged sniper rifle. I can only assume he's drawn a target on this little young toe-headed lab creating the ring of Saturn pizza around his head. What does this all mean? In regards to our previous episodes, I think it's if you're going to give your staff a pizza party, don't be surprised when they take it out on you and turn into a giant planet.

Speaker 1: 42:10

Oh, round of applause. Incredible job that went so good Like I've never seen this. But the fact that it's Gordon Ramsey is loading up.

Speaker 2: 42:21

This is a position for a child. If you've ever thought should I get in the Discord? Should I join? Are these people sane and sound of mind? The answer is no, but you should get in the Discord because you will not see this image anywhere else. I promise you Join the Discord. Check out the what Do you Meme channel. It's so good. It just keeps getting better, all you. And to do that, all you have to do is go to our show notes, go into the link tree. Your show notes are the thing that you know are attached to the audio you're listening to right now. You can get there.

Speaker 2: 42:56

I promise, I swear it's so, it's so easy so easy if you're on apple, if you're on spotify, if you're anywhere, just go into those show notes, click on that link tree and you can find all things. Corporate strategy. It's all there, right for you, right for the picking. You can also go to our website, corporatestrategybiz. It's a great place. Apparently, the episodes work now.

Speaker 1: 43:13

They do. Automation's working Until LinkedIn changes something we're live, yes.

Speaker 2: 43:18

We have a shop. You can buy corporate strategy swag there, but you can't because it doesn't work right now, but it'll get fixed. I reached out to the customer support. They told me what to do. So, yeah, check out our link tree, get in there, get all the good things.

Speaker 2: 43:35

We appreciate you, we love you and, most importantly, share this podcast. Please, please, please, do we always save this for the end, after people have turned it off and deleted the episode, so they never have to think about it again. But sharing this with your friends is probably the most important thing you can do. We get good downloads, but we could get more, and the only way we can do that is through you. We don't market. We don't put things out there for the world to see. It's truly word of mouth and SEO, and you can make this better. So give us a nice review. Share us with your friends, please do. Thank you and thank you for listening. That's all we got for this week. Remember, don't get caught in the crosshairs when you're a pizza-headed boy. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll see you next week.