How to make everyday feel like an employee appreciation day
Employee appreciation day is a day when companies across the world take time to express appreciation for their employees. Some companies buy lunch for employees weekly, throw parties, team outing or give out awards to employee. A few might even give their team the day off! So how do you know the time, effort, and other resources you’re putting into recognizing employees are well spent?
Make every day employee appreciation day
Show genuine appreciation to your employees throughout the year. You don’t need to throw a party every day; it’s about building a culture of appreciation across the entire organization.
Here are lists of easy ways to recognize employees on a regular basis:
1. Celebrate diverse wins, results, and contributions
Are rewards tied to sales or years of service? As deserving as your top producers and senior employees may be, your other employees are contributing to the company’s success, too.
While one employee may have landed a big new account, another may have reduced the company’s exposure to risk, and yet another may have recently completed an intense task. Look for and celebrate “wins” of all kinds both publicly and privately.
2. Encourage peer recognition
Encouraging peer recognition is an effective way to ensure that your employees feel recognized and appreciated for their contributions. Instead of an annual, top-down approach,peer recognition empower employees to recognize and reward one another on a much more frequent basis.
Although peer recognition is one of the most effective methods to ensure employees know they’re appreciated, there are many other complementary initiatives you can implement that does nicely with it.
3. Host Lunch and Learns
Each of your employees has a list of unique talents. Some of those talents may still be hidden. Take the initiative, pick up lunch for the team, and organize a half-hour event to learn from each other.
What would your team like to learn about or share? Use your creativity, and solicit feedback from the team on what they’d like to hear about.
4. Offer professional development
Providing professional development opportunities and encouraging employees to grow within your organization is one of the most powerful ways you can show your appreciation.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that investing in your team’s development is simply grooming them for their next position at another company. By supporting their professional development, you’re showing the team how much you value their current skills, and the things they bring to the table. Your investment also shows your interest in seeing them grow with you over the long term.
5. Prioritize personal outreach
Personal outreach takes just a few minutes of your time and is an incredibly powerful way to help employees feel appreciated. There are a lot of great tools and techniques out there to help make this happen on a mass scale, but it’s important to remember to personally thank your teammates for the work they do.