Recognize This: ALL employees matter, regardless of geographic location.

What’s your general opinion of the employees in your company? If you have multiple locations, do you feel the same respect and appreciation for those in another office, another county, another country? If you’re in HR, do you work to make sure all employees, regardless of location, are treated equally?

I cannot wrap up a series of posts on the second critical tactic for creating a strategic recognition program – Involve Program Participants and Invite Their Input – without discussing the makeup of such a team.

You must consider the widely divergent needs, expectations, and cultural differences that are natural in a multi-location organization. This is compounded a thousand-fold in global organizations. Including representatives from each location in the design phase is critical.

But it’s no less critical in roll-out. If you do a “phased” roll-out of a global program, many will be left feeling like second-class citizens.

It doesn’t matter if you included representatives from the Australian, Chinese and Indian office in the design phase if you plan to roll out the program first to the country of your headquarters, and then eventually to outlying offices or divisions. Truly global programs demand truly global, synchronous deployments.

Have you ever been promised a new “global solution” only to receive it months to years after the initial deployment group? What was your reaction?