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Recognition Can Be a Piece of Cake

Today I read a post on the Fistful of Talent blog by Marisa Keegan in which she gives her thoughts on a recent episode of the show Cake Boss in which Buddy (the boss) decides to create an employee of the month program to motivate his staff.  She details the crimes against recognition he commits by coming up with this dull, played out program to motivate his extremely creative team; by putting himself alone in charge of picking the winner; and by ultimately giving the award to none other than himself, deeming that he’s the hardest worker in his shop anyway.

Funnily enough, just last night during some dvr catchup I was watching the 100^th episode of the seemingly similar show, Ace of Cakes, featuring Duff Goldman and his staff of cake artists and bakers at Charm City Cakes in Baltimore.  The 100^th episode featured the requisite highlight clips from past shows, and also followed the staff as they pulled together to build one of the largest cakes in their bakery’s history: a replica of an entire amusement park with the centerpiece being a working plastic rollercoaster running through the cake.

What really caught my attention was the very end of the show.  Duff went through each and every one of his staff members, whom viewers have come to know and love over the years, naming their unique talents, and how all of them come together to help the bakery be at its best.  At the end of the show as we watched clips of Duff and his right-hand man Jeff starting from nothing in a home kitchen—taking calls, baking, decorating, doing dishes, and delivering cakes themselves, Duff tells viewers that he didn’t create the bakery.  He just created a place for all of the talented people he later brought on to create and excel.

Duff doesn’t have an employee of the month program at Charm City Cakes.  However, you can tell by watching the show each week, as I do, that his employees are engaged to the fullest—if not by the smiles on their faces and the ZERO turnover—by the concentration and perfectionism with which they perform the most minute of tasks (such as molding 100 identical trees out of gum paste).

So how do you engage your employees when you don’t have a television crew lurking around your office, and their jobs aren’t nearly as fun as cake decorating?  Take a cue from Duff—highlight the talents of each and every person on your team.  Allow them to do the things that make them shine, reward them for it, and credit them with your company’s successes.  Since you most likely can’t do it by putting them on tv or letting them make a personal delivery to a squealing birthday girl, you’ll have to find other ways to recognize them.  Sometimes even the smallest gifts or the simplest emails are just as sweet as …a piece of cake.