As a company who lives and breathes the concepts of employee engagement, motivation and recognition, we sometimes tend to focus more on the theory around the science of motivation, and how to help our clients, and don’t think as much about the day to day aspects of what that means to us, here at Perks, with our employees. So here’s my story.
For the last month couple of months we have been laser-focused on getting our new website launched (check it out – it’s fabulous). No easy chore, we were updating the look and feel, moving pages around and adding completely new content. New graphics were developed (hundreds of them), new content was written (and re-written, and then re-written a few more times), and approvals were gathered from the executive team to keep everyone on the same page with the updated branding and site functionality. We met regularly, as a team, to ensure that we were tracking to the same dates and tasks and that there were no stumbling blocks that would trip us up when the new site was launched.
Last night was the night. Our chief creative guy, the amazing Chris Spann, was heads down all day, getting the site ready to launch. Complicating the push to the live site was the fact that we weren’t doing this over the weekend – we only had the evening to get it done. The fabulous marketing associate, Rachel Cooper, was editing and updating content as fast as her little fingers could fly. At 4:30 central, I was informed that the broader team was now all chipping in to stay late and make sure this was as perfect as humanly possible. Zach Saul, our newest Perkie on the creative team, had already been working weekends on this project and was not going to abandon the team at the final hours so he stayed. Jacob Carter, the creative team member who has been providing guidance throughout this project, and who picked up the slack for the client and product work that the team members couldn’t accomplish as we were launching the site also volunteered to stay and cook everyone dinner!
Why do I share this story? Because I am so proud to be part of this organization. A place where people worked long hours getting us to the launch and where they stayed into the wee hours last night to get us over the finish line. They did these things not because they were told that they had to, but because they wanted to create something wonderful and new. They felt motivated and engaged to know that when they came in today, they would look at the site with a sense of personal accomplishment for a job well done. That is what employee engagement is all about.
So, here’s a big thanks to the entire team, it is a pleasure to work with each one of you!