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How to Make the Most of National Employee Appreciation Day

How to Make the Most of National Employee Appreciation Day

by | Feb 27, 2019 | Employee Engagement, Human Resources

Whether you are looking to solve a retention problem or just want to pump up your already effective team, do not pass up the opportunity to show your employees what they mean to you on National Employee Appreciation Day, March 1st. There are many ways to make your team members feel genuinely appreciated, both on the day itself and through the rest of the year.

In this article we will explore why employee appreciation is important and how you can make the most of Employee Appreciation Day this year, as well as ideas you can implement for next year:

  • Why You Should Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day
  • Think Outside of the Box
  • Follow Your Culture
  • Think Long Term
  • Pitfalls to Avoid

Why You Should Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day

Your employees are what makes your company run; they are ultimately responsible for every success, every goal accomplished and every product or service. That’s something that is worth some appreciation. Beyond deserving it, your employees also need recognition in order to perform at their best so that you can achieve future successes. No one likes to feel like they are a cog in a machine, being used for their labor and not appreciated for the contributions that they are making. Even simple gestures can make a huge difference in employee satisfaction, performance, and retention.

The fact of the matter is that about half of all employees would leave their jobs for a company that gives employees more recognition for their accomplishments, while eight out of ten employees say that being recognized motivates them at their jobs.

At a time in which companies are struggling to provide meaningful work and retain top talent, showing appreciation can be a cheap and rewarding path to a more effective, sustainable team. That is why you should use this National Employee Appreciation Day as an opportunity to take concrete steps to building a happier more effective workforce. But how should you go about showing your employees that you appreciate them?

Get Creative and Personal

Especially since March 1st is rapidly approaching, do not be afraid to get a bit creative with your celebrations. You do not have to do anything too major or complicated to celebrate National Employee Appreciation Day, so long as it seems genuine and personal. Office pizza is always nice, but it doesn’t really show that you care. At the risk of sounding seriously cheesy (no pun intended), you want to fill your employees’ hearts and not just their stomachs. But don’t be too serious – the more fun you have planning the celebrations, the more enjoyable and rewarding they will be for your employees.

Your employees will feel significantly more appreciated and valued the more personal and unexpected your methods are. If they are surprised by the celebrations, your message will seem much more genuine. And the more directly the appreciation comes from the company leadership or employees’ managers, the more heartfelt and effective it will be. You shouldn’t just implement an idea that you find online in this or any other article – take time to make it your own and your employees will appreciate the extra effort.

Also get personal when it comes to your employees; if your team is small enough, tailor your messages, programming, and giveaways to individual team members’ interests. If you are a larger company, get managers involved so that they can come up with special ways to celebrate their teams. Time might be short for this year, but even just getting managers to write a personalized note to each of their team members, and letting managers choose their team’s treat and activity for March 1st, is a quick and easy way to make your employees feel truly appreciated.

Above all, remember that there is no right answer so feel free to celebrate your employees in the way that works best for your company. Just make sure that you come across as genuine, and that your celebrations are in line with your company’s values.

Follow Your Culture

Speaking of company values, the best way to make sure that your appreciation comes across as genuine is to express it in a way that aligns with your company culture, mission, and vision. Sending a message that conflicts with your company culture would be jarring and dishearten rather than engage your employees.

The reason why you should follow your company culture is that you will reinforce what already makes employees dedicated to their jobs. If your employees buy into your company culture, then that means that they share your values and care about their work largely because of the company’s mission and vision. Celebrating those values when showing your appreciation for your employees will create a grounded, consistent message that makes your employees more confident in their choice to work at your company.

Similarly, it is important to avoid showing your appreciation by just making your employees work less, or in any other way that downplays the importance of what the company is doing. You want the focus to be on the good work that your employees do, and your appreciation for that work, not on making your employees happy by just giving them a break. It is important for all companies not to downplay work on National Employee Appreciation Day. Consider using the day to provide insight into what the company is doing, why it is doing it, and how the team members contribute to those goals.

If, on the other hand, you have a robust company culture and engaged workforce, your team members will already be proud of what they are doing and will want their managers and company leadership to be proud of it too. They will not want to work less, but be recognized for their work. Use the Employee Appreciation Day to acknowledge and praise employee contributions towards the company mission/vision, steps they have taken to safeguard the company culture, and other meaningful contributions that they have made.

Think Long Term

No matter how much you celebrate your employees on March 1st, long term engagement and satisfaction can only come from long term appreciation. That is why you should take the opportunity to announce new policies or programs that will engage and reward your employees year round.

If you already have a change in policies in the works that might benefit employees, consider rolling the change out as part of the your Employee Appreciation Day celebrations. This will help frame the policies as being meant to benefit and reward employees. Even if you are not ready to implement changes, consider announcing them accompanied with a rough roll-out schedule.

Even if you do not have any changes in mind yet, consider simple policies that you can announce on Employee Appreciation Day. Weekly “props” at team meetings, other informal peer recognition policies, and monthly appreciation events do not take much to set up and can be announced this year. You can also start planning for other long term changes to introduce next Employee Appreciation Day. Some examples of larger projects to start planning include:

  • Employee Gamification: allow team members to earn points for various perks in exchange for accomplishments
  • Competitions: reward top performing individuals or teams for accomplishing specific goals
  • New Benefits: gym memberships, zoo or museum passes, and other quality-of-life perks
  • Work Structure: introduce flexible work hours, telecommuting options, or Summer Fridays

Avoid These Common Pitfalls

While the best way to show your employees how much you appreciate them depends on your company and there are no “right” answers, there are some common mistakes that you should absolutely avoid. Two in particular are sure to make your employees angry instead of making them feel valued:

First, don’t just send a card or email and fail to show your appreciation in any more concrete or active way. While it is important to say thank you, a form message from HR or the CEO never makes employees feel warm and fuzzy about their jobs. That is not to say that you shouldn’t have the CEO send a message about the company’s recent accomplishments and future plans, and thanking employees for their contributions to both. Just make sure that the content is meaningful and that it is accompanied by some form of action that further makes your employees feel valued, listened to, and appreciated.

Second, do not roll out programs that are just obvious, and insufficient, work incentives. Contests and gamification can be great ways to engage your employees and reward them for hard work. Just make sure that they are clearly intended to make employees’ jobs more fun and rewarding not to encourage them to work harder and sacrifice more than they already are. People can generally tell what your real motivation is so make sure that any incentive programs come from a desire to make the company a more rewarding place to work.

Key Takeaways

National Employee Appreciation Day is your chance to have fun, show your employees how much they mean to you, and launch programs to make your employees feel valued year round. Get as creative and personal as you can, emphasize your company culture, and genuinely thank your employees for their contributions to the company mission and vision and you will reap the rewards of employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Just remember to:

  • Be creative and personal
  • Align your celebrations with the company culture
  • Celebrate employee accomplishments and contributions to the company mission/vision
  • Implement long-term programs to show appreciation for your employees

And most of all, don’t forget to have fun. Share your favorite, wackiest employee appreciation ideas in the comments section below.

A Simple Yet Effective Employee Engagement Survey You’ll Actually Use [Template]

A Simple Yet Effective Employee Engagement Survey You’ll Actually Use [Template]

by | May 4, 2018 | Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Human Resources

Employee engagement is key to your employees’ morale and productivity, which has an important impact on your bottomline. Understanding what employee engagement is and how to leverage effective employee engagement surveys is a great place to get started with creating a more engaged workforce. In this post I’ll explore why employee engagement is important, then outline a highly-effective employee engagement survey template, and finally provide step-by-step instructions on how to get started with quantifying and improving your company’s employee engagement.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the level of enthusiasm, dedication, and connection employees have to their organization and their work there. Employee engagement measures how motivated employees are to exceed performance expectations and indicates how committed employees are to staying with the organization for the long-term. Employee engagement is the direct results of company culture, management practices, and the overall work environment created.

Why is employee engagement important?

Employee engagement is important because engagement can have a big impact on your workforce’s productivity, which affects your bottomline. Several studies have correlated an engaged workforce with a multitude of business benefits. A survey of over 24,000 businesses conducted by Gallup found that companies in the top quartile of engagement average 18% higher productivity and 12% higher profitability than companies with poor engagement. An additional survey of over 600,000 employees conducted by the UK government found that companies with high employee engagement increased income by 19.2% while companies with low engagement saw revenue drop by 33% over the same period.

Research by CultureAmp also indicates that engaged employees are 20% more likely to recommend their employer on Glassdoor—a critical component to attracting top talent. Their research also showed that engaged employees are 30% less likely to be actively looking for another job.

Engaged employees:

  • Have higher job satisfaction
  • Are more committed to the company and its long-term goals
  • Are more likely to become high-performers
  • Are less likely to turnover
  • Want to succeed and want the organization to succeed
  • Are more willing to go the extra mile to help the company
  • Support the company’s mission and believe in the vision

Companies with high rates of employee engagement enjoy results like:

  • Decreased turnover rates
  • Increased productivity
  • Increased efficiency
  • Increased profits
  • Better ability to attract and retain top talent

Even with all the above benefits, many companies are not doing a great job at creating an engaged workforce. Studies by Gallup found that only 33% of employees are engaged at work. They also uncovered that organizations with a poorly engaged workforce experienced 30-50% higher turnover rates than companies with engaged employees. The good news is that there are several steps you can take to improve employee engagement at your company. This process begins will implementing highly-effective engagement surveys.

How to Get Started With Employee Engagement Surveys

Engagement surveys get a bad rap for being ineffective. This is usually because they’re too long, poorly designed, ineffectively distributed, or lack high-impact questions. However, with the right approach, engagement surveys can provide increased insight into your workforce’s engagement, productivity, and job satisfaction. Effective engagement surveys transform anecdotal employee experiences into hard data, which will allow you to strategically approach, monitor, and refine your employee engagement efforts.

Before customizing your survey questions, your first step should be to identify benchmark engagement levels. Data without the context of industry-relevant benchmarks will not provide useful insights. Because employee engagement varies widely with company industry and size, take these into account when researching benchmarks.

When designing your questions, remember there are several facets that play into an employee’s overall engagement level. These include employee opinion on management, overall work environment, relationships with coworkers, opportunities for advancement, and understanding and belief in the company mission. A good employee engagement survey should include questions that determine satisfaction in each of these areas.

Don’t forget that an employee engagement survey only matters if you plan to act on the results. In advance of conducting your survey, establish buy-in from leadership and put time on the calendar to review survey results.

Here are some key things to keep in mind when designing your employee engagement survey:

  • Before designing your survey, pinpoint industry-relevant employee engagement benchmarks
  • Establish buy-in from leadership before conducting an engagement survey
  • Include questions that cover all facets of employee engagement
    • Opinion on management
    • Work environment
    • Relationship with coworkers
    • Job enablement
    • Opportunities for advancement
    • Understanding company mission

12 High-Impact Employee Engagement Survey Questions (And Why They Work)

1. On a scale of 1-10, with “1” being very unlikely and “10” being very likely, how likely are you to recommend [Company Name] as great place to work?

A Net Promoter Score is a single-digit figure that summaries a customer’s satisfaction with your company. In the context of an employee engagement survey, you can reframe this question to uncover your employee workplace satisfaction, therefore creating an “internal” net promoter score. An employee’s likelihood of promoting your company as a good place to work is a strong indicator of their overall engagement level.

2. I receive recognition for a job well done.

Receiving praise and recognition is one of the strongest influencers of workplace satisfaction and employee engagement. It’s important to help employees understand how their work impacts the rest of the organization. This question can gauge employee satisfaction with the amount and quality of recognition they receive.

3. I trust my immediate supervisor/manager.

Trust is a crucial foundation for any productive manager/employee relationship. Employees and managers don’t have to be friends—but for it to be a positive relationship there must be a basic level of trust. Employees who don’t trust their manager will struggle to perform optimally and become engaged.

4. I trust the upper management/leadership team.

Similar to the previous question, an employee’s trust in upper management is critical for an engaging work environment. A high level of trust in company leadership indicates employees believe in the leadership team’s company vision and their ability to achieve it.

5. My coworkers are committed to doing quality work.

This question indicates an employee’s perception of the overall work culture. Environments where all employees are held accountable and motivated properly are the best for employee engagement. If employees perceive that their coworkers are not being appropriately held accountable, this can create a toxic work environment. The above question will gauge your employee’s perception of the work dynamic between employees.

6. My coworkers respect each other.

This is another question to help gauge the work environment. It’s important that your team is establishing mutual respect. If your workplace is filled with gossip, harassment, or other negative sentiments it can quickly create a toxic work environment. Use this question to gauge how positive the relationships between employees are.

7. In two years, I still see myself working at [Company Name].

This question can give some insight around your employee retention rate. If employees don’t envision a future with your organization, this indicates unhappiness with the workplace environment and an absence of transparent future career opportunities.

8. [Company Name] motivates me to go above and beyond what I would in a similar role elsewhere.

This question gets at your employee motivation levels. In organizations with high employee engagement, employees are motivated to go above and beyond because they believe in the mission of the organization and understand their important part in achieving this vision. If your employees do not feel motivated to go above and beyond you should identify opportunities to increase performance.

9. I have access to the tools, resources, and training I need to do my job well.

This question gets to the heart of job enablement at your organization. The point of this question is to understand if employees believe they have the resources they need to perform their job at the highest level.

10. I understand what I need to do to be successful in my role.

This question pinpoints if your employees’ job expectations are clear. If employees have a clear understanding of their success metrics, it gives their day-to-day work direction and purpose. It also instills a feeling of upward mobility which helps keep employees on board. If employees indicate their job expectations are unclear, this can indicate a poor relationship between management and employees.

11. I believe there are good career opportunities for me at [Company Name].

This question also hones in on employee perception of future opportunities. If employees perceive good future opportunities for themselves at your company they’re more like to be high-performers and much less likely to look for another job. If employees do not believe there are good opportunities for them then there could be a lack of transparency around growth opportunities or underinvestment in employee training and development.

12. Is there we could be doing better at [Company Name]?

In an employee engagement survey it’s always important to provide an open-ended question. The point of this question is to provide employees an opportunity to give candid, anonymous feedback. While this feedback won’t be quantified, it can provide some anecdotal evidence towards areas of your engagement strategy that could be improved.

How to Use This Employee Engagement Survey Template

  1. Customize the questions with your company name. Also feel free to further customize the questions, omit ones that you don’t believe are relevant to your workforce, and add your own questions. Just remember to keep the survey relatively short (15 or less questions is ideal for maximum impact).
  2. Determine how you will distribute your survey. The easiest way to distribute an engagement survey is digitally. Google Forms or SurveyMonkey are both great options for distributing your survey and analyzing the results.
  3. It’s important to note that the most effective engagement surveys are completed anonymously. If the surveys are anonymous, employees are more likely to be honest and give candid feedback. No matter which platform you opt to send your survey through, make sure your survey does not require employees to entire their name or email address.
  4. Distribute your survey via email. Including a note from the leadership team about the purpose of the survey can help drive forward your engagement vision. Make sure to follow-up with your employees several times to remind them to complete the survey.
  5. After you’ve collected responses, analyze the results. Gather your leadership team to discuss the findings from your survey. Compare your engagement levels to industry benchmarks. Based off the results to specific questions, identify the biggest areas of opportunity for improvement. Create a plan of action as to how you’ll address these areas.
  6. Set a timeframe for when you will distribute another engagement survey to measure changes in engagement (three to six months is ideal).

Key Take-aways

As you can see, employee engagement surveys can be effective if they’re done right and include high-impact questions. Here are some key take-aways from today’s post:

  • Employee engagement creates a happier, more productive workforce.
  • Establish buy-in from your leadership team about the importance of employee engagement.
  • Always compare your engagement data against industry benchmarks.
  • Use short, high-impact surveys (and make sure they’re anonymous to receive honest feedback).
  • Use the results of engagement surveys to discover areas of opportunity and create an action plan for increasing employee engagement.

Do you already use an employee engagement survey? Will you start regularly distributing and analyzing engagement surveys? How important do you think employee engagement is in the modern workplace? I’d like to hear your thoughts—drop them in the comments box below.