Episode 126
Beyond the Pizza Party; The Importance of Employee Recognition
In today’s episode, we’re tackling one of the most overused and ineffective approaches to employee recognition—pizza parties. While they’ve become a common way to acknowledge hard work, they often miss the mark and fail to make a lasting impact. Employee recognition should go beyond superficial gestures and focus on creating meaningful connections with the team.
There’s a big difference between recognition and incentives, and that’s something worth digging into. Incentives might push people toward hitting specific targets, but real recognition is about acknowledging the person behind the work. It’s not just about what was achieved, but how someone showed up, and why their contribution matters.
There are better, more personal ways to make employees feel valued. In this episode, we explore how understanding your team on a deeper level can help create genuine recognition moments that resonate. It’s not about handing out generic rewards; it’s about taking the time to truly appreciate what each person brings to the table.
If you’re looking for ways to recognize your team’s hard work in a way that actually makes a difference, you’ll find plenty of practical advice in this conversation. Authentic recognition has the power to change workplace culture, and this episode is all about how to make that happen.
Highlights:
- Why superficial gestures like pizza parties miss the mark in showing true employee appreciation.
- The difference between incentives and recognition—and why confusing the two can hurt morale.
- How working alongside your employees can be one of the most powerful ways to say thank you.
- Real-life examples of recognition strategies that work (and those that don't).
- The critical role leadership plays in fostering a culture of authentic appreciation.
- Why aligning company and employee values is essential for long-term success.
If you found this conversation helpful, don’t forget to share the episode! Follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and leave a rating or review to let us know what you think.
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Transcript
Welcome back to this episode of Blue Collar BS. I am Brad and my co -host on the other side of the Great Lake Michigan is Steve. There you go. There you go, sir. Sorry for that long pause there at the beginning, but you know what this is? That is that is a tennis ball, right? This is the other half of the tennis ball that my dog decided to.
Steve Doyle (:Steve.
Steve Doyle (:man, I Yeah.
I don't know.
Brad Herda (:Partake in at some point during the day and has caused problems downstairs before this course. So as a tad bit Distracted there. Mr. Doyle. So thank you for playing along on this fine episode of blue collar BS
Steve Doyle (:Steve Doyle (00:47.16)
Hey, no problem. No problem at all. So your day has been going quite quite well with that adventure.
Brad Herda (:Well, was an awesome morning. Got to golf with other folks in the area this morning and meet some folks that moved to the state here just recently also. And was a great morning of golf this
Steve Doyle (:Nice.
Steve Doyle (:Well, that's cool, very cool. So.
Brad Herda (:So golf, lunch, client meeting after that. Now I'm here with you. What could make the day any better than spend the rest of my afternoon with you, Steve?
Steve Doyle (:man, wow. Well, you know, what could make it better is, you know, probably have a discussion about all those wonderful things that we get to do, AKA the recognition part.
Brad Herda (:Steve, I see you and I hear you and I appreciate you.
Steve Doyle (:huh. Yeah. Yeah. I feel s I can feel the authenticity just permeating from your voice.
Brad Herda (:so there needs to be more to it than just the words.
Steve Doyle (:my goodness. My goodness. What are we going to do with people nowadays? What are we going to do? I know. I just I find the whole employee recognition thing a
Brad Herda (:That's a great question. What are we going to do, right?
Brad Herda (:a farce, a comedy, a necessary evil.
Steve Doyle (:I would say all of it, right? The farce, the comedy, and necessary evil, but because it's been done wrong for so long.
Brad Herda (:greed. is most of it has been built around quote unquote morale versus individual connection.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, so let's, I know we've talked about, you know, morale a couple different times on the show and we've danced around and talked about, you know, employee recognition and programs and stuff, but from a blue collar industry perspective, let's.
Brad Herda (:How many fucking pizza parties can you have? Tell me that.
Steve Doyle (:And you know, every Friday you can have one, every Monday you can have one. You can have one every day of the fucking week. If you want.
Brad Herda (:Stop. Just stop, guys. Just please stop. hey, you guys do well, we're gonna recognize and have, buy you lunch. No one gives a shit about the pizza.
Steve Doyle (:But why not?
Brad Herda (:Cause it's, it's, it's not, it's, it's superficial. It's, it, it's like, it's like when you join your kids, you know, your, your party or kids, sports programs and things like that, right? You can either volunteer or you can cut a check. And the pizza party is like cutting a check instead of, instead of really getting involved in volunteering and being there and getting engaged. That's how I would equate the pizza party and.
Steve Doyle (:huh.
Brad Herda (:versus being engaged.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Brad Herda (:from an analogy perspective. not work for everybody, might not make sense to lot of people, but think about it for a moment.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. And what that what it's I would say even more than thinking about it. What is the message that it's sending to your employees?
Brad Herda (:You tell me. I hear you and I see you and I understand you, Steve. Thank you.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:my God. That's just like nails on a chalkboard for me. Me personally. Right?
Brad Herda (:Right. But that's the important part. so one of the I forget where it was where I heard this story, but it was a it was a manufacturing organization where we'll just call him George. George didn't miss a day of work for like 38 years. You know, was there every day all day and all of a sudden there was some new leadership in in the organization and.
Steve Doyle (:Thank you.
Brad Herda (:They recognized George for 38 years or 20 or whatever the number was, but it was some ridiculous amount of time without ever calling in sick. And the next day he called him sick because he didn't want to be recognized in that way. He did. He showed up to work every day because it was part of his character. Not that he needed to put in front of a room for everybody to look at him and go, my God, how could you do that? That is ridiculous. my goodness gracious. it's the wrong kind of recognition and being able to recognize your employees as individuals, as human beings.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Brad Herda (:as as contributors to your organization's goals and mission. That's where recognition comes into play and it's different for everybody. Somebody may want somebody might say take that 15 minutes in the morning to yeah, come in late next week for 15 minutes. I know you got your kids take school. Why don't you take your kids to school tomorrow? More you know one day next week. Just let me know. No big deal. That was huge opportunity for a job well done versus a.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:Hey, let's have pizza on Friday. Ooh, woohoo.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yeah. I would say, you know, even backing up, it's really why are you choosing to recognize employees? Like, what are you recognizing them for? Because when we often think about it, especially in the blue collar space, right, we're so used to getting in, doing the thing that we need to do, and then moving on to the next thing that we need to do. Right. Which is different.
Brad Herda (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:than in like the white collar environments, right? Where you do the things, you talk to the people, you do the things. And because you're kind of always in the same area all the time, it might make a little more sense because in the blue collar space, you're not always in the same area. Everything is consistently changing for you.
and being designed from a white collar environment to offer to blue collars workers, not the same. Like they're not motivated in the same ways.
Brad Herda (:Correct. And you got to understand also the difference between incentive versus recognition.
Steve Doyle (:Ooh, so let's talk on that, right? Because most people are going down the recognition path, but it's really an incentive.
right, to do things differently. So let's break this down. So right, we're.
Brad Herda (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:All right, so the incentive, right, by definition is a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something. You know, a payment or concession to stimulate a greater output or investment. Right. So we're going to create an incentive for employees to work harder, do more, do whatever. Great. That's not recognition. Right. The the quarterly bonus is not recognition. The
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Move. Wait, what?
Brad Herda (:Hey, you're meeting your goals and you get the race is not necessary recognition that is to be incentive
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Right, let's, know, the other thing that we see quite a bit, and I know I see a lot, is the one size fits all recognition with people, right? It's like, so it's the, it's very generic. So let's say, you know, hey, we're going to,
Brad Herda (:Like what?
Steve Doyle (:know, recognize all these workers, we're going to have them stand up and we're going to tell them thank you. At the next at the next meeting. For for a myriad of reasons, right? They're typically nominated for something. Somebody's nominated and we're just going to, know, everybody we're going to recognize them. Everybody's going to clap and we're going to move on.
Like, okay, no. Or the, hey, you did a great job today. I'm just gonna give you, here's an extra 100 bucks.
Steve Doyle (:Right, I'm not telling anybody, I'm just gonna slide it, here you go.
Okay, what was this for? you just did a good job. Now I'm setting an expectation rather than a recognition.
Right. The the paper certificates.
Brad Herda (:Those drove me crazy. I have one. I have one from an organization we belong to sitting in a desk.
Steve Doyle (:Right? So, you know, those types of things, just very generic. They're not personable. They're not creating a real, true recognition program for people.
Brad Herda (:So that's kind of so I think of recognition program, kind of like jumbo shrimp, right? It's like if I had if I have a program for it, is it really recognition? Because it seems manipulative. It seems gamified. It seems unnatural and on. On. Just not very. Seems like you said, setting more of an expectation of a benefit than it is more of a recognition and we go back to.
Steve Doyle (:Hahaha
Steve Doyle (:great.
Brad Herda (:You know the definition, know, definition of recognition, identification of someone or something or a person from previous encounters or or knowledge. Well, I recognize something. Well, no, that's not one of the definitions. Something or someone's acknowledgement of existence. Nope appreciation or claim for an achievement, service or ability. OK, so what have they done that they've gone above and beyond? And when we set expectate, this is the other part.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Brad Herda (:that usually gets completely jacked up because we've not set expectations of results for what we expect every day at the various roles and levels within an organization.
Steve Doyle (:Right?
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:If being on the job site at seven o 'clock ready to start using your nail gun is what's expected, should there be recognition to be there at seven o 'clock? Maybe if that individual has had some, if you know that individual's having struggles with getting kids to school or different things, or there's opportunity to know that they're sacrificing something to be there and make that commitment, yeah, go recognize them for.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for being here and do something that makes a personal connection to that individual to know that you see their effort and you appreciate what they're doing.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:Not, hey, you got this house framed in three days instead of five. Pizza party for everybody.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:OK, great. I keep picking out of the pizza party because it's just it's. It's way overused.
Steve Doyle (:overused.
Yep, now done correctly. Yeah, can you bring pizza? Sure. But pizza alone? Now what I find interesting is some different things that people are doing that's a little bit different.
Brad Herda (:Okay, such as.
Steve Doyle (:So while I, you know, people say, well, we celebrate like employee of the week, employee of the month. Okay, that's nice. It's interesting. What did they do that went above and beyond and who are they sharing with? It could be, but you know, you know, are they truly an employee of the week or employee of the month? Not just a, hey, you know, we're going to recognize everyone to give everyone a fair shake or did this person, is this person consistently
Brad Herda (:It's just alphabetical.
Steve Doyle (:You know, living the company values in and outside of work.
Brad Herda (:Whoa.
Brad Herda (:living the company values.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. What are they doing? Like what are they doing to help with the company goals?
Brad Herda (:That's just living the company values is an interesting statement alone.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:because that is a that is one that often gets sugar -coated and just looked over and bypassed completely
Steve Doyle (:Right? But what are they really doing to be recognized as somebody that's living into what matters for the company? Because it matters to them. And if the employee values are aligned with the company values, the success for not just that individual, but for the company are greater.
Brad Herda (:correct.
Steve Doyle (:So when we recognize people for that, it's how we recognize them, making it very personal, more intimate to what they want, desire, need for that outcome. it could be, maybe they just wanna be recognized from their peers.
Brad Herda (:Mm -hmm, correct.
Steve Doyle (:Could be. So how are we putting together systems or processes in place so that there can be peer recognition? And not just the one sentence. hey, yeah, Joe, he really crushed it today. What does that mean, did he crush it? What did he actually do?
Brad Herda (:Well, it was getting rid of the beer can off the job site. when the dumpster, he literally crushed it today.
Steve Doyle (:I mean, I mean, there's that. Yeah, but like what what does that really mean and how does that help somebody recognize behaviors? Because that's really what we're recognizing is someone's behaviors. For doing things. Whether they're different, they're still aligned with what needs to be done, but they did it in a way that kind of all made us go, holy shit, that was awesome.
Brad Herda (:So what are some of the things that you have, either you are working with or you have seen work for your clients or others in your region from a recognition perspective? What types of things specifically?
Steve Doyle (:I would say specifically, so one of my, my past life, what we did is when somebody truly went and did some things that were extraordinary, it wasn't for everyone, but I would literally had it all worked out where I would give them an extra week of vacation because this person loved to travel.
So yes, they went above and beyond. And yes, I could offer them a financial reward. could say, man, here's what you did was great. It helped save the company, know, time, money, whatever it was. Here's a slice of that. It could have been money, right? Money to that person wasn't as important because they still had to show up to work the next week. But giving somebody an extra week off,
for them was just blew their mind. Like we can't do that. Yes, I can. It's done.
Brad Herda (:And that's understanding where people's appreciations are of different things. and you've got a, with all of the financial changes and law changes is what's considered a benefit and needs to be W twoed and taxed and all those other things. got to pay attention to that with your CPA and your financial folks to make sure you're not going to get yourself some trouble, with the IRS or anybody like that, because that's a sizable chunk. that becomes.
Steve Doyle (:Mm Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:So if you're going to do some of those things, make sure you check first as to what that impact is going to be for that person. Cause the last thing you want to do is put them with a, sort of recognition. It might be, here's the gift card to go to your favorite restaurant with your bride, with your wife for your anniversary, because thank you for all the effort you put in. know that you don't want, I know you don't want to go to dinner with your bride this weekend because we got this big project you need to finish.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Steve Doyle (:Peace.
Brad Herda (:But no, you're going to go. You're not working. You're going to do this because you have been putting in the time and energy. Okay. And if that's a $200 gift card, okay. Just know how to make sure you track all those things through your financial systems. And so we don't get anybody in trouble.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Right.
Mm
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, yeah, I've seen some other things out there that from a standpoint, you know, what works, what could not.
Steve Doyle (:Things I said, well, let's talk about things that I've seen that have not worked well and it's always around the money financial rewards
Brad Herda (:Correct. It is the money doesn't work. The standard room doesn't work. The everybody gets the same thing doesn't work. Yes, we have this whole everybody gets a ribbon environment that we've kind of went through over the last few decades that you were a part of Mr. Doyle.
Steve Doyle (:Mm
Steve Doyle (:I'm glad that's over with.
Steve Doyle (:wow. Wow. All right.
Brad Herda (:But anyhow, many trophies you got in your back wall?
Steve Doyle (:there's two and then there do you have them? Do you have them? Then no, not everybody gets one. You got one and you got you got one and it's not the same one.
Brad Herda (:I just got. I just got my I just got mine today from Carrie as a matter of fact.
that? Well, it is it just has different words on it. Yeah, I got my I got my golf trophy my other plaques down there. I got my golf trophies. So I'm not lying. I don't mind those recognition pieces, but we go out there and earn it. But yes, the the the monetary rewards typically do not work. And we got a client right now they're in a in the metal building world. Hey, we're
Steve Doyle (:okay.
Steve Doyle (:Different. Yeah, we earned it.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:They're trying to incentivize, you know, no call no show for quarterly performances and things like that. Guys are still no calling no showing and giving up their they're giving up their the dollars to take the time to go do whatever it is that they want to do that they feels more important. So so it's the wrong we're incentivizing the potential wrong behavior and we're not recognizing the things that the guys really want to have.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Right. Absolutely. what talking, we've talked around a lot of this stuff. What are some suggestions that you've seen that people can do with minimal, I would say minimal effort, minimal costs to help start the mindset shift on what employee recognition is?
Brad Herda (:Just say fucking thank you. Just get away. Just get off of your ass and move away and go take the extra step on the job site as you know. If you got a crew member that's cleaning up, grab a broom next to him. Have a conversation and say thank you. Load the trailer out with them and say thank you. Ask them what their week was like. Work beside them. Take.
Steve Doyle (:Well, I sent him a text.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Brad Herda (:Take the opportunity to go and work next to them and have a conversation about, what's going on? And thank you for being here today. Thank you for being here this week. I really appreciate you being here this week so that we can all get this done. And what you're doing on this job site to clean this thing up is keeping Mrs. Smith or, you know, ABC Corporation. They really like how we keep our stuff together and you are part of that. So thank you.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:To me, that is the biggest form of opportunity from a leadership perspective is to own that humble yourself and create the opportunity to have a conversation with each staff member and recognize them for what they are doing by saying thank you. While working alongside that tends to what I've seen that work the best.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, absolutely.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm. 100%. It's when you can be authentic and genuine with your thanks with the person.
Brad Herda (:You know, not the, Hey, I gotta check the box and I go, I gotta make my way around the office and make sure I say hi to everybody every morning. No, that's doesn't work. it needs to be in a way that is. Authentic to the individual person works to their behavioral styles works to their wants and needs. Cause everybody's different. So you as the leader need to be able to yourself to those individuals.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:to be recognized as a leader, to be the place where all of a sudden those folks go, we have an opening? I'd love to have my cousin come here and work here, because you guys are doing a great job. Because your employees are your number one resource for referrals. And if they're not referring people into your company, you're doing something wrong.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Yep. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Mm -hmm. 100%.
Brad Herda (:And it that five minutes of sweeping up with Johnny on the floor to pick up the stuff or hold the dustpan or move things around or take the garbage out with them costs you nothing.
Steve Doyle (:Right. And the impact that it has lasts so much longer.
Brad Herda (:All right, it costs you zero dollars to do that. It might burn your ego or your own pride if you're that kind of leader.
Steve Doyle (:yeah.
Brad Herda (:But if you're that kind of leader, then we have other problems to deal with.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, right there, my friend, right there. We'll save that for another episode.
Brad Herda (:So, but yes, recognition is important. It needs to be done correctly and make sure that your recognitions are not incentives because incentive and recognition are not the same thing.
Steve Doyle (:Got that right.
Brad Herda (:So Mr. Doyle, have a great rest of your Friday afternoon and we will talk to you soon. All right, thanks.
Steve Doyle (:All right, you too, my friend.
