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How to Engage Your Employees During the Holidays

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how to engage your employees

The holiday season brings with it so much joy, merriment, and goodwill. From gift-getting to gift-giving to spending extra time with loved ones to taking more time to relax, there are so many good things about the holidays. For so many, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

For businesses? Maybe not so much. Keeping employees fully engaged and committed during the holiday season can be challenging, to say the least. With heavier workloads due to coworkers taking time off, distracted employees, unpredictable customer demands, and increased pressure to meet year-end goals, keeping employees engaged towards the end of the year can seem nearly impossible. Truly, it’s no wonder productivity tends to start slumping in mid-November.

However, keeping your employees engaged during the holiday months is crucial for your bottom line and overall staff satisfaction. Here are a few tips to help keep your employees motivated and finish out the year strong.

 

1. Reward and recognize great work

Show your employees how much you value their hard work and dedication this holiday season. Writing them a thank-you note or going out of your way to offer words of appreciation and encouragement will help keep them motivated to continue delivering great work, even when it’s difficult to stay focused.

Though verbal recognition is powerful, putting a structured rewards-based employee engagement program in place year-round can also help extend engagement into the holiday season. Be sure to highlight employee accomplishments regularly and consistently reward stellar work.

 

2. Be festive

Make sure some of that holiday cheer makes it to the office. Add some holiday- or winter-themed decorations. Hold a small secret Santa or white elephant gift exchange. Have an ugly sweater contest. Host a company-wide Christmas bake-off. Don’t ignore the holidays in an attempt to minimize distraction – embrace them to avoid employee resentment and invite a more lighthearted, stress-free atmosphere. It’ll help make your employees happier, more motivated, and more productive.

 

3. Offer a flexible schedule 

During the holiday season, it can be difficult to fill schedules and make sure there are enough employees in the office every day. Offering your employees the extra personal time they need to visit family, plan for the holidays, and just take a break shows them that they are appreciated and gives them the chance to recharge. Your employees will likely be more productive before and after their time off. As for those employees that help fill in gaps while their coworkers are away on vacation, be sure to show gratitude and encourage other employees to do so as well.

 

4. Communicate year-end goals and holiday plans clearly

Whatever your goals and policies, make sure your employees are aware of them. Inform your employees of expectations early on. Reiterate your holiday scheduling guidelines. Be transparent about company-wide goals, progress, and needs. It’ll help your employees feel more valued and see how their role fits into the big picture. They’ll make better decisions and focus their work on contributing to those goals — just like you want them to!

 

5. Look Forward to the Future

Don’t wait until the new year starts to set goals — start setting new goals before the year ends. Encourage employees to get involved by suggesting areas that could be improved company-wide, and encourage them to set personal goals as well. Be specific and optimistic when looking forward to the future, and help employees see their individual roles and responsibilities in making the company’s vision a reality. It’ll help your employees get right back into the swing of things once they come back from taking time off.

 

6. Volunteer at a charity

Embrace what the holiday season is really about. As you give back to the community as a company, your employees will feel a sense of goodness and unity, sure to extend to the workplace. Whether you hold a toy/clothing drive, collect cans for a food drive, or volunteer at your local soup kitchen as a team, giving back is sure to boost morale collectively and individually. Plus, it’ll help put any struggles or stresses into proper perspective.

During these holiday months, think about your employees’ needs and capabilities. Help them feel that their work is meaningful, appreciated, and valued. As leaders, we have a responsibility to inspire our employees to action and productivity — understanding their needs is crucial to be able to do so. Your employees will be grateful for it, and it will show in their overall productivity and engagement!

Turnkey Recognition Programs: Let Your Employees Choose

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Our last blog, 6 Essential Elements of a Service Award Program, provided essential components that create motivation and show heartfelt appreciation to your employees.  We believe that these elements about service awards are also applicable to Sales and Safety awards.

Times change and so have award program.  They have evolved to make achieving these recommended elements easy for companies to offer.  As a reminder, awards should:

  • Be functional
  • Potentially suitable for use at home
  • Have recurring value
  • A high perceived value
  • And focus on specific recognition levels – meaning the award should match what the person is being awarded for!

Let Your Employee Choose

This is a tall order to fill.  How can we create a type of award that would meet all of these criteria for varying individuals with different tastes?  Today recognition programs have been designed to do just that…meet the individual’s taste by letting them choose.

Now you can create a program for your company that provides useful, useable, and desired gifts for your employees that:

  • Keep your company top of mind with logos added to the items chosen
  • Provide varying levels of merchandise values for varying levels of service or performance.
  • Are created especially for your company with materials created for you employees to choose from.
  • And service to handle all of the gift packaging and delivery.

HR Manager Benefits

Human resource managers have a huge role in every company.  They are tasked with helping operating managers recruit, onboard, pay, train, and manage benefits for all of the company’s employees.  It is logical that they would support the operating managers in employee recognition also.

The HR manager is faced with logistics challenges with the varying needs of different departments and the desire to truly please the employees with the award.  It may feel daunting.

It may also be intimidating to imagine setting up a whole turnkey program.  However, the impact to your department team will be much less in the long run and with services such as ours, we can make the program set-up as painless as possible.

Take a Peak

Just to spark your imagination, see a few pictures of the items one of our customers chose for their organization:

Jewelry is a very popular choice among employees. There are a large number of selections at different prices allowing employers to have a jewelry selection at every level of their program.

 

Turnkey Recognition Programs

An example of the items one customer chose for their 10 year service awards.  Versatile and fun for an outdoor person.

Turnkey Recognition Programs

 

Beautiful timepieces for a 40 year award.  Yes, people still stay at one company for 40 years! Or maybe they have a 40 years of safe practices and no safety incidents on their record.

Turnkey Recognition Programs

 

And charming home décor that the whole family can enjoy make for a wonderful 20 year recognition or a Top Salesperson of the Year Award.

These are just a few ideas of rich catalogues that could be created for your company and provide an organized, simple, but unique program to recognize all levels of performance and service.

There are many programs to choose from.  For more information about our Choice Program, click here or call us at (866) 924-2778.

6 Essential Elements of a Service Award Program

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Everyone desires to be recognized for their hard work. A good pat on the back for a job well done can show employees that they are truly appreciated. People thrive on recognition, and it actually can have a positive impact on a person’s self-esteem.

That’s where a Service Award Program comes into play. When structured correctly, this system will not only make employees happier, but it will actually increase their motivation to work harder. This reaction, in turn, benefits both the employee and the business by improving productivity.

 

Is A Service Award Program Right for My Business?

Personnel Journal published a survey that found that larger businesses have more budgeted for recognition and awards programs than smaller companies.  However, recognition programs are an important way for businesses, no matter the size, to show that employees are valued. Even for small businesses, awards are crucial in hiring future employees and increasing productivity in the workplace.

But how do you know what type of award will provide a return on your investment, yet satisfy the employee at the same time? And, how should this award system be structured? Let’s look at the 6 essential elements of a Service Award Program:

 

1) The Award Should Be Functional

It should serve a purpose, even if it isn’t a practical use.  And, preferably,  the award should not be something that the employee would normally buy for themselves. If the award is something that has no functionality, the value decreases. If it is something that the employee could purchase whenever they want, this also decreases the value.

 

2) The Award Should Be Suitable for Use in the Home

When the award can be used in the home, it naturally includes the employee’s family. For the average person, most of the time that they are away from their families, they are at work. Thus, the majority of the time spent away from the job is at home with the family. The goal should be to unite the employee, employer, the home, and the family through the award. Everyone is happy and it brings a personal aspect to the award that is invaluable.

 

3) The Award Should Have Recurring Value

The award should be memorable. Whenever the award is used, or noticed by a friend or family member of the employee, the original moment of receiving the recognition is remembered and valued. It needs to be something that brings pride to the employee, provoking thankfulness to the company.

 

4) The Award Should Have a High Perceived Value

The award should be something that is not easily found in a local retail store.  No matter how expensive, no award will ever equal the value an employee perceives they are to the company.  However, if it is thoughtful and matched with recognition, the perception of the awards value is much higher to the employee.

 

5) The Award Focuses the Attention on a Specific Recognition Level

If an employee received a selection brochure of multiple rewards for different levels, they naturally desire the awards of greater value. This could lead to disappointment over something that is supposed to be a positive.  Therefore, a single sheet selection system that focuses on their specific level of service is better for the employee.   They can focus on what options they have to choose from rather than what they can’t have.

 

6) The Award Must Be Something the Employee Wants

If the award is personally meaningful and desired by the employee, then it increases motivation all the more. Finding useful items or adding a monogram to enhance its’ unique value, increases the employees desire for the item.  This could be a plaque that mentions the employees name and their accomplishment, or it may just be a watch with their initials engraved on the back.  Both add personalization, meaning, and therefore, desire for the item.

A properly designed award program should bring benefits to the company, the employer, the employee, and the employee’s family. Recognition reinforces to the employee that they are an invaluable asset to the company. Positive attitudes of those in the workplace are vital to increased productivity and success of businesses, both large and small. A Service Award Program does not have to involve high cost, but rather focus on showing the employee appreciation and public recognition through a reward that they will find special.

We would love to talk to you about our available options to recognize your team. Call us at 866-924-2778 to talk to one of our staff members today!

5 Ways to Establish Your Company Culture

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company cultureCompany culture is defined as the beliefs, actions, expectations, and visions that are reflected in a company’s interactions among the team and outside customers.

Company culture highlights the core values of the brand, employees, and mission statement.

The key to a company’s success lies among the employee’s dedication to the overall organization and, without strong team development, a company’s culture fails to reflect their values and mission.

Below, we’ve listed six ways to establish a company’s culture in the workplace. Feel free to use this as an outline for your organization.

Vision

When crafting a company’s vision, business leaders must be sure to be both futuristic in planning but present in action. It is great to focus on future successes and projects however be keenly alert to what the company is doing right now.

What are the company’s most important goals? Where do you see the company in a year? 5 years? How is the team functioning? Are sales and productivity meeting the targets? Is employee retention high or low?

Learn from the past. Maintain a healthy, productive work environment. Look forward to the future and, in order to keep everyone on the same page, communicate about your organization’s future.

Goals

Organize plans, quotas, and processes around a company’s goals. Without goals in mind, it is inevitable that teams will slack in productivity on tasks and lose their focus on the vision.

For example, to stimulate productivity in sales, set tangible progress markers on projects so that the team is aware of how the project is progressing or falling short.

Encourage weekly or biweekly meetings as a team to discuss where each member is in their progress towards self-imposed deadlines, as well as the overarching business goals.

Direction

Aligning the goals and vision requires direction. Once goals are clearly defined, it is crucial to delegate specific tasks to employees.

Provide constructive, effective feedback consistently as projects are completed. Allow open communication within the team and, as the leader, figure out the best method to accomplishing tasks.

Also, it is a good idea to periodically reevaluate the methodology behind delegating tasks. Ask the team members where their strengths, weaknesses, and interests are on a specific project.

Unity

Much like the trust shared between customers and a business, establishing ongoing trust within the team is critical to developing a company culture.

Some methods of fostering unity in a company are to embrace different types of leaders and followers, recognize accomplishments, and practice positive feedback within the team.

As the team and company continue to expand, aim to practice displaying unity.

Communication

Dave Ramsey, money-management expert and author of EntreLeadership, explained that “strong teams come from strong communication.”

When communication is lacking, the chances of successfully solving issues later on becomes less likely. Showing respect for both the company’s mission and the team’s input is essential to effective communication.

Within the team and overall company, encourage communication often, as it allows teams to operate efficiently.

 

We would love to talk to you about our several options to recognize your team. Call us at 866-924-2778 to talk to one of our staff members.