Are you dealing with a high employee turnover rate?
Have you noticed that your production numbers have gone way down recently, but you can’t quite identify why?
Do you just feel like the office morale has been a bit low lately?
If so, it’s not necessarily the workload of your employees, a slow season, or even contention between coworkers.
Instead, it could be that you haven’t yet mastered how to make employees feel valued. You might think that your employees don’t feel a need for recognition at work, but that’s far from the truth. In fact, over 65% of employees say that they would leave a job where they didn’t feel as though they were appreciated.
So, what are some effective ways to show appreciation to employees?
Read on to find out.
1. Be Open to Receiving Feedback
Not all employee appreciation tactics have to be drastic.
One of the best ways to let employees know you value them is to be open to receiving feedback on your managerial style — as well as what is and isn’t working in your office.
First of all, you’ll help employees to feel more comfortable approaching you if there’s a serious issue in the future that needs to be addressed. But you’ll also benefit from the incredible — and often profit-boosting — ideas that employees have to offer.
2. Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
Lots of employees don’t speak up or attempt to implement changes amongst themselves because they’re afraid that you won’t give them the proper credit for their ideas.
Always make it clear whose idea a recent change or update was, and give them the chance to speak with other team members about their plans.
Never attempt to take credit for an employee’s idea. If you want to pitch it to the higher-ups, give them the chance to be in the room, too. Remember: there is more than enough success to go around.
3. Treat Your Employees to a Spa Day
It’s no secret that today’s employees are seriously stressed out.
High expectations, tight deadlines, and the challenge of balancing their personal and professional lives can quickly take its toll.
You don’t want your team members to burn out, causing you to lose some of your top employees.
Why not surprise them with an in-office spa day?
Bring in masseuses, meditation coaches, and even manicurists to give everyone a break and a bit of an upgrade. Not only will this show employees how much you care about them, but it also serves as a gentle reminder for them to take care of themselves.
4. Host an Employee Awards Ceremony
Roughly 69% of employees say that they’d gladly work harder for a company if they felt like their hard work was actually recognized.
This means that your employees are capable of doing much better work than they currently are (even if they’re performing well.) However, you just aren’t incentivizing them to do so.
If you truly want to learn how to make employees feel valued, host an annual employee awards ceremony.
Make it a formal event, and host it at a popular local restaurant, on a boat, or at a swanky hotel. Tell team members to invite their loved ones, and don’t skimp on dinner and drinks.
Present your employees with specialized awards, make speeches about what you appreciate about them, and even consider including a small cash bonus with the award itself.
Today’s employees don’t just want to be recognized privately. They want to be applauded in front of the whole team.
5. Focus on Creating a Team
Sometimes, proper employee recognition requires you to remind people that you’re all working together as a team.
Often, employees can feel jealous of their coworkers and those with a higher title. However, you need to find a way to let your employees know that each of them plays a critical role in everyone else’s success.
How can you do that?
With custom challenge coins, a quite literal token of your appreciation.
You can put these in company stockings so employees will have a physical reminder of how much you care — and feel like they’re a part of something bigger than themselves.
Find out more about the history of challenge coins and dream up the perfect design scheme before you place your order.
6. Send out Weekly Recognition Emails
We understand that you can’t take your staff out to dinner or host an employee awards ceremony every week.
However, you can find smaller ways of showing appreciation at work.
Every Friday afternoon, send out a brief email highlighting the weekly successes of members of your team. Maybe one of your employees earned a certification, attended a conference, or closed a huge deal.
Recognize their efforts in a company-wide email to remind your team that you’re always eager to show off their skills.
If you like, you can also mention appropriate personal successes, such as a new baby, an engagement, or a child going off to college.
Learning How to Make Employees Feel Valued Is Simple
At the end of the day, learning how to make employees feel valued is all about the golden rule.
That is, treat others the way you’d like to be treated.
You don’t need to go all out on expensive employee excursions and company dinners all the time. However, treating your team to something nice every once in a while will do wonders for your office morale and employee retention rates.
Need a bit more advice on how to encourage employees to come to you with questions? Ready to re-evaluate your managerial style?
Our blog is here to help, so bookmark it to be the best boss you can be.
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