Fantastic Frogs

How has this idea enhanced your club's operation, etc.?

Employees in their first job require extra care and attention. A summer job should be enjoyable and rewarding, in the chaos of a 12 week operation it is easy to forget to recognize your employee for good work. At the Country Club of Virginia we have an employee recognition program but the structure of the program does not quite line up with a part time seasonal position. In order to recognize the employees in the Aquatics Department we implemented the Fantastic Frog Incentive Program. Throughout their 12 weeks of work, Aquatics employees had the opportunity to earn Frog Cards for good work and extra tasks performed. Managers would fill out cards with the employees' name and a short description of the good work they performed. Once the card was filled out it was hung in the Aquatics employee break room for staff to read during their breaks. Throughout the summer at staff meetings, the cards were placed into a raffle drawing for assorted gift cards. This was also another opportunity to recognize all the staff's good work done recently. This incentive program increased the Aquatics staff’s overall satisfaction with their job. It is evident these employees enjoyed their work experience at CCV with 9 of the 11 staff members returning this year to work at the pool again from the 2018 season.

How was this idea implemented, and what have been the club members' reactions?

At the start of the summer in 2018, I wanted to find a way to better recognize the Aquatics staffs' good work. The current club wide incentive program did not work well for our department because it was missing the group recognition aspect that boosts confidence in young employees. We created our own recognition cards with silly frogs to make them fun. At the next staff meeting we explained what the cards were, how to earn them, and how to win prizes. The program was well received by the staff and encouraged them to be self starters. Club Members were not directly involved with this incentive program but if a compliment was made by a member about a staff person we were sure to write them a frog card as a second form of recognition.