News — Did you know

Over here at Recognition Source we could talk about awards and acknowledging hard work until we’re blue in the face. Want to shoot the breeze about importance of recognizing employees for exceptional work, let’s do it – we have talking points. How about trying to decide on appropriate gifts for employees around the holidays –...

Beware of Vanity Scams: Dishing out phony awards with the hook of purchasing plaques or copies of the award for family, friends, or your own business at a later date. These scams, while the execution and details may vary, have been in existence since the dawn of publishing and are much easier to pull off...

Everyone seems to be talking about the “fiscal cliff” lately but many people only have a general idea what it entails, why it is occurring, and the impact businesses and taxpayers can expect from it.

From 1981 to 2001 Jack Welch was the Chairman and CEO of General Electric.During those twenty years, GE’s company value soared by 4000%. Welch started at the bottom in 1960 and plotted his way through the ranks, eventually leading him to a vice president position in 1972. Nine years later he became GE’s youngest CEO and began to stir up GE. Welch began to dismantle much of the management put together by previous CEOs and led an aggressive simplification and consolidation initiative. In fact, during the early 80s he was nicknamed “Neutron Jack” due to his tactic of eliminating employees and leaving the building intact. He was renowned for his annual firing the bottom 10% of his managers and awarding the top 20% with bonuses and stock options. While his hard-nosed managerial style has been criticized throughout the years, Welch’s and GE’s overwhelming success consistently muffled the middle-class outcries to mere whimpers.

What’s his secret to managing employees OTHER than firing the weak and rewarding the strong? Well, Welch recently spoke about this at New York’s World Business Forum this past June. The main takeaway was this: “This whole game of business revolves around one thing. You build the best team, you win.”

In response to our Classy Awards post where we introduced the awards and covered some of the finalists – here is the follow-up post. We’ll dive into the ceremonies, the winners and the impact these charities have on the communities they serve.

For a smidge of backstory, the Class Awards were started in 2009 with a very straightforward goal – to put a public spotlight on amazing charitable efforts in the San Diego community. As the awards gained popularity and participation, the reach was quickly expanded to the entire nation and broken into regions throughout the country. This past year they received over 2,000 nomination and over 250,000 votes were cast and have become the largest philanthropic awards ceremony in the country.

So let’s review some of the winners and if you would like to know more about any of these charities that names of each charity links to their website.