Dan Messerschmidt, JDS Industries
President, APA - Where Personalization Pros Connect

(September/October 2024) APA’s roots are carrots. Allow me to explain. APA   members have deep roots in corporate recog-nition. And in corporate recognition, the phrase “carrot and stick” describes the use of a mix of rewards (carrots) and punishments (sticks). You and I know that in the workplace, carrots are more effective motivators than sticks.

APA was founded in that belief. Sixty years ago, our association was started “when visionary Stan Seaman brought together 12 awards retailers and one supplier to form the Northern California Trophy Dealers Association,” APA’s website explains.

Our roots are in recognition, and that hasn’t changed as personalization has become our broader focus. Much of the personalization our member companies do today seeks to recognize greatness—whether it’s a traditional award for a top salesperson, a logoed polo to show an employee is part of an important corporate team, or a gift to express to the receiver how much they are valued.

Carrots motivate in the office, at school, and at home. Their use in the workplace is the subject of The Carrot Principle, a book written by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton. The book was written back in 2007, but the information in it is still very relevant.

The book’s promise to help employers “engage their people, retrain talent, and accelerate performance” is useful for any business owner, of course, but for APA members, I see this book as a way to understand corporate recognition programs and what they are trying to accomplish.

Corporate recognition is a huge market with deep pockets, and helping companies recognize their employees’ contributions can be very rewarding—both fiscally and emotionally.

Growing Corporate Sales
Reading The Carrot Principle can help you talk the talk when it comes to recognition programs: why they’re important, what makes them successful, and why employers should both use them and expand them.

With this knowledge, and as professional APA members, you are prepared to make calls to your current corporate customers to help them improve and grow their businesses. Further, you will have the tools, approach, and confidence to call on and land new corporate customers.

The book’s argument is one you’re likely to embrace: Recognition is key to unlocking employee potential and driving business success. Even better, the authors have data to prove their point. A 10-year study of 20,000 employees found a strong correlation between quality recognition programs and increased employee engagement, retention, and performance. Those increases can benefit companies’ bottom lines by decreasing costs while increasing profits.

Gostick and Elton emphasize the importance of:

• Frequent recognition
• Meaningful rewards
• Public recognition
• Personalized recognition

APA members are uniquely positioned to advise corporate clients on the best practices to create a culture of appreciation where employees feel valued and motivated to excel. The book outlines how a recognition culture is created, how to make recognition effective, and how to measure recognition’s impact.

For our industry, it’s a great road map you can use to create a sales approach that shows your corporate clients where they want to be while demonstrating your qualifications to take them there. 

The Rewards of Recognition
The Carrot Principle’s authors aren’t the only ones validating how much corporations benefit when they create a culture of recognition.

Gallup has evolved over the decades from a company that manages public opinion polls to one that analyzes and advises organizations around the world by utilizing insights it gains from, you guessed it, surveying real people.

The Gallup Employee Engagement Survey is the name in measuring employee engagement, and it does so in just 12 statements that employees indicate their agreement—or disagreement—with. With so few questions to measure engagement, each one is crucial to the employee experience. Question four explicitly says: “In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.”

Explaining the question’s inclusion, Gallup’s website says, “Employees who do not feel adequately recognized are twice as likely to say they’ll quit in the next year. … Globally, one in four employees strongly agree that they have received recognition or praise for doing good work in the last week. By moving that ratio to six in 10, organizations could realize a 28% improvement in quality, a 31% reduction in absenteeism and a 12% reduction in shrinkage.”

Those are powerful numbers you can point corporate customers to as you validate the importance of our industry’s products and services. Suddenly you are no longer selling awards. You are helping your customers solve problems and build their businesses. Remember, it’s about carrots, not sticks.