NCMPR BLOG

by Christine Payton
South Louisiana Community College
Lafayette, LA

The communication and marketing office at a community college remains busy no matter the season. There’s no downtime, really. Media requests don’t wait, and messages on social media can’t wait. We’re on a go-go-go schedule.

It’s imperative, however, to take time to acknowledge and celebrate all that we’ve accomplished. The end of the year is the perfect time to take a look back at our wins.

Research shows that celebrating our wins – even small ones – can improve productivity in the workplace. It also sets off a chemical reaction in our brain, according to “The Harvard Business Review.” One researcher found that celebrating a win, no matter how small, activates the release of chemicals that give us feelings of achievement and pride. What staff doesn’t want to experience those feelings?

So, celebrate good times. Doing so gives you and your staff that positive pick-me-up that can help push us through the exhaustion that comes with the year’s end and the go-go-go schedule.

For my office, we’re reflecting on a year filled with experiences that brought out new skills among staffers and a higher standard of service to our internal and external audiences. We introduced a new project management system within the office to help better track and manage our work.

We also planned and executed a collegewide convocation that saw survey results as high as ever. The institutional advancement staff, which includes my office, planned a “Morning at the Movies” complete with an employee-featured movie. This was a definite win – a big one for employee engagement!

We’ve also had small wins along the way and personal ones, too (these are important as well and should be celebrated). We keep track of all of them on our “Win Wall” in the office hallway.

What’s a Win Wall, you ask? It’s a pretty simplistic idea but it gets the job done. We placed a large wall sticker in our main hallway and use sticky notes to capture our wins throughout the year. We started the Win Wall two years ago and use different color sticky notes to differentiate between years.

It’s quite a visual reminder of all that we’ve accomplished and all that we can accomplish. In 2018, we’re going to pick a new color sticky note and get to work adding to our Win Wall. Here’s to a prosperous and achievement-filled New Year to all of us!

Christine Payton is the communications and marketing director for South Louisiana Community College. She’s a member of NCMPR’s District 2 and serves on the district’s executive council as the representative for Louisiana. She most recently was named Communicator of the Year for District 2.