Recognizing and rewarding employees on their efforts is a critical component of a continuous improvement culture. Without recognition, it’s typically challenging to drive employee engagement. Your employees need you to recognize the work and contributions they make, and as a result of recognition, they’ll continue to produce work that both you and them are proud of.  The recognition program can range from something as simple as thanking them for their work, or you can have a more formal program like Employee of the Month.

The team at Rockwater put together a program to encourage KaiNexus participation and drive overall continuous improvement engagement. Here’s more detail on the participation and bonus program they created.

While definitions of “employee engagement” abound, they all come back to an employee’s emotional and psychological investment in their work. When employees are engaged, they are willing and able to contribute to the company’s success. That is why companies with engaged employees are 21% more profitable than those without.

It’s important to note that employee engagement and employee satisfaction/happiness are not the same. An employee can be happy with their salary, working conditions, perks, and even management, but they still may not invest discretionary effort to achieve the goals of the organization. This means that addressing problems with engagement requires more than a bonus, extra holiday, or company picnic.

So what should you do if you suspect one or more of your employees are disengaged? Every situation is unique, but here are some good ways to address the issue.

During the early stages of KaiNexus, our chief executive officer, Greg Jacobson, and our chief revenue officer, Jeff Roussel, put together a few key points that capture the core values of KaiNexus. Recently, I got the opportunity to sit down (via video chat) with Greg and Jeff to have them shed some light on our beliefs.

At KaiNexus, we base our work and everyday lives around 10 key points. Not only do we practice and embody these beliefs, but we also hope to spread them to the people we interact with on a daily basis. Join me as we walk through the 10 beliefs of KaiNexus.

Many leaders are finding themselves faced with the task of managing a 100% remote team for the first time. The challenge is amplified by the fact that remote work is new to most employees, and even getting together for an in-person meeting once in a while is impossible.

Unfortunately, business challenges and process defects don’t disappear because there’s a pandemic. In many cases, they just get worse. That’s why we’ve been getting questions about how to operate tried and true improvement tools in this new reality.

This post offers some things to think about if you are going to hold a kaizen event with a remote workforce. It assumes that you have some experience with kaizen events, if not, we recommend you start with this article.

Here are 10 special considerations for remote kaizen events.

Are you struggling to drive a continuous improvement culture in your organization?

Do you need to revive a CI culture that has lost momentum? 

If you’re like so many others, it can be difficult to know which questions to ask, and where to start.

Jeff Roussel, chief revenue officer of KaiNexus and a true continuous improvement leader and believer, recently joined Allison Greco, founder of Continuous Improvement International, to talk about how you can build a continuous improvement culture. To watch a full recap, click here.

Thank you to everyone that joined our second webinar on Ask Docs Anything About COVID-19. We were joined again by Dr. Greg Jacobson and Dr. Mason Mileur to answer all your questions about COVID-19. If you missed our first webinar, be sure to check out our recap.

You can read all the answers to the questions from this webinar below, after the video.

How likely will this be widespread in the US? What's the best way to protect ourselves?

It’s already spread. There’s no stopping it at this point. BUT, what we can do is wear masks when we go out in public for only essential things.

Is it safe to work from home at an outdoor patio? Is the mask necessary to wear?

It is 100% safe to work from home at an outdoor patio. Since you’re home, there’s no real value in wearing a mask, as long as you’re staying away from other people that don’t reside in the home.

We continue to learn more about COVID-19 every day. To help our network know what sources to reference, we created a blog post that lists out all the resources we found valuable. Since publishing our COVID-19 resource post on March 18, we have added sources daily to our growing list. To make sure you don't miss out on any updates, we are highlighting the most recently added resources below. If you'd like to see the full list of resources, check out our original post.

First off, we'd like to thank our panelists, Katie Webb Cyphert, Sara Evans, and Jeff Roussel, for joining our webinar. If you weren't able to attend, you can find the answers to some of your top questions about how to cope with kids in quarantine below.

We included many resources on different ways keep your kids engaged and entertained at the bottom of the post. Additionally, if you're specifically looking for resources on how your district can successfully implement school at home for kids, be sure to check out lead4ward's school@home. Lead4ward provides informative, concise, and creative tools to help support your district's transition to this new norm of school at home. 

Thank you to everyone that participated in our COVID-19 Quiz!

If you missed our COVID-19 quiz webinar, you can find a full recap of all the questions, answers, and an explanation from Dr. Gregory Jacobson, after the video.

We would like to thank everyone who attended our Ask Us Anything COVID-19 webinar with Dr. Greg Jacobson and Dr. Mason Mileur. If you weren't able to attend, you can read all the answers to the questions below, after the video.

I’ve heard a lot of conflicting information, especially online -- where should I go to fact check things related to COVID-19?

We created a list of resources with 20-30 different links. Feel free to use the links to update yourself on current information and to forward to your network.

Key differences between COVID-19 and flu?