Why is it important to make your employees feel appreciated?

Ensuring that your employees feel valued and appreciated is fundamental to creating a happy and efficient workforce, but it’s not just about money, it’s also about being considerate. Thanking your people for the work they do and the results they achieve is actually more likely to benefit your business in the longer term than showering them with bonuses and gifts. The key is to nurture your people so that they want to excel and drive your business forward because there’s mutual respect rather than simply to do it for the money. Making your employees feel appreciated can have benefits on many levels, including:

Trust
If your employees understand that you value their strategic input and creative ideas, they’re more likely to trust you and your leadership, and therefore to go the extra mile to contribute. If you constantly shoot them down, then morale will suffer and your people will potentially revert to just going through the motions.

Productivity
Employees who know that you value their contribution will tend to work harder and push themselves as they realise that that is most beneficial for the business.

Feelgood factor
Praising and thanking your staff is guaranteed to boost morale and engender a feeling of team spirit and success. It’s widely known that a happy workforce is a more productive one, so the more you can do to show genuine appreciation, the more your staff will be invested in taking your business forward.

Retention
A rapid turnover of personnel can be damaging to any business, irrespective of its size, and making sure that staff feel appreciated is one way of ensuring that they will want to stay with you. Job satisfaction will increase and the likelihood of key people having their heads turned by your competitors will be reduced. Research has confirmed that employees who feel valued will not only stay longer but also recommend you to their peers.

Reputation
If you’re able to build a reputation as an employer who values your staff, you’ll be better placed to attract high-quality candidates when you’re recruiting. Not only that, customers and suppliers will be motivated to work with you as you’ll have established your company as a great place to work. Our 12 top tips for making sure that your people feel valued are as follows:

1. Pay well and offer a generous holiday package
2. Ensure your employees have work that lies within their skillset but allows them to shine
3. Encourage them to maintain a healthy work:life balance
4. Focus on recognition, but negotiate the rewards
5. Celebrate achievements, however large of small they might be
6. Create an individual training and progression plan
7. Promote from within
8. Consider offering a bonus scheme
9. Allocate time to talk or grab a coffee
10. Schedule company events away from the office to promote teambuilding
11. Note down birthdays, anniversaries and special milestones, and celebrate them accordingly
12. Encourage staff to provide feedback to demonstrate that you value their opinion

For Rosa dos Santos, owner of Exact Sourcing, your people are your greatest asset, so taking the time to understand them and ensure they feel valued is good business practice. ‘As a recruitment agency in Cambridge, we deal with a wide range of fantastic clients and we encourage all of them to focus on staff retention,’ comments Rosa. ‘We believe that the best way of achieving this is to recognise and reward your staff, not just by paying them well and giving them brilliant benefits, but also by demonstrating some soft skills. A simple thank you can go a long way, as can demonstrating that you have your employees’ best interests at heart. We’re all different, so it’s crucial to learn and appreciate what motivates each and every member of staff and then to create an environment that allows them to shine.’

Exact Sourcing is a recruitment agency in Cambridge and Newmarket. If you’re looking to attract and retain the best people, please contact us for a chat.

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