The Little Things Make the Difference

This is my office - two doors down from the CEO. While giving a tour recently Beryl guests, they were telling me that their CEO had just implemented a policy allowing just 2 pictures or personal items displayed on an employee’s desk.  They were shocked as they were looking around at the examples of our interior decorating autonomy.    We got into a discussion about all the little things that make such a difference in morale.  As the discussion deepened, they described how the defeated feeling permeated through the office within minutes as the new policy email was opened. As a leader, the little things might seem to us  just that - little.  But to an employee they aren't little.  Every request or ability to be independent,  no matter how minor, means something to that one person.  When these are ignored, pushed to the side or stiffled, it is then that employee engagement is broken down. I look back on several of my previous employers and things that finally “broke” me and caused me to look for other employment.  One turned a blind eye to an employee/client personal relationship and referred to it as “client retention” in a meeting ...

“Pictures or It Didn’t Happen”

"Take a picture, it'll last longer." "A picture is worth a thousand words." You already know the value of taking pictures. We all photograph our children growing up, we take the camera with us on vacation, and snap pics when it snows in Texas. We take pictures of our favorite moments and things. Doing so at work is just as important. In the early days when I was the only one here with a digital camera, I attended softball games, movie nights, family day and everything in between. After a while, people started calling me a few times a week: "Jason, hurry! You have to get a picture of this wig Greg is wearing before he takes it off!" "Can you get a picture of the team leads delivering breakfast?" "Pam accidentally mismatched her shoes. Come get a picture!" Nowadays just about everyone has a camera. Either a small pocket one or on their phone. Quite a few people have invested in a nice digital SLR. Now everyone is a photographer and we're all contributing to the "Beryl Archives." The "Beryl Archives" is simply a folder on our network, like any ...