Hint: It's Not the Cake

One of the things I've often heard is that no one chooses to go into Internal Communications; rather - it's something you fall into.

I can attest to that, from personal experience. My original career plan (pre-high school) was to be a sports statistician. By high school, I moved into a journalism path; and then entered the world of publishing. When the internet arena began gaining traction, I realized traditional paper-based media might not be as stable as it had once been.

Eventually, my propensity for solving problems led to me creating my first role in internal communications. And, I do like to think that solving problems is a really important part. To do that, one has to understand the business wholly.

But, to be honest, my exposure to employee engagement dates back to my first job. And, while I knew I was doing something productive back then; it wasn't until many years later that I understood more of the science.

My first job was as an assistant manager with a discount retail store on Long Island: Cheap John's (even the name conveyed the emphasis on "discount"). As would be expected, the vast majority of the non-manager workforce was high school students. None of them was looking to make a career at Cheap John's.

A few weeks after beginning, I had an epiphany. I began making the next month's schedule and decided to create one evening where everyone who had a birthday that month would be scheduled together. Then, right after closing, I'd bring out a birthday cake and celebrate the colleagues' birthdays.

And, it definitely worked. The kids (and they were kids) were embarrassingly pleased. They were too old for "parties" - but, let's be honest - we all enjoy when people take notice of our birthday. To be sure, I could ask them to do nearly anything after that; and they would walk through walls for me.

That's the easy part to understand.

And I did this for the next two months (until I left the organization); and each month it had the same outcome. Many years later, reflecting on it, I wondered why it resonated the same when - certainly - the cake was, functionally, expected. It was no longer a surprise - these kids weren't dumb. They could look at the schedule and practically predict when the "cake night" would occur.

It was never about the cake.

Instead, it was the fact that it mattered enough to me - management - to take the time to set up the schedule. It mattered enough to me to remember, each month, that this was something that was important to do. So, even though the cake was a nice perk; the value conveyed to the workers was far more hidden; but no less important (even if they weren't consciously aware of why they felt valued).

A term that began floating around pre-Covid was "fluffy perks" - which was a fantastic term for these efforts. I'm certainly not saying rewards are bad -- I was buying a $5 cake each month! But, I realize now that there was more to it than just the cake (and as someone who was barely older than most of my high-school employees, I definitely didn't parse that at the time).

These days, many companies continue to subscribe to the theory that fluffy perks are meaningful. It's why you see events like, "Hey, we just had a record year in profits; come in for free bagels on Friday." Or, worse yet, "Join us for a pizza party where we'll kick off our 'return to office' initiative."

I've said many times before - valuing your employees might be the most important; maybe the only factor in ensuring they are engaged. It's imperative to understand how they feel engaged and make certain you're targeting that in your efforts (hint: it's never going to be the cake).