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American author Cynthia Ozick once said, “We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” Across the nation and around the world, volunteers make the important work of nonprofit organizations possible. However, these generous heroes often go unsung.

Nonprofits can use these six ways to recognize volunteers for all of their donated hours and meaningful effort.

Big Picture

Volunteering time to a nonprofit organization can seem like a granular effort for an individual. However, when an organization shares how their volunteers have made an impact, people feel pride in the work they’ve contributed to the nonprofit’s bigger picture. A quick PowerPoint presentation or a cool infographic that depicts the efforts of volunteers lets these individuals visualize the results of their work.

Awards

Celebrate volunteers’ milestones with your nonprofit with certificates and awards. When a volunteer has been with your organization for five, 10, or 20 years, award that person a certificate for his/her ongoing, long-term help. After a major fundraising event hosted by your organization, recognize all the hours and work that volunteers donated with a certificate for each person. You can also create unique reasons why volunteers deserve awards for their work, such as “Most Hours Volunteered in January.”

Saying “Thank You”

A handwritten thank you note or personal phone call to express gratitude goes a very long way with volunteers. This is a task you can recruit volunteers to assist with so your organization can reach out to everyone who pitches in. A thoughtful demonstration of gratitude will keep volunteers motivated to continue helping out. Keep in mind the wise words of Welsh political activist Elizabeth Andrews, “Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.”

Connect

Building a connection with each and every volunteer keeps them engaged with your nonprofit. Hearing from your organization regularly, whether it’s through social media posts or an email newsletter, reminds volunteers why they donate their time and services. Consistent communication from your organization works to recognize, motivate, and recruit volunteers.

Snacks

People like food. When you have volunteers working at your nonprofit, offer them snacks or even a meal while they are pitching in. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, chips and salsa or sandwiches, are low-cost options that will make everyone happy. Truly, it’s the small touches that can massively shift your volunteers’ morale.

Share Their Work

“Volunteers don’t get paid, not because they’re worthless, but because they’re priceless”. Use your nonprofit’s channels (email, social media, snail mail, etc.) to share the priceless work your volunteers are doing for your organization. Pictures and brief stories illustrate how people can assist your organization while recognizing the hard work of your current volunteers.

Former United Kingdom Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, once said, “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” Volunteers dedicate themselves to nonprofit organizations near and dear to their hearts. Dedicate a small effort to recognizing your nonprofit’s volunteers with these simple, budget-conscious displays of appreciation.

Just because you can’t break into a flurry of jumping jacks in the middle of a board meeting doesn’t mean you can’t exercise at work. Even short activity breaks can go a long way toward combating the detriments of sitting at a desk all day. Check out six office friendly workouts inspired by info at Fitbie and Fitness magazine.

Chair Squats

Find a non-rolling, sturdy chair and stand in front of it with your feet shoulder-distance apart. Thrust your hips back until your back touches the chair, then push through the back of your feet to stand up. Work your way up to three sets of 20 reps.

Desk Pushups

Position your hands on the end of your desk, a bit wider than your shoulders. Keeping your body straight, lower your chest in the direction of the desk, bending your elbows out to the sides. Start with three sets of 10, working up to three sets of 20.

Stair Challenge

Create a friendly challenge for you and your co-workers. Instead of taking the elevator, take the stairs. At the end of the week, the person who took the stairs most frequent wins.

Spine Twist

Sit on your chair with your feet flat on the floor. Stretch your arms upward, keeping your palms facing inward and your shoulders down. Twist your upper body to the right as you exhale, lowering your arms to shoulder height. Return to starting position; repeat on other side. Work up to 20 alternating twists.

Office Warrior

Stand slightly to the left of your chair, with your right hand on the top end of it. Hinge forward from the waist, keeping your abs engaged, back straight and stretching your left arm art in front of you. At the same time, stretch your left leg behind you with pointed toes. Stop and hold when your body is parallel to the floor. Return to standing; repeat 12 times on each side.

Leg Lunge

Stand with your feet together, hands on your hips. Extend one leg behind you to lower yourself toward the ground as you bend your front leg at the knee. Stop when your front knee creates a 90-degree angle, hold for three seconds. Stand and repeat on other side. Work up to three sets of 12 on each side.

Walking Meetings

If you need a quick meeting or brainstorm session, don’t book a room, take a walk! Meetings held outdoors have been proven to stir up extra creativity- a double win.

Pelvic Tucks

While seated, angle your pubic bone directly beneath your hip bones. Make sure your abs and pelvic floor are engaged while your back feels released. Exhale and pull your abs in and up as you lift through your pelvic floor. Extend your spine, pressing your feet into the floor as you reach your tailbone down from the crown of your head. Do three sets of 20.

Share these exercises with your employees, motivating them to participate with prizes or awards. The best motivation of all, of course, is how much better everyone will feel from a few office friendly workouts each day.

We know a thing or two about employee appreciation at Paper Direct. Part and parcel with it is an understanding of employee retention. That’s why we’d like to share our thoughts on some retention myths. Recognizing these common traps is a great way to avoid them.

Myth #1: Pay is the Leading Factor in Retention

A 2014 survey by Bamboo HR interviewed over 1,000 professionals to see what makes them tick. Among the motivating factors that lead to resignation, salary concerns only placed at number three. Denied advancement opportunity and an unhealthy work/life balance came out far ahead.

There are two lessons here. First, retention means creating opportunities for worthy employees. Second, treating employees like office fixtures doesn’t promote a long tenure.

Myth #2: Resigning Employees Have Nothing More to Contribute

Wrong. Getting their honest feedback, especially utilizing a proper exit interview, can reveal inefficiencies and discontent you never suspected. That’s immeasurably helpful in employee retention.

Gathering frank opinions can be tricky. After all, no one wants to burn bridges or blow a potential reference. If you’re concerned about reliability, consider hiring sensitive professionals outside your organization to conduct the interviews.

Myth #3: High Unemployment Means High Employee Retention  

Doesn’t economic crisis mean prudent management can go out the window? Pile more work on your employees and kick your feet up- people are too afraid to say boo, right?

Nope. Common sense dictates that valuable employees will likewise be valuable to other organizations. And when there’s chaff building in the applicant pool, it makes perfect sense to treat your current employees as they deserve.

Myth #4: New Hires Resign Because They Can’t Hack It

Some believe that large pools of new hires bring in the lazy and shiftless, those only interested in punching the time clock. The numbers couldn’t disagree more.

Another survey by Bamboo HR reveals that the vast majority of new hires are concerned to receive more on the job training and reviews of company policy. The logical inference is that these people are interested in doing their jobs well and understanding their new environment.

Myth #5: Turnover Only Affects HR

Employee retention isn’t just a human resources concern. True, HR has to devote a lot of time, money, and training to replace departing workers. But to talk as if theirs is the only department affected is to ignore the unity of an organization.

A departing employee takes many things with them. Unique customer relationships are lost. Work loads are disturbed and often painfully redistributed. Productivity is diminished. And hard won expertise disappears, perhaps permanently.

Employee retention invariably affects your enterprise across the board.

We hope we’ve contributed a bit to your understanding of employee retention. We’re keen to hear your insights too. Skip on over to Paper Direct to share your thoughts, form a collaboration, or just say hi!

During any given weekday, an office’s administrative staff provides constant support to every other department, usually taking on the tasks and duties no else wants to complete.

Sometimes it does not occur to management how important it is to motivate administrative professionals, even though these individuals provide invaluable work to the company as a whole.

With Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professional’s Day right around the corner, businesses can take a few minutes out of their hectic schedules to show appreciation for and continue to motivate their administrative staff.

Let’s Go Back

Sixty-three years ago, the combined efforts of the leaders at the National Secretaries Association (now called the International Association of Administrative Professionals), Dictaphone Corporation, and Young and Rubicam helped launch the celebration of National Professional Secretaries Week and National Secretary’s Day.

Since 1952, National Secretaries Week and National Secretary’s Day has evolved into Administrative Professionals Week and Administrative Professional’s Day.

According to the International Association of Administrative Professionals’ website, “Each year, administrative professionals are recognized for their skills and loyalty, attributes almost every office depends upon. Administrative Professionals Week celebrates and sheds light on administrative professionals’ devoted, valued work.”

“We all appreciate being thanked, but why not go the extra mile and make a point of using gift cards, hand-written thank you notes, and other gestures to recognize achievement,” contributor Caron Beesley advises in a U.S. Small Business Administration blog post.

Beesley also notes in her SBA blog post

How to Show Your Appreciation

An office can demonstrate its gratitude to the administrative personnel in a variety of ways: flowers, gift cards, lunch out, and so on. However, a gift that motivates the recipient long after Administrative Professionals Week has ended, a certificate serves as a reminder of how much their work is appreciated by their co-workers and bosses.

Take the gift one step further by placing the certificate in a jacket or envelope to make the effort last that much longer. When your office awards the administrative staff with customized certificates recognizing their dedicated efforts, you’ll be amazed with how positively they respond to the gesture.

Picking up a Starbucks gift card or signing an off-the-rack greeting card are easy ways to recognize your company’s admins during Administrative Professionals Week. Yet these gifts don’t serve as ongoing motivation. Celebrate your administrative professionals while motivating them with a present that speaks directly to their hard work and ongoing efforts, such as a certificate.

Most managers truly want to inspire their employees to come up with creative ideas, be more productive and do better work.

However, without even realizing it, it can be easy to slip into motivation-killing habits that affect the level at which an employee contributes, as well as play a part in staff turnover.

If you’re a manager, take a look at the list below to see if you’re making any of these mistakes and learn how to correct them.

Interrupting

One of the main reasons for low employee morale is the feeling that their input and concerns aren’t being heard. Far too often, managers make assumptions about the point the employee is trying to make and, in an effort to move the conversation along, jump in before allowing them to finish.

Letting employees finish their thoughts and complete their ideas is a simple and effective way to make them feel valued and heard.

Poking holes

When an employee comes to you with an idea to improve business or their own job, how do you respond? Do you immediately start listing the reasons it won’t work? Or worse, reply with the dreaded, “We’ve always done it this way”?

If this seems familiar, try to consciously keep an open mind. Ask the employee to present both the problem and the solution, as they see it. Even if you ultimately decide not to implement their idea after weighing all the pros and cons, they will be more likely to come to you with ideas in the future.

Micromanaging

There’s nothing worse than having a boss constantly looking over your shoulder, asking for constant updates and, even worse, telling you how to do your jobs. All these actions quickly zap the motivation of even the most dedicated worker.

On the other hand, showing employees that you trust them to do the tasks they were hired for is a huge morale booster. You can still keep on top of things by ask for updates at regular intervals and making it clear that they can come to you with problems in the interim.

Lack of clear goals

In order for your staff to achieve the company’s or department’s goals, they first have to know what they are. When goals are not clearly defined or continually change, it can lead to confusion, frustration and low morale.

Make sure your employees understand what your goals are and, more importantly, why the goals have been set in the first place. Then make sure they each have the proper tools and resources to reach them.

Time wasters

At some point or another, most of us have been trapped in a long meeting that had little to no bearing or effect on our own job or responsibilities.

These types of meetings can be frustrating and demoralizing since they eat into valuable time that could be spent more productively.

Therefore, before calling an all-staff meeting, ensure that it really is necessary that everyone attends and try to keep the agenda short and efficient.

Lack of rewards/acknowledgement

When employees feel their work is taken for granted or not valued, they may start to do and care less. That’s why it’s so important to have a system in place for thank your employees for their work.

It can be as simple as verbal thank you or a short, handwritten note. Or you may choose to recognize those who go above and beyond with formal awards. Whatever you do, make sure the gesture is sincere.

Think positive!

Look on the bright side!

Don’t worry, be happy!

There’s so much out there these days about the “power of positive thinking” that it can start seeming like a bunch of self-help hooey.

As long as you get your work done, you may wonder whether it really matters whether you have a positive mindset or not.

The short answer is…it does.

And it’s not just the Tony Robbins of the world who are saying it. More and more, science is backing it up, too.

Interestingly, positive thoughts and emotions are more fleeting and diffuse than negative ones. However, study after study has shown that positive emotions contribute in a major way to important life outcomes including friendship, marital satisfaction, higher incomes and better physical health and longer lives.

If that wasn’t enough, positivity can also have an effect on those around you, whether it’s at home or at work. A positive disposition helps motivate and inspire others in a way that negativity can’t.

Of course, cultivating a positive attitude in the workplace can be easier said than done, depending on your corporate culture. But with just a little intentional effort, you’ll start seeing changes in both yourself and others before long.

Here are a few ways to get started:

Imagine your day

Take a few moments at the beginning of each workday to envision a positive outcome. See yourself easily moving through tasks and effectively addressing problems as they arise. This doesn’t mean you won’t encounter frustrations, but preparing yourself mentally ahead of time will help make them easier to handle.

Smile and laugh

Studies have shown that smiling and laughing, even if we don’t necessarily feel happy, has the effect of lifting our mood and reframing our outlook. So make it a point to smile at others more often and share a joke with your coworkers.

Acknowledge others

One of the best ways to feel good is to make others feel good about themselves. When you recognize the efforts of your boss or coworkers, praise their accomplishments and say “thank you,” you’ll be surprised how great it makes you feel.

Employ positive language

How we think and speak has a direct effect on our mindset. Instead of saying “can’t,” “won’t” and “shouldn’t,” start using phrases like “I can,” “I will” and “I am able.”

Focus on solutions

When things are stressful at work, it can be all too easy to fall in the trap of complaining about the situation. An easy way to break free of this is to simply focus on the solution to the problem and the steps needed to accomplish it.

It’s time to take a step back in time. You know, when MTV played music videos and MC Hammer balloon pants were cool. For your next company awards recognition party, slip on your vintage jelly shoes, don that side ponytail proudly and dig out your New Kids on the Block cassette tape. Here’s six office award ideas inspired by the fabulous 1990s!

Teen Spirit Award

Send the most upbeat, spirited employee into a state of nirvana with the Teen Spirit Award.

This employee is bubbly, happy and remembers nearly everybody’s birthday with a card and homemade treats!

Saved by the Bell Award

Is there a key person in the office who somehow seems to come up with fabulous ideas at the last minute?

They deserve the Saved by the Bell award for keeping the team afloat during tough times, much like your best buddy from high school.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Award

It takes a team to get things done. Is there a powerhouse female duo who keeps your full house running smoothly? They deserve the Mary Kate and Ashley award for being the stars of the work day show.

Wayne’s World Award

For the men, consider the Wayne’s World Award. Do you have a Wayne and Garth who work together seamlessly, add personality to boring presentations or simply keep the office smiling with their jokes and antics? This award is just for them!

Chris Farley Award

Perhaps one of the best known Saturday Night Live comedy skits of the 90s was Chris Farley’s motivational speaker parody. If you have an employee who is always sharing kind, helpful words to make meeting deadlines and projects easier, this recognition is perfect.

Power Ranger Award

You all know that person in the office who fights, fights, fights to get ahead and get things done. They may play down their gusto by wearing a colorful mask, and have a powerful team behind them, but they’re already ready to dive in headfirst and do what it takes.

They’re a true Power Ranger!

The Fresh to Death Award

In West Philadelphia born and raised…

The Dial Up Award

If there is someone in the office that is always running late, give them the dial up award for their slow behavior.

Sporty Spice Award

If there is a marathon runner or fitness guru in office, present them with the Sporty Spice Award. Other Spice Girls include:

• Ginger Spice
• Posh Spice
• Scary Spice
• Baby Spice

Go 90s!

After you’ve figured out who gets what award, it’s time to start creating festive certificates. Paper Direct has several templates and paper patterns to choose from. Get started online today!

Image courtesy of Buzzfeed 

Most companies are well aware of how important it is to recognize and reward outstanding employees regularly. Saying “thank you” in a public way improves morale, decreases turnover and increases productivity.

However, the perceived cost of a formal recognition program can keep some businesses from implementing one.

The good news is that recognition and reward programs can be tailored to fit almost any budget. The key is to balance the two in such a way that works for both the employees and the bottom line.

Keep daily, weekly or monthly recognition efforts inexpensive yet meaningful; then reward your top performers with more expensive items on a quarterly or yearly basis.

Still need convincing that this is doable? Here are 10 low- or no-cost recognition ideas that your employees will love!

Award certificates

Anyone will tell you that there’s just something special about receiving an award that you can display proudly in your workspace. PaperDirect has a variety to choose from, including foil-embossed Specialty Certificates that start at just $31.99 for a box of 50.

Encourage peer-to-peer recognition

Giving employees the ability to recognize each others’ efforts, both big and small, is a terrific motivator. This can be as simple as setting up a template online with the heading of “You’re a star because…” Employees fill out the rest, print it and present it.

Include a “Rock Star” column in your company newsletter

Ask employees to submit names of coworkers who have gone above and beyond. Make sure they include what the employee did that deserves praise.

Keep a kudos calendar

Hang a large format, dry erase calendar on your office wall. Then when someone does something great, write their name on the calendar, along with their accomplishment.

Post the name of the employee of the month/week/day in a public place

Is there an area to hang or display a sign in your business’s entrance? If so, this is the perfect opportunity to showcase outstanding staff members.

Write a thank you note

There really is nothing like receiving a handwritten, heartfelt note of thanks from one’s boss for a job well done.

Offer a long lunch

When things get hectic around the office, let hard-working employees have a little extra paid time in the middle of the day to run errands or just relax.

Hand out candy jar awards

With just a few inexpensive mason jars, a couple of bags of candy and some bright ribbon, you can create one sweet award!

Bring in donuts

This is an oldie but a goodie. Who doesn’t love to walk in the door in the morning and see fresh, free donuts waiting for them?

Give a traveling award

This can be a trophy or something more fun like a rubber chicken. Each week, pass the baton on to a different employee for something they’ve accomplished.