Your employees deserve more than just a “thank you.” They are essential to your businesses success. It takes a team to get a business off the ground, and business owners with the most talented employees tend to have the most success. It takes more than good luck to find and attract the right talent for your business. One of the easiest and best ways to attract top talent is to treat your employees well. You need to treat them like people and reward them when appropriate. This will help build trust between you and your employees, boost productivity levels, and decrease turnover. Below, we will go into 5 ways to let your employees know that you care about them.
Feed Them
It’s no secret that people like to be fed. This type of reward is able to bring your office together and strengthen interpersonal relationships. Also, it gives them the feeling that they are appreciated by you. This does not need to be anything too over the top. It can be as simple as bringing in donuts for breakfast or ordering pizzas for lunch on the company’s dime. It’s the little things like this that can make your employees feel appreciated.
Express Your Gratitude on Social Media
With social media, you can recognize employees on their birthdays and work anniversaries. All you need to do is create a simple post. It can include a photo and a blurb of what highlights that employee’s contribution to your business or even an interesting fact about them. This is a free and easy way that you can show appreciation to each and everyone of your employees. They can share the post of them and it will show that you truly care about your employees. In the long run, this can help you better fill open positions you have because people like to work at companies where they know employees are truly valued.
Encourage Their Feedback
You can give out a yearly or semi-yearly survey that allows your employees to anonymously give you feedback about the company. It can be a short 10 or 15 question survey about teamwork, leadership, career growth, etc. You can also give them space to answer what needs to be improved and what’s on their mind. This allows all of your employees to feel heard and want to contribute to making your company better.
Host Events for the Entire Company
The best and easiest times to host events for the entire company is around the holiday season. A simple catered dinner can go a long way with your employees. You can also make it more fun by having each department do a white elephant gift exchange with each other. Depending on the size of your company, you could always have the whole company do a white elephant exchange together. It’s an easy way to help build relationships between all of your employees while showing your appreciation for them.
Celebrate Birthdays
We briefly discussed this above when talking about expressing your gratitude on social media. However, celebrating birthdays in the office is a great way to show your appreciation. You don’t have to do a celebration for every individual employee’s birthday, but you can do a celebration each month. You can send out an email to the entire company about what day the celebration will be on and who has a birthday during that month. You can do something as simple as bringing in cookies or a cake. This will give your employees a short break during the day to go and mingle and eat a sweet as a little pick-me-up midday.