Thanksgiving 2022 is just around the corner. Before heading off to your families and loved ones to share some festive moments, have you ever thought about starting thanksgiving in the workplace by showing appreciation to your employees?
Giving employees a sincere message of thanksgiving and showing genuine recognition and appreciation in the workplace can do wonders for your team and your clients. Unfortunately, with the daily grind in the workplace and the pressing goal to get things done in the least amount of time, many professional relationships at work turn out to be just that–transactional.
While there’s nothing wrong with aiming for high efficiency and productivity in the workplace, remember that any relationship, including professional ones, has a vital relational aspect.
Expressing gratitude at work, nurturing work relationships, spending quality time with your employees and stakeholders, and just saying thank you regularly go a long way for your employees and your staffing firm.
Here’s why.
Wanted/Urgently Needed: Appreciation in the Workplace
Data shows that 21 percent, or one in five American workers, feel their company does not value them. This insight has plenty of implications.
There’s a clear correlation between this data and the positive impact of showing appreciation in the workplace. For example, a recent study from the American Psychological Association revealed that 93 percent of employees who feel valued are also motivated to do their best at work. Of these, 88 percent of them reported high levels of work engagement.
We all know that high employee turnover and having a significant percentage of disengaged employees can be devastating for your company. We also see a rising number of quiet quitters, or those employees who only perform the bare minimum in the workplace, with no desire to perform excellently and go the extra mile.
With all these reasons and more, showing that you value your people by expressing sincere gratitude for their work is one of the most impactful catalysts toward increasing employee motivation, engagement, and productivity.
One thing to also keep in mind is that gratitude and recognition go hand in hand. So, aside from showing gratitude by performing acts and saying words of affirmation to your employees, a good employee recognition program should also be a cornerstone of your company culture.
A research done by Partners in Leadership showed that employees who feel valued at work are happier and more engaged, with 85 percent of them taking the initiative, 73 percent feeling that they are better collaborators, and 47 percent caring more about the quality and outcome of their work.
Aside from all these, a related study revealed that 50 percent of employees who don’t feel valued tend to look for a new job within one year. Conversely, 78 percent of employees who feel valued end up recommending their companies to others because it’s an excellent workplace. This is great news when it comes to your employee referral program as well as marketing and branding efforts.
How about showing gratitude to your clients and customers?
According to the Harvard Business Review, actively working on getting new client partners will cost your staffing firm 5 to 25 times the expense of retaining existing clients. On the other hand, if you can increase your customer retention by as slight as 5 percent, you have the potential to increase your revenue by 25 to 95 percent! This is why your firm should focus on retaining your current clientele.
Clients who feel appreciated have a high potential to recommend your staffing firm to others. They may also write glowing reviews about your staffing firm and may even spend more to avail of additional services from you.
4 Actionable Tips on Showing Appreciation in the Workplace
Now that we have dug deeper into the value of a relational culture over a transactional company culture in your staffing firm, it’s an opportune time to turn a brand-new leaf. See how you can start highlighting a work culture that champions appreciation and recognition among your employees and your clients.
Here are four actionable tips that you should begin doing in your staffing firm.
Celebrate accomplishments regularly and in a timely fashion.
Keep in mind that creating a relational culture that champions appreciation and recognition begins with the staffing firm’s leadership.
As a leader, you must set aside time to appreciate and recognize individual or team accomplishments in your firm. Company town halls and collective digital spaces are excellent venues for expressing gratitude and appreciating your people’s hard work.
By recognizing your employees’ accomplishments, you are also reinforcing to everyone the desired values and actions in your company that produce excellent results. Thus, everyone in the staffing firm gets to see what qualities to emulate and the results that the company finds worthy of recognition.
Generosity pays. Try to give more.
This does not necessarily mean that you should give your employees significant bumps in their paychecks (although this may also be considered if your staffing firm has the budget). The idea here is to make your appreciation more memorable by giving gifts, notes, and monetary rewards to your employees performing very well.
Aside from monetary rewards, consider giving gifts like vouchers, event tickets, vacation coupons, plaques, and a well-written thank-you note to warm their hearts.
As for your clients, create noteworthy loyalty programs for them. Invite them to customer appreciation events and client testimonial dinners to show your gratitude to them. Send them “Thank You” notes regularly and keep communication lines open so that both sides are always on the same page.
Improve employee tools and ways to help them work more efficiently.
Walking the talk is super important. It shows that you truly value your employees and are not just giving them lip service.
Provide your employees with the best tools to help them succeed. Make sure that your technology stack is both employees friendly and client-friendly.
One more thing that needs to be highlighted here is the reality that in a post-pandemic world, flexibility is key. Hence, consider cutting your employees some slack and try to give them more flexible options other than reporting onsite from 9 to 5.
Spend quality time with your people and clients.
Creating a relational culture in the workplace is only possible if you can set aside dedicated time with your employees and clients. Get to know them as real humans when you invite them for after-work drinks on Fridays or for a casual lunch. Doing this enables you to know their stories, strengths, weaknesses, dreams, and ambitions. Having this kind of knowledge about them also makes you capable of relating with them on a personal level, connecting the work with their personal vision of themselves.
While much of the industry is transactional, you have an opportunity to be relational. You can create a new competitive advantage by sharing simple gestures of gratitude and appreciation in the workplace.
BUILD A BETTER RELATIONAL EXPERIENCE WITH YOUR CANDIDATES AND CLIENTS.
Allied Insight is a full-stack marketing agency that integrates your entire digital strategy into your business ecosystem and tech stack. Founded on the principles of Accessibility, Impact, and Development, we support the entire marketing infrastructure to help staffing firms elevate their brands, scale their businesses, and learn the benefits of leveraging marketing best practices.
Beyond marketing delivery, Allied Insight helps clients to build brand-centric competitive advantages and productized services to insulate the brand, the offers, and the market position. Reach out to us today and get these tips on showing appreciation in the workplace into action!
