Seen and Known: How Lovett Is Reimagining Employee Recognition

S9E5 What would it mean for every person on a school campus—the teacher, the department chair, the custodian, the grounds crew—to end the year knowing that someone truly saw them? Not through a trinket or a mass email, but something personal, specific, and lasting. It turns out the answer might be as simple as a handwritten note—and at Lovett, a team of colleagues decided to find out.

In this episode of Living Lovett, host Jessica Sant sits down with Vanessa Boone, K–5 Design and Engineering teacher in the Lower School Innovation Lab, and Dr. Lindsay Samson, Middle School Department Chair for World Languages, who together co-chair Lovett's 26-person Employee Engagement Working Team. This year, that team set out to answer a question many organizations never think to ask: How do our people actually want to be recognized? They surveyed the community, dug into the data, and built something real around what they found.

You'll hear Vanessa and Lindsay unpack the meaningful difference between recognition and reward, what surprised them in the pulse survey results, and how a brainstormed idea became a schoolwide campaign connecting parents, faculty, and staff. This episode brings home how recognition and engagement help make Lovett the place that it is.

Living Lovett is the award nominated podcast hosted by Jessica Sant. Find Living Lovett on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Visit The Lovett School website Lovett.org for more information. Lovett is on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Questions? Comments? Episode suggestions? We'd love to hear from you! Email host Jessica Sant.