There are a myriad of factors that contribute to a company’s success, but many of them stem from the organization’s core: its employees. Whether it’s promoting innovation, expressing gratitude, implementing a benefit, or simply celebrating key milestones, the recognition of an employee’s potential and hard work is a crucial strategy. One of the tools Irvine Company uses to drive engagement are Wow Reports – a digital medium that recognizes and thanks employees for their contributions to our goals, team and community.
Pamela Van Nort, Regional Vice President of Irvine Company, explains the impetus and value of the Wow Report. “We originally introduced the Wow Report in San Diego as a means of communicating “wins” and sharing information across a large and growing team. We soon realized (by the amount of information being fed to us by the field teams) that employees were connecting with the content and wanted to be a part of the celebration. We eventually expanded our reach to include executives and corporate partners and fine tuned our focus to include key deals and financial “wins”, stories that reflected our values (simplicity, teaming, innovation and a customer-centric mindset), events that promoted workplace community, customer testimonials and individual milestones. The investment has translated into repeatedly high employee engagement scores (as measured by an independent Employee Engagement Survey), greater connectivity and a sense of pride for our company and the work we produce.
For a promotion like this to have merit, Pamela believes its foundation must reflect concrete objectives. She and her Chicago business partners (Beau Rawi, Erron Williams and Ben Novac) hope to accomplish the following objectives with its launch of a Chicago WOW report:
- To recognize individual and team efforts that reinforce our corporate values and message our value proposition
- To relay stories that motivate individuals to create, innovate, stretch and serve
- To highlight activities that build internal community and a sense of pride
- To reinforcement of the unique benefits of working for Irvine Company
- To establish high water marks that can be shared with our peers.
Pamela explains, “In Chicago, we have been busy building a regional team and a front line of very talented professionals. As leaders, we know that one of the best ways we can deliver on our brand promise of “making what’s great today even better” is to slow down and take the time to encourage good works and say “thank you”.
Our first issue of the Chicago Wow Report will celebrate new employees and customers that are sharing the journey with us, some exceptional forward-facing designs and curated marketing tools that are driving occupancy, 2 new technologies that are saving dollars and making our customers work lives easier, and some unique programming that’s bringing customers together through education and wellness. Success starts here!
