Give Thanks to Your Employees Year-Round

During the month of November, we all remember to give thanks in light of Thanksgiving and the holiday season. How can you boost employee engagement this month and every month? Well, employee engagement is always on the forefront of talent management issues and frequent recognition of your employees’ work can build engagement in the workplace. A recent article from Talent Management.com author Deanna Hartley suggests showing gratitude year-round can help boost positive bottom line results for your business as well as employee engagement.

One boss utilizes this tactic by personally calling each of his 23 employees and thanking them for choosing to work at his company. By recognizing and verbally showing appreciation for his staff, he is boosting each employee’s engagement with the organization. According to new research from Modern Survey, this is a large feat, considering approximately 70 percent of employees are under- or dis-engaged with their jobs. Not to mention that, also according to the survey, a mere eight percent of employees are fully engaged.

As a talent leader, what can you do to inspire your staff? Showing appreciation for someone and their work encourages them, and makes them feel validated which inspires loyalty and engagement. Merely recognizing your employee is beneficial, but there are three factors to really focus on when bestowing recognition, to really drive home the point:

1. Is the recognition specific? Employees shouldn’t be left wondering: “What specifically did I do?”

2. Are you being authentic with it? Specificity increases a leader’s authenticity.

3. Did you do it in a timely manner? Try a “recognition ratio” – how frequently a leader recognizes employees for every time they are given constructive feedback – of 3:1 or 5:1.

Even though it’s Thanksgiving and now is the time of year most people consider being thankful and showing gratitude, your employees will benefit much more from being shown this type of consideration year-round. Consider this a type of perk: it’s free and people love it. Larger workforce populations won’t be able to maintain such a personal focus, but that doesn’t mean you should dismiss the concept. Being singled out and praised for your performance more than once a year is worth more to many than a pat on the back around Thanksgiving. To learn more about how you can give thanks year-round, click here to read the full article.

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