The first step in giving employees recognition is discovering
what they actually want as a reward. That’s why, with some
help, Judith B. Van Ginkel structured a program and strategy to recognize her 125 workers at all levels at Every Child Succeeds.
“As we begin to talk about it, we need to have everyone
involved,” she says. “We might think that someone wants a plaque,
but someone may rather have a gift certificate to go out to dinner.
We wanted a more structured process, and what we are doing was
responsive to the needs and the interests of the people being recognized.”
Van Ginkel is president of ECS, a voluntary program that offers
first-time mothers and their families support to help ensure an
optimal start for their children.
“In the public arena, there are hundreds of programs and hundreds of activities to be involved with. It’s our responsibility to our
stakeholders to explain why this produces results,” she says of the
program, which has an annual budget of $8 million.
Smart Business spoke with Van Ginkel about how to handle success and create confidence in others.
Q: How do you handle failure?
You learn from it. Somebody explained to me, if you have something that doesn’t work, it’s the best opportunity you have to learn
what to do next.
You don’t want to make huge mistakes about things that are
going to be destructive to the organization, because we have many
good minds and we try to not allow that to happen. If something
happens that might not have been the right thing, then we go back,
learn from it and learn from mistakes.
It’s sort of a periodic reassessment and renewal.
Q: How do you create confidence in others?
By delivering on your promises and understanding realistically
what is possible. Part of this creating confidence is the way I and
others present ECS.
We document that because we are an evidenced-based program.
We collect a lot of research and collect a lot of information that
demonstrates the investment in Every Child Succeeds produces
results.
Q: How do you handle success?
We have begun to get national attention, both in terms of program operations and program outcomes. We have begun to get
other requests from other communities to have an Every Child
Succeeds program.
We have just begun deploying in our service area, something
called the Every Child Succeeds model of home visitation. We
are using two national models. With what we have learned, we
are beginning to improve those models.
We are not ready yet to send ECS outside of Greater
Cincinnati, but we do anticipate a time when that will happen.
What we will probably do is begin working with one or two
communities who are willing to work with us as pilot sites and
we’ll develop this together. We need to understand ECS grew
up in Greater Cincinnati and we responded to the needs of our
community, (but) every community is different.
What this interest has done is it has caused us to ask ourselves questions about taking what we do and packaging it in a
way where another community could use it. You begin to structure and unify the various components of your program in a
way that works better here.
We have 15 agencies so anything we do we have to have in a
form that 15 agencies can use. We have started to work on that
now and it will be some time before we get it finished. Through
the ECS model and the way we are viewing that, in a sense, it
becomes a bridge to the next level.
The way I see this is most communities have home visiting programs. I wouldn’t anticipate or recommend they get rid of their
home visiting program and add ours.
What I would see is that they take the things we have learned
to them and that would be overlaid on the home visiting program they have, (and) improve what they are doing based on
the learning we have been able to develop here.
Q: How are decisions made at ECS?
We do things in a collaborative way. The board is very
involved in decision-making, but that’s not to say they get
involved in the minutia of day-to-day activities.
But they provide good, sound direction that we follow. If we are
in a place where something is changing, we will develop the materials and go back to the board.
HOW TO REACH: Every Child Succeeds, (513) 636-2830 or www.everychildsucceeds.org