The heart of any successful business is having rockstar employees that help make it a success. But if you want to keep those employees around, you need to find creative ways to show how much you appreciate them.
Interested in boosting your own employee retention rate? Keep reading to discover the best ways to express your appreciation to your greatest workers!
1. Swiftly Acknowledge Special Accomplishments
The most basic way to express appreciation for your subordinates is to offer them praise for special accomplishments. However, exactly when and how you do so makes a big difference in showing them how much you care.
For example, you should offer praise as close to the accomplishment as possible to boost enthusiasm and engagement. If you wait until, say, the end of the week, an employee may think you just now noticed what they did, making them feel undervalued. If you show appreciation right away, it lets them know you are paying special attention to their performance.
Speaking of special, consider going by their desk and personally expressing gratitude. This will always make more of an impact than just sending an email.
2. Touch Base When You Can
Believe it or not, one of the best ways to express appreciation in the workplace is also the simplest. All you have to do is touch base (such as saying “hello” in the morning or asking how someone has been doing) on a daily basis.
This lets your workforce know you care about how they are doing and are interested in their lives outside of work. Having a boss who doesn’t stay closed up in their office all day really does wonders for employee morale, as does creating things like mentor programs.
3. Embrace Gamification
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to showing your workers how much you appreciate them. For example, one of the most effective methods is to “gamify” the office, and you can do so by modeling a rewards system after what other similar companies have done.
For example, if you work in a call center, you might have daily, weekly, and monthly “quests” that employees can complete for points. These quests might have to do with sales, customer service, creative problem-solving, and much more. Once workers have enough points, they can redeem them for special rewards that might include everything from a nice lunch at a local business to opportunities to work from home.
Gamification is a great way to motivate your team toward major goals and keep things exciting. Giving out rewards on a regular basis helps show your appreciation in a fun and tangible way.
4. Create Fun Work Traditions
No matter how great the salary and benefits are, every worker eventually gets tired of the boring, everyday routine. Therefore, if you want to let your team know how much you appreciate them, it’s important to create and maintain fun workplace traditions.
These traditions might include asking volunteers to bring soup, chili, or other dishes in on Tuesdays, or maybe having a team pizza lunch every Friday. You should always embrace fun cultural traditions, too, including special events like Christmas.
Workers appreciate these traditions because it gives them something to look forward to that breaks up the normal workplace monotony. Furthermore, they’ll know how much you appreciate them because you go through so much trouble entertaining them regularly.
5. Balance Constructive Criticism with Praise
One “rookie mistake” managers often make is thinking that employees mostly want praise. While praising special accomplishments is always important, employees may think you are just flattering them if you never mix criticism with praise.
That’s why it’s important to offer constructive criticism when applicable. Ideally, you’ll mix the praise with the criticism. Praise helps to soften the blow of any criticism, and the criticism helps employees improve their performance.
Why does this help workers understand how much you appreciate them? In short, it shows that you think they have a long-term future at the company and you are willing to help them take their career as far as possible. Be careful about doing this too much, as it could make the employee think criticism is coming every time they are praised.
6. Offer Public Congratulations
Previously, we touched on the importance of coming by an employee’s desk and expressing your personal appreciation for their accomplishments. However, it is equally important for good leaders to publicly praise workers for outstanding performance when you can.
For example, if you have a weekly team meeting, take the time to single out team members for their awesome accomplishments. If you’ve already praised someone privately, they’ll enjoy getting a second dose when you mention their accomplishments during the meeting. Meanwhile, other employees who desire such public praise will now have a powerful incentive to improve their own performance.
7. Use Extra Time Off as a Reward
So far, we have focused on different strategies to make workers feel valued in the workplace. But make no mistake: The most powerful reward you can give to any employee is an opportunity to get them out of the workplace.
Whether as part of a gamification system or some other reward structure, you should let employees earn extra time off as a special reward. As you might imagine, the opportunity to take Friday or Monday off and enjoy a three-day weekend is a powerful motivator for employee performance.
While the employee is chilling out at home (or maybe enjoying a special day on the town), they’ll remember the manager who helped make it happen, improving employee loyalty and retention in a single move.
Put Your Leadership Skills to the Test Today!
Now you know how to show employees how much you appreciate them. But do you know who is ready and waiting to appreciate you and your awesome management skills?
Here at Seguros Confie, we are always ready to bring effective business leaders like yourself into the fold. To see how we can help find the job you’ve been dreaming of, all you need to do is apply today!