3 Ways to Highlight Your Employees
Feeling appreciated in the workplace is essential to the productivity, satisfaction, and well-being of your employees. In fact, 37% of employees say that recognition is the most important driver of great work. (Great Place to Work)
(Image Source: Great Place to Work)
But unfortunately, only one in three employees strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for good work in the last seven days (Gallup survey).
Appreciation is directly related to great work and employee engagement, and in the remote work environment that we live in today, we all know the importance of engagement.
So, how do you recognize your employees?
Here are 3 ways to highlight your employees in the workplace:
1. Value Awards
The majority of successful companies base their employee reward programs on their core company values. Why?
“Values are written words, and your culture is how you actually live [them out],” said Jeff Lawson, Articulating Company Values & Living Them Authentically.
If your values are the foundation upon which your company is seated, then rewarding your employees on them sets everyone up for success. One of the ways that we recognize our employees according to our values at Snellings Walters is through our Bravo Awards. Each quarter our entire team selects five people that represented each of our five values well over the last quarter. We then celebrate at our Quarterly Meetings by announcing each winner and sharing publicly across social media, and each recipient receives a gift card as a token of our appreciation. Sometimes the best type of employee encouragement is through public and peer-to-peer recognition. Remember – the little things that go a long way! For more on why company values matter, click here.
2. Host a Lunch or Gathering
Highlighting your employees and showing appreciation doesn’t always have to mean words of affirmation. It can also look like hosting a lunch or a gathering to show your team that you care and are thankful for their hard work. This can look like catering a free lunch for your employees, treating them to a lunch out of the office (or sending Uber Eats if they’re still working from home), or planning a gathering during the workday that would be a special treat for your team!
Earlier this summer, we hosted an agency-wide barbeque to celebrate the summer and thank our employees for all of their hard work!
3. Encourage Peer-To-Peer Recognition
When employees hear what their peers have to say about them, it goes a long way. Encouraging peer-to-peer recognition stems from leadership. As a business leader, if you demonstrate highlighting and encouraging your employees, then it sets a precedent for your team to do the same with one another. Another way to encourage peer-to-peer recognition is to set up awards, like our Bravo Awards, where you specifically ask employees to highlight their peers.
Do you have any other suggestions to add to this list? We would love to hear from you! Follow us on LinkedIn and leave a comment.