Recognizing employees’ efforts at Sara Lee Foods
| Published date | 01 January 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390680000859 |
| Pages | 12-13 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| Author | Yash Chadha |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
12 Volume 5 Issue 2 January/February 2006
REWARDS
,
Short case studies that demonstrate best practice in rewards
Recognizing employees’
efforts at Sara Lee Foods
recognition program and since the
party, Headley has recognized many of
his co-workers and has been
acknowledged himself for taking on
challenging new projects. He now
knows first-hand the impact recognition
has on improving focus and attitudes.
Recognition’s positive effect
In early 2003, the merger of nine
separate business units into one division
brought many challenges for Sara Lee
Foods’ organizational effectiveness
team. Aside from merging the systems
and corporate structures, it was clear
that creating a unified performance and
recognition strategy would be one of
the keys to ultimate merger success.
“Employees were very hungry for
this,” says Rhonda Sebastian, leader of
the BRAVO! employee recognition
program and vice president of
organizational effectiveness. “Coming
from nine different businesses, there
were many different forms of
recognition in place. It was a real
meshing of cultures. It was time for us to
get our arms around the workplace
experience of our employees.”
While trying to develop what would
eventually become the BRAVO!
program, the HR team ran focus groups
with staff to discover what was
important to Sara Lee Foods’
employees. HR manager and
recognition co-leader Monica Mehta
claims that those sessions were
invaluable. “They were pretty open
about how they wanted to be
recognized – primarily, through
meaningful, frequent recognition
presentations and the opportunity to
select from a wide selection of high-
quality awards,” says Mehta. “They
knew what would motivate them and
we listened.”
Getting management buy-in for BRAVO!
Once the program criteria was defined,
it was essential to encourage buy-in for
the program from executives and
managers. “One of the most important
things we did at program launch was
meet with all of the executives and
upper level leadership,” says Sebastian.
“We explained what we were
attempting to do with Sara Lee Foods’
culture evolution, which involved
announcing the BRAVO! program. We
noted the behaviors we were expecting
to see in the organization. Two of our
most senior executives helped us
introduce the program and having them
involved helped to show senior
management support for the initiative.”
Vice president of applications for
Sara Lee Foods, Chris Gillespie, says
Sebastian’s approach to the launch
made a big impact on the program’s
success, as did recognition training for
all managers and supervisors.
“Training touched everybody in the
I
t took an evening at the 2003
Christmas party of Sara Lee Foods, a
global food manufacturer, for one of
its marketing managers, Rob Headley,
to fully appreciate the importance of
employee recognition.
A large video board was scrolling the
images and names of Sara Lee Foods’
performance recognition recipients.
“Watching the slides showcasing the
accomplishments of those in the
company who had really contributed in
the past year, I realized there were no
pictures of my team or those we work
with,” says Headley. “It was not only
embarrassing, but it became glaringly
obvious that we were not represented.
It wasn’t that we hadn’t accomplished
anything noteworthy as a team – we
had. The problem was that we needed
to be better at recognizing and
promoting our people.”
Headley resolved to better recognize
the efforts of those he works with. To
do this, his team became involved in the
BRAVO! employee performance
Chicago-based Sara Lee Corporation is a
global manufacturer of brand-name
products for consumers throughout the
world. Sara Lee has operations in 58
countries, market-branded products in
nearly 200 nations and 137,000
employees worldwide.
SARA LEE FOODS
Yash Chadha, O.C.Tanner’s UK managing director, explains how Sara Lee Foods’ BRAVO! performance
recognition program encourages a culture of exceptional performance and appreciation.
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