The powerful impact of a little attention: recognizing the contribution of your employees
What happens when we express our appreciation and gratitude of our employees by showing them that we recognize their efforts and sacrifices as well as their contribution to the success of the team?
This creates a sense of belonging and pride in being part of the team and working for the boss and company. It also increase engagement, joy and enthusiasm for a certain amount of time. All of this leads to greater respect for the organization and a feel of importance for the employees.
If the impact is so important, what can we do to recognize the contribution of our employees more often and thus create a permanent feeling of pride and mobilization?
What are managers missing to prioritize this type of behavior?
I’m guessing the answers would be:
- time,
- better understanding of the impact of these gestures on the team and the long-term benefits
- Lack of imagination for the actions that can be taken
- Small impact on their daily tasks with maximum output
As you begin to understand from reading my texts and interventions, service leadership is at the heart of my management practices and I am a big supporter of the power of placing oneself at the service of one’s employees to give them all the support and tools necessary to accomplish their tasks. This results are employees who are happy to invest their precious time to contribute to the success of the team.
To give you ideas of actions that can be taken to recognize your work teams, I will share one gesture I have done in my management practices.
A little context for this event, I was a production supervisor on the night shift with 12 hour shifts 3-2-2-3 so 84 hours per two weeks including a weekend sequence starting on Friday evening and completing on Monday morning.
We are in 2017 so unfortunately already experiencing a labor shortage which forced us to supplement our teams with people from employment agencies. This was even more present on the night shift. These people could spend up to 3 hours in transit before and after their 12-hour shift to get home.
A little calculation allows us to deduce that there are 6 hours left to eat, see the family and get some sleep. And most are immigrants who have just arrived in the country. What an incredible sacrifice to come to work.
The importance of gratitude to your employees for a positive work environment
Approaching the holiday season, with the help of my management team (Thank you Chantal, Sonia and Valérie), I am trying to find a gesture that could show our gratitude to all our employees. We are thinking of a Christmas dessert for the last day before the holiday break. The concept is simple:
Everyone brings desserts to share and the company provides the coffee (this is what I committed to without discussing it with my boss so not the best practice to do 😊).
This is when the lack of trust between departments comes to the fore and my group tells me: Yes, but the manufacturing guys (those who make the products) will eat all the food without providing desserts.
The solution: All departments must provide desserts if they want to participate.
I decided to ask my vice-president if the company could pay for the coffee, explaining the initiative and emphasizing the fact that people from the agencies did not have the opportunity to show up at the Christmas party. In less than 2 minutes and far from having gone through everything I had prepared to convince him, I had confirmation that the company will pay for the coffee, no problem. I also ask for an extra 15 minute break for everyone and I obtain his agreement. Thanks Charles.
How a simple gesture of recognition can change the dynamics of the company
Above, you can see the result and the quantity of desserts that the employees provided. Way beyond what we expected. I used the extra time of the lunch break to give a little thank you speech for the efforts that everyone brought to work.
The employees and even more the people from the agencies, were really happy to share all these desserts and eat them. I saw several employees from the agencies with plates with 6 to 10 different desserts (full plates) and I wondered how they could ingest so much sugar.
We had nearly 200 employees and there were still desserts for the next break, proof that the quantity was great.
The total cost to the company: $250 worth of coffee and an extra 15 minutes of break time for employees.
The cost for me: Making the request for coffee to my bosses and giving the idea to the team who themselves provided all the desserts. So 20 minutes of time max.
The impact: Happy employees whose efforts are recognized and who feel involved in the team’s success by being more than interchangeable numbers. Employees talked about it for a few weeks and the impact on the motivation and commitment of the troops was very positive. This united departments and increased the level of inter-team trust.
Recognizing and appreciating your employees: an investment that pays off big
Conclusion: No need to bring your employees for a week in the south to have a positive impact, you just need to be a little creativity and have their well-being at heart to find little gestures that can have a really important effect on the mobilization and motivation of troops.
Need help finding ways to recognize your teams? You can contact me and it will be my pleasure to help you.
Carl Michael Tessier
Coach in high-performance team development and tailor-made support
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