Recognition, when well deserved and well delivered, is a gift that keeps on giving.

Datamax Texas President David Rhodes was in a Zoom meeting last month when his phone rang. It was Little Rock Human Resources Manager Tamara Hargrove, calling from President Barry Simon’s office. Rhodes mentioned he was in a meeting but asked if there was anything she needed right now.

It was then that she mentioned the big recognition: Datamax had just been awarded “One of the Best Companies to Work for In Texas.” It was a massive accomplishment for the entire Texas organization.
“I was shocked, I was surprised, and then I was very proud,” Rhodes recalls. “The pride came from the fact that this was a total team effort. It takes all of us to win something that is so difficult to obtain. You are competing against thousands of companies that are trying to accomplish the same goals that we are as a professional culture.”

Recognition, of course, is also an internal best practice at Datamax. Rolling out the Red Carpet for employees isn’t just to say “Thank you.” Its intent is to nurture a company culture that gives back wholly through productivity and external customer service when recognized for individual efforts. The Harvard Business Review put it this way: “Customer and employee satisfaction should be seen as two sides to the same coin.” Recognition feels great. Recognition fuels productivity. Recognition feeds directly into positive, professional Internal Customer Service – something Rhodes values tremendously.

“I believe Internal Customer Service ranks number one in importance (when we talk about culture),” Rhodes said. “If you don’t have a happy employee, it’s going to be very difficult to have a happy customer.”

Internal Customer Service Starts With Trust.

Hard to earn. Easy to lose.

Trust is not just the foundation of Patrick Lencioni’s Pyramid in one of Rhodes’ favorite books, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” It’s a precursor to the type of feedback that ultimately improves an organization.
“We have to have healthy conflict, and that comes from trust,” Rhodes said. “Trust brings healthy feedback (either through surveys or one on one communications). And then, as leaders, it’s our job to take that feedback and make a decision that is the best for the organization.”

Internal Customer Service Improves with Our Ears… and by our Actions.

Two essential traits Rhodes points out that are integral to Internal Customer service worth raving about? Listening skills and a sense of urgency.

“You’ve got to truly listen to what’s being shared or what needs there may be from a coworker or someone on your team,” Rhodes said. “And you’ve got to have that sense of urgency to say ‘there’s an issue. We need to address it,’ so that it doesn’t become a bigger issue….It’s great to listen and obtain feedback, but if you don’t have that sense of urgency to act, you will lose that trust.”

Hard to earn. Easy to lose, indeed.

Internal Customer Service Thrives with Recognition.

What makes recognition so powerful?

In a book by Dr. Andrew Newburg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University, and Mark Robert Waldman, a communications expert, the authors point out, “a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress.”

“By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.”

In other words … We’re all humans. We all feed off of positive encouragement, Rhodes says.

“That positive reinforcement makes you want to work harder. People love to be complimented or spotlighted – we’re all human,” Rhodes said.

Two distinct examples of recognition in Texas include the Datamax Recognition of Excellence Dinners, and the How We Roll Award. The former is a semi-annual white tablecloth dinner for employees in every department who reach specific benchmarks in their role. The second is one of Rhodes’ favorites.

“This award is given to a person by their peers, not by management,” Rhodes explains. “To qualify (for the How We Roll Award), a person must be nominated for something specific they did to go above and beyond. There’s no ‘favoritism’ by management. It’s a great example of people working together and recognizing our coworkers for results.”

Recognition comes in many forms – from company awards to employee nominations to simple words of encouragement. But Rhodes warns us all: Recognition – and internal customer service at large – is fluid. It needs to be practiced every single day to sustain the culture we desire.

“I’m proud of everybody for all the years of work that went into gaining the ‘Best Companies to Work For’ recognition,” Rhodes said. “But Best Places to Work, culture, trust, these are all day-to-day actions. They are accomplishments that have to be on the front of people’s minds every single day we come to work.”