Startup Magazine Employee Appreciation Day: Do you know your people well enough?

Employee Appreciation Day has come and gone on March 3rd, and many organizations have taken the time to do activities to show their gratitude to their people. Days like these are a great opportunity to give back to the employees who work so hard to make the vision of the business a reality. But the truth is, giving thanks one day a year — maybe including two Christmas functions — isn’t enough to keep your employees happy and engaged.

Great recognition requires continuous effort on many fronts, from rewards and recognition to training, development, and comms.

Say thank you often

Employees want to feel that they are contributing to the organization’s goals and that they are contributing on a daily basis. By only thanking them twice a year, those are 363 days when your employees feel invisible and underappreciated. Regular appreciation is important not only for making people feel valued, but also because it supports long-term engagement. High engagement is an employee appreciation silver bullet that solves a variety of issues, from retention and productivity to safety and creativity.

Modern companies are regularly turning to online employee recognition platforms for recognition within their workforce, and by introducing peer-to-peer recognition functionality, pressure is placed on managers to let their colleagues know each other when great things are happening and happening.

Focus on development

People like to feel like they’re constantly moving forward and striving toward their next goal—personally and professionally. Supporting people to achieve their goals is another great way to show gratitude and that you value their work – and see their future potential with a little extra support.

Training, mentoring, and internal promotion are important ways to appreciate employees’ work skills and abilities.

Communicate effectively

You might be sitting there thinking how great all your teams are, but if you don’t tell them, how will they know?!

One of the biggest internal issues many organizations face is overworked line managers and team leaders whose job is often to manage projects and meet deadlines as well as recognition and managing the ‘human’ side of the team. Although managers are always too busy to praise, internal comps are just as important here as big internal comps to connect the business with employees regularly and quantitatively.

Working with internal communications agencies is a good place to start here, along with developing your own internal communications strategies.

Work on your culture

If your employees dread walking into your workplace or can’t wait to leave or leave at the end of the day, you may have a toxic culture. No matter how much you praise employees or try to get involved with Friday drinks and pizza parties, toxic cultures are extremely damaging to an organization because the culture always overrides any positives.

Working on your workplace culture is key to creating and influencing an environment where regular, heartfelt recognition takes place.

Safety is important.

Health is a binary matter – you either have it or you don’t. Employees who are mentally or physically ill can’t perform their jobs properly, are more likely to take sick days, and are more likely to leave and look for better work elsewhere.

So focusing on your employees’ well-being has two main benefits to showing employee appreciation. First, it shows your people that you care about them as a whole person (not just the part they come to work for you), and secondly, healthier people are more engaged and do better work, which increases their chances of success. They are recognized, which further increases their engagement… it’s a happy self-fulfilling cycle!