Celebrating Workers’ Day with your small business’s team
Your team plays an invaluable role in the growth of your small business. Workers’ Day is an opportune day to celebrate their impact. This annual holiday in South Africa and other parts of the world celebrates the contributions the world’s workforce make towards building a better life for all. It also commemorates the milestones we have reached in offering fairness and rights for all in the workplace.
For Workers’ Day – or May Day, as it’s also known – let’s look at some ways that you can acknowledge and celebrate your team.
- Gather their feedback
- Offer rewards and incentives
- Celebrate them in public
- Emphasise a life-work balance
- Invest in training and skills development
Let’s look at the tips in more detail.
1. Gather their feedback
Workers’ Day is a good day to reflect on how engaged and satisfied your employees are – after all, they are the key to the success of your business. Schedule some time in your calendar to talk to your employees about how they are doing in their role and where they see themselves in the future. You can draw up a structured questionnaire to get the information you need to help your employees be more engaged and productive as well as to retain your star talent. Some examples of these questions are:
- Do you believe your workload is realistic?
- Do you have the tools and support you need to succeed?
- Can you imagine yourself growing with this company?
- Is your team working well together?
- What could we do better in our company?
- What do you like most about your job?
- What don’t you like about your job?
Encourage open-ended answers and listen carefully to the feedback.
2. Offer rewards and incentives
While managers should show employees appreciation year-round, Workers’ Day is a useful reminder of just how important employees are to your organisation. And let’s face it, whether your people are essential workers who need to come into work every day, whether you have needed to ask them to take leave, or whether they are working from home, they would probably enjoy recognition during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bonuses, awards, and other material gifts are excellent ways to show your appreciation to your employees, however most businesses may not be able to afford monetary incentives at the moment. So they can opt for affordable give away coupons and gift cards such as online magazine subscriptions or e-book allowances that might be deeply appreciated at this time.
3. Celebrate them in public
While internal recognition is a powerful strategy for showing gratitude, you can also show employee appreciation externally by featuring employees across your website, social channels, and other digital assets. For example, you can highlight your customer service champion of the month on Facebook or your website or in your email newsletter.
Your team biography page is an area of your website that details information about your team and how they bring value to your organisation. A good employee page will show individuality, include relevant internal links, and feature relevant details about their role in your organisation and their achievements. A great employee page can showcase your employees, while also generating SEO and branding value.
4. Emphasise work-life balance
One way that you can show you care is by encouraging employees to look after themselves, especially during this stressful time. Some of your people might be working from home, and struggling to juggle housework, kids home from school and their usual workload. Lines between personal time and professional demands might blur.
Encourage them to relax, spend time with their loved ones, and truly disconnect from the office at the end of each day. This is not only important for their physical and mental health, it also helps them to be productive and focused when they are working. If possible, consider offering flexible work hours for those working around the needs of younger children. Let them account for results, rather than the hours they sit staring at a screen.
Do your best to create a company culture that respects the boundaries between work and personal life by training your employees and managers to avoid communicating about work after normal hours. And encourage them to use paid time off if they are finding the circumstances overwhelming and need some time to recharge their batteries.
5. Invest in training and skills development
Your best people are likely to be dynamic and ambitious. A good way to tap into that energy is to offer them opportunities for training and development. This can take the form of offering them mentoring or you can support them by paying (in part or full) for training that expands their ability to perform at work.
The pandemic might be a good time for employees to upskill via digital courses, especially if your business has gone quiet for now. Whether it’s an informal course on a digital platform like Udemy or a course that ends with a formal certification, supporting employees who want to improve themselves is a great way to enhance staff retention and improve the performance of your business.
Employee happiness is key to success
A happy and productive team can help any small business to drive higher levels of success. With an engaged workforce, a company will generally see better productivity, customer service and employee retention. Investing in the workforce can lead to better business outcomes because each person is excited to give their best to the company every day.
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