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• “As we have progressed with our Great Place to Work effort, we have known that employee recognition is critical to building the kind of positive and productive work culture we are striving for.”

  Jennifer Bowen

  Assistant Vice President for Human Resources

By SUE WUETCHER

Published: February 3, 2010

In an effort to make “thank you” a key component of the work culture at UB, University Human Resources has begun an employee recognition program designed to increase productivity, pride and camaraderie in the workplace while pursuing the culture of excellence essential to the success of UB 2020.

Attitude of Gratitude, UB Begins with “U,” part of UB’s Great Place to Work initiative, will focus on helping individual units and managers develop their own ways to let employees know they are appreciated. It was developed by a campus-wide Recognition Committee led by the Wellness and Work/Life Balance unit in HR.

“Recognizing the significant contributions of our 10,066 faculty and staff is absolutely central to our continued success in making UB a great place to work, live and learn,” President John B. Simpson said in announcing the initiative via a university-wide e-mail. “Such active recognition is also pivotal to our fully achieving the UB 2020 vision and realizing UB’s vast potential as one of the best public research universities in the country.”

Jennifer Bowen, assistant vice president for human resources, explains that a work culture that appreciates and recognizes the value of employees is central to a great workplace. “As we have progressed with our Great Place to Work effort, we have known that employee recognition is critical to building the kind of positive and productive work culture we are striving for,” she says.

Kathie Frier, director of the Wellness and Work/Life Balance unit, says that when UB began the Great Place to Work initiative, HR met with nearly 2,000 employees from across the three campuses. “We heard staff when they said that, at times, they do not feel valued as an employee, or did not receive a simple ‘thank you’ when they had gone over and above their job duties,” Frier says.

Moreover, Bowen notes that some faculty and staff were randomly selected to participate in work culture surveys as part of UB being recognized locally as a Business First Best Place to Work in Western New York and nationally as a Best College to Work For by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“As a result of participating in these assessments, we were able to confirm that our employees place an extremely high value on recognition and appreciation of their efforts and contributions, and that recognition was an area that we needed to make a major focus in our Great Place to Work effort,” she says.

The Attitude of Gratitude Web site provides resources and tools to educate departments on ways to effectively recognize faculty and staff, and provide ideas and suggestions to make thanking employees “part of our every day culture,” she points out. “The program also serves as a reminder of how important employee recognition is and that it is a priority for the campus,” Bowen says, adding that the Web site also highlights existing best practices throughout the campus.

“We found that there are some departments and schools on campus already doing an outstanding job of recognizing their faculty and staff, and we wanted to share these efforts with the rest of the campus,” she says.

Adds Frier: “Many units are already recognizing their employees in effective ways; our goal is to get the entire university to make saying ‘thank you’ a part of the fabric of the institution’s culture.”

She says the Web site includes a “Design a Solution” page that features more than 100 no-cost or low-cost ways to recognize employees.

“Many of these suggestions are easy to work into the day,” she points out, citing as examples greeting every employee by name each morning, writing a meaningful thank-you note and posting it at an employee’s workspace or taking a staff member to a meeting that they might not normally have attended.

“Recognition does not have to cost money, which is why this is the perfect time to introduce this initiative,” Frier says. “It is important for faculty and staff to know that they are valued, especially during trying financial times. Saying ‘thank you’ is a resource we can use without restriction—we should take advantage of it.”

While the program is starting with an informal “grass-roots-level initiative,” there are future plans to implement something on a larger, more formal scale involving the entire workforce, Bowen and Frier say.

Wellness and Work/Life Balance will hold free workshops on Attitude of Gratitude from 11:15 to noon on Wednesday in 330 Student Union, North Campus; from 10-10-45 a.m. Feb. 11 in B-15 Abbott Hall, South Campus; and from 1-1:45 p.m. Feb. 17 in 324 Crofts Hall, North Campus.

Managers and supervisors wishing to attend should click here to register for a session.