{"id":18039,"date":"2017-05-02T13:56:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T18:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/?p=18039"},"modified":"2023-07-31T12:27:27","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T17:27:27","slug":"rewarding-employees-handmade-mugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/business\/rewarding-employees-handmade-mugs","title":{"rendered":"Rewarding Employees with Handmade Mugs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How do you motivate and reward your employees? Some employers give a once per year bonus or gift, celebrate birthdays with treats or bring in pizza every few months. It&#8217;s likely that your company&#8217;s culture directly impacts the programs you create to keep employees engaged and excited to come to work everyday.<\/p>\n<p>One company that does employee recognition really well is our customer, <a href=\"https:\/\/innovativeos.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Innovative Office Solutions<\/a> here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis\/St.Paul. In fact, they do it so well, they were named one of the 2017 100 Best Companies to Work For by Minnesota Business Magazine. What&#8217;s more, this is their sixth consecutive year receiving the award!<\/p>\n<h2>Keeping and Retaining Great Employees<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-18156\" src=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Employee gifts\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-500x500.jpg 500w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44-50x50.jpg 50w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-14.35.44.jpg 1980w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>More people today desire more than just a paycheck and good benefits.They also crave a sense of belonging, real challenges, the ability to make a difference and a chance to flourish and grow. Innovative Solutions has a &#8220;Relationships Matter&#8221; system that puts their employees at the heart and soul of their company. Not only does the CEO and co-founder, Jennifer Smith, create and retain happy employees with this program, she knows that happy employees = happy customers = a more profitable, sustainable business. Innovative Office Solutions is in its 16th year in the very competitive office supply\/solutions industries, but continues to grow its product and service offerings, therefore providing stability and a future for their employees.<\/p>\n<h2>Custom Handmade Mugs as Gifts<\/h2>\n<p>When we first met Lauren from Innovative, we worked with her to create a custom mug to use as customer gifts at the end of the year. The mugs were not only a hit with the customers, but the employees wanted in too! She quickly placed an additional order of custom mugs to be used as employee incentives. Not just merely as &#8216;good job&#8217; gifts, but in a more meaningful, fun and engaging way.<\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-18041\" src=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1-300x192.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"192\" srcset=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1-300x192.jpg 300w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1-500x320.jpg 500w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1-768x492.jpg 768w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1-1024x656.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/innovative-game-board-20172_Page_1.jpg 1751w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Game On!<\/h2>\n<p>Any company can hand out a cheap branded coffee mug as a gift to employees, but Innovative Office Solutions clearly values their employees more. Rather than just hand out mugs to their employees, they decided to &#8216;game it&#8217; by creating an fun and engaging process where employees earn company swag along the way after completing clearly defined goals.<\/p>\n<p>The game is called &#8216;Clued In&#8217; and was designed to encourage and develop employees to be &#8220;all in&#8221; at work. Based loosely on the board game &#8220;Clue&#8221; the employees solve mysteries and clear themselves as suspects to move on to the next step, with the chance to earn company swag along the way including a handmade coffee mug, cozy fleece blanket and sturdy backpack. All employees who complete the game will be entered to win the grand prize, a vacation!<\/p>\n<p>This game just goes to show Innovative Office Solutions isn&#8217;t just innovative its product offerings, but also innovative in creating an amazing workplace. We are honored to work alongside such outstanding businesses making a difference in our community. If you are thinking of starting or already have an incentive program for your employees, considering &#8216;upping the ante&#8217; and include <a href=\"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/product-category\/coffee-mugs\/\">handmade custom mugs<\/a> that they will treasure for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you motivate and reward your employees? Some employers give a once per year bonus or gift, celebrate birthdays with treats or bring in pizza every few months. It&#8217;s likely that your company&#8217;s culture directly impacts the programs you create to keep employees engaged and excited to come to work everyday. One company that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greyfoxpottery.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}