More Than a Thank You

Walk into your marketing and customer service departments and just observe your team. Be discreet and just observe. Watch for body language, tone of voice, and pay close attention to any positive or negative comments your employees are making. If you notice that your employees are little blue, it might be time to do a little internal marketing and make your employees feel the love again. Yes, I’m talking about employee appreciation.

There are lots of ways you can show employees appreciation. Big events with the all the jazz and sparkle with food, games, etc. is nice. But sometimes what would be nice is something more meaningful. Employee appreciation shouldn’t happen once a week. True appreciation happens any day of the week.

Handwritten Note

Sometimes the most thoughtful acts of kindness comes from a pen, paper, and thoughtful message saying, “Good job.” Maybe it’s because people don’t take time to write hand written notes any more that makes it so special. Maybe it’s because it’s so unexpected that the sheer surprise makes your employee feel all warm and fuzzy. But a hand written note expressing your appreciation will is worth the time it took you to write it if your employee smiles. Notes also don’t cost you very much either.

Thank You Video

Video isn’t just becoming popular with consumers. It’s a great way to connect with your employees too. Inviter is breaking ground on video messaging for internal communications. You can do this several ways. You can create one video for all your employees and email it to them as part of a video newsletter. Or you can create custom videos for each department, or better yet, each employee. I like the latter — custom video emails of appreciation for one employee at a time. This isn’t always practical if you have a large company. But managers can take it upon themselves to create a little video thanking each employee for specific team contributions.

Individual Rewards

I’m thinking of a coworker who said something along the lines of show the love with gift cards or money. He made a good point. Either give out an extra special bonus, a nice raise, monetary gift cards, or extra PTO. Those are things your employees will use and actually want.

No matter how you chose to show employees you care, make sure you do it often. Ultimately it impacts your profit margin by boosting moral, which inadvertently increases productivity.