Appreciate Your Employees Every Day and You Won't Be Disappointed
To encourage engagement and loyalty, make sure to celebrate employees' accomplishments and achievements.
Where would your business be without your dedicated employees? Every single one of your employees makes a big impact on your business day in and day out all year long. With that in mind, here are five ideas for celebrating your staff every day.
Show Appreciation
Appreciation doesn't necessarily mean gifts, awards or kudos emails — although all of those things are nice. It can also mean showing support for an employee's idea, project or actions that go above and beyond their normal duties. Ideas include peer-to-peer recognition, advanced training opportunities and fun planned events.
Read more: It's the Little Things: 5 Employee Appreciation Ideas That Can Make a Big Difference
Do Recognition Right
Are you stuck when it comes to ideas for employee recognition? Sometimes, the certificate, plaque or gold star doesn't quite cut it.
Explore unique ways to reward employees. Millennials have been shown to prefer experiences over stuff. So showing appreciation with spa days, trips or extra time off may accomplish what a trophy cannot.
Read more: Tips on How to Reward Hard Work
Support Well-Being With Work-Life Balance
Forbes recommends forgetting the 9-to-5 for your younger employees, and for good reason: Millennials and Gen Z demand flexible hours and better work-life balance than their parents or grandparents enjoyed. Supporting work-life balance can also help manage your employees' stress levels, keeping them satisfied and engaged. To improve work-life balance, consider adding flextime or compressed workweek options.
Read more: Alternative Working Arrangements May Benefit Your Business
Encourage Employee Engagement
Employee engagement occurs when employees feel that their work and their ideas matter. When you seek employee input, go beyond the typical suggestion box. Ask employees for their feedback on issues pertaining to sales, marketing, benefits and more. Trust your employees' judgment on important decisions if they have proven trustworthy in the past. Seasoned employees are often great judges of what will work and what won't for the company, and demonstrating your trust can lead to greater engagement.
Read more: 6 Cost-Effective Ways to Drive Employees Engagement
Measure and Share Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is often one of the best motivators for employees. Knowing that their work is both appreciated and has made a difference to the customer can go a long way toward rewarding and motivating great service later. Share customer feedback through your employee newsletter, emails or an internal bulletin board. Personally congratulate employees who exceed customer expectations and go the extra mile. Employee appreciation includes recognizing great customer service, which builds your company's brand, sales and overall reputation.
Employees are the lifeblood of your business. Without your team, there would be no one to run the machines, handle the customers, develop the products or provide the services. To encourage engagement and loyalty, make sure to celebrate their accomplishments and achievements.
Read more: Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day The Right Way
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