Recognizing Public Service Employees – #PSRW
(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. Kronos recently announced that, for the 17th consecutive year, they have been awarded the NorthFace ScoreBoard Award for excellence in customer service. Congratulations! Enjoy the post.)
Employee recognition is important. It’s good for employee morale, engagement, and retention. And not just on an individual level. Organizations are recognizing groups of employees during workplace recognition days like Customer Service Week (the first full week of October) and Administrative Professionals Week (typically held in April). As a human resources professional, it’s good to see more organizations recognizing the work of their employees.
I’m also seeing organizations recognize employees who serve their community. Businesses understand that there’s a whole group of people who don’t work for the company but play a role in their success. One such group of individuals that every community relies upon are public servants. If you weren’t aware, this week is Public Service Recognition Week (PSRW). It’s been celebrated since 1985.
Public servants include first responders (i.e. police, fire, and emergency services). They’re all government employees across local, state, and federal governments. In addition, education employees across K-12 and higher education, including student employees at universities. Public service employees play a huge role in our communities.
To celebrate Public Service Recognition Week and the important work being done in our communities, our friends at Kronos created a video – “The Heroes of Public Service”.
Public service employees not only make our communities safer and better, but they touch individual lives. Rock Regan, director of the public-sector practice group at Kronos, shared with me a very personal story about what public service means to him.
“I was eight years old. Several friends of mine and I had decided to go tobogganing. Unfortunately, while we were out having fun, we crashed into a school fence. The good news was it wasn’t with a thud, but the toboggan dug in and slid effortlessly beneath the fence. My legs tucked in and were pinned under the tines of the fence.
Realizing it was serious, my friends knew it was time to go for help. The closest house was just a few hundred yards away and off they went. Moments later, I could hear the siren roar of Engine Six from our neighborhood firehouse and I knew help was on the way.
As I waited to be cut free, I remember thinking, ‘Thank god for the people who run to you in time of need, and give you the coat off their back in the middle of a storm to keep you warm and safe.’
For well over 20 years, I’ve had the privilege to be involved in the public sector. I know first-hand of the heroes that most never think of. The people like custodians who keep our schools maintained and clean, the road crews who fill in the potholes, the folks who run the programs at the parks, the caseworkers who keep children at risk safe, and the database administrators who make sure police officers get the latest information sent to their mobile computers. The list goes on and on. There are so many other public service heroes and we don’t do nearly what we should to show just how much we appreciate them.”
Public service employees are an integral part of the organizations they serve. They contribute to the education, safety, security, and efficiency of our communities. On some level, they’re an extension of our private sector workforce, because we couldn’t achieve our goals without them. They help our communities thrive, which in turn helps our businesses.
So, if you know a public service employee, take a moment to thank them for their hard work. And I hope you’ll share this post to thank the all the other public service employees who work in our communities every day. Thanks!
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