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Do your employees know you appreciate them? Is the job more than just a paycheck to them? I’m often asked how to show you care. It often is the little things that make the biggest difference. Here are some ideas to get you started.

• Recognize their birthday. Send them a card. Include a gift card to a local restaurant.
• Celebrate being together with an employee and family picnic.
• Encourage fitness. Cover or supplement memberships to a local gym. Give your team t-shirts with your logo to wear while they workout. It is a win-win!
• Create an Employee of the Month program based upon your core values- the attributes that your star team members live every day. Hang a plaque for everyone to see the names of the EOMs. Give them an EOM name tag to wear. Reward the EOM with something special.
• Make note of what makes your team members happy. How do they reward themselves? Next time you want to reward them for going above and beyond, show them you listened and make that reward special to them.
• Set high team goals and then celebrate the win with an outrageous party, incredible trip, etc. Ask your team how they want to celebrate. Get buy-in for the goal and excitement for the reward.
• Offer to cover the phones/front desk/project for a team member, so he or she can enjoy a long lunch.
• Take your team member out for lunch/coffee/dinner just to learn about his/her dreams. Find a way to encourage/coach/assist in his or her success.
• Create thank you cards with your business core values. Give them out to team members with a note stating the core value they showed in the moment. Encourage your team members to give them to each other when they observe a co-worker “living” one of your core values.
• Say “thank you” every day.
• Do daily or weekly check-ins. “What did you accomplish today that you are most proud of? What barriers are you finding to doing your job? How can I help remove those barriers?”
• Support a charity your team believes in. Conduct a contest at holiday time. Ask your team members to nominate their favorite charities. Then ask them to vote on the top 3. Announce the winners and the amount the business will donate to each of the winning charities.
• Offer opportunities to grow, learn, and better themselves. These can be new responsibilities, promotions, and classes to learn new skills. Create a program that gives flexibility in how your team member chooses to improve. One might want to take a class in Excel. Another might want to improve their presentation skills.
• Give feedback regularly- both positive and areas of improvement. Be honest, yet respectful. Ask questions and discuss ideas for how to improve. Show them you are there to be a resource. You want them to succeed now and in the future.
• Share, shout, post all positive comments you hear from customers.

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