The greatest asset of any business is the people who work there, but it’s easy to lose track of opportunities to show your team how much they matter in the day-to-day hustle and bustle.
While expressing gratitude and appreciation to your team feels like a soft HR concept, it actually has a significant impact on a business’ bottom line.
Expressing gratitude to your team will both improve your workplace culture and can help you retain your great employees long term. In fact, according to Forbes in a recent study, 66% of employees expressed they would leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated. (That number jumps to 76% if your workforce is primarily millennials).
So, how do you express gratitude to your team in a way that is effective and sustainable in your day-to-day business?
Here are just a few ideas that you can put to work for you right away:
Celebrate Small (& Big) Victories
When your team members have a win at work or at home, celebrate it! Did someone complete a complicated training program? Make a record sale? Did someone compete in a race? Meet a goal weight? Did their child make honor roll?
Put into place a system for acknowledging the wins and letting their friends submit acknowledgments on their behalf, and sharing that with the whole team.
Your Retriever Digital Signage is a great tool for sharing these wins with the whole team in a super visible way that will not only inspire people to congratulate each other, but will also remind them to share other successes with your HR department.
Personal Notes/Emails
Words of encouragement, especially written ones, can serve as a needed reminder of appreciation both when they’re received and on the hard, long days. By writing down a personal note to someone, the words on the page carry a greater significance and permanence that can boost an employee’s confidence and remind them of their valued place on your team. Well worth the few minutes it takes to write a note!
Surprise Them
Few things put a smile on the face of your team like a welcome surprise. Surprises have the benefit of being unexpected, which means that no one feels entitled to them. Moreover, a surprise “out of the blue” staff appreciation can be incredibly meaningful for your team.
Just be sure it’s something the whole team can enjoy, repeatable scalable for the future, otherwise future surprises might pale in comparison to the time that everyone got a free car.
Some great surprises that are great for boosting a team’s morale that might work for your office include a catered lunch (just be sure to provide for your food restrictions as well), gift cards, a surprise paid half day off, chair massages, or live music in the lunch room.
Simply Say “Thank You”
Sometimes all it takes is a heartfelt “thank you.” Sure, people shouldn’t have to be thanked for doing their job, but gratitude is always appreciated and helps to motivate your team and give them a deeper sense of belonging as a part of your staff.
You can say thank you at a staff meeting, in your Retriever playlist, on a company email, or individually – however you decide, just remember that without a great staff, your business wouldn’t be able to do anything successfully! That’s something to feel grateful about.
If you’re looking for some more ways to create a culture of belonging on your team, we believe it all starts with excellent communication… so much so that we wrote a book about it! You can download it here, for free:
Download our Communications Guide