One of the most important things you can do for your business is to make your employees feel genuinely valued.
This means making their work feel meaningful and giving them the sense that they are important to the company.
There are many ways of doing this, but it’s a good idea to understand where your business currently stands. If you gather feedback about your company’s culture, then you’ll understand what the issues presently are so that you can focus on improving them.
The benefits of valued employees are easily visible as this will create an environment where people are more productive and love what they do. This is why valued employees result in added value to your business.
We have a few great tips below that you should use to help your employees feel valued.
The Importance of Valued Employees
First, it’s helpful to understand what the benefits are to making your employees feel valued.
Here are just a few of them:
- Employee loyalty.
- Greater productivity.
- Open communication.
- Idea sharing.
- Company growth.
When your employees feel like they matter, they’ll stay loyal to your business, have better performance, communicate about problems, share ideas that they have, and contribute to the growth of your company.
These are excellent benefits that come at a fairly inexpensive cost. Your workers deserve to be valued for their hard work, so it’s important that they feel it to continue producing at a high level.
Positive Feedback and Recognition
One powerful thing you can do is to provide positive feedback and genuine recognition for their efforts.
Say an employee completes a particularly difficult task that they usually struggle with. Tell them they did a great job and that you appreciate it.
While this may seem fairly simple, it can go a long way in the eyes of your workers. When an employee feels like their hard work goes unnoticed, it can be extremely frustrating and lead to resentment.
On the other hand, some basic recognition will show them that what they do matters. This will help them associate good work with appreciation, meaning that they’ll feel better about doing it.
Assign Challenging Work
Another thing you should try is to assign challenging, meaningful work to your employees.
When someone’s been working at a job for a particularly long time, it becomes easy to get complacent. If there’s no difficulty to the work and it feels mindless, performing the task to the same standard every day can feel like a bore.
Assigning work that is both challenging and meaningful will present your workers with new tasks that they can do. This will require them to change perspective and look at what they do in a different light.
They might need to learn new skills or spend extra time to complete this work. While some employees might dread this, others will jump at the opportunity to do something new.
Imagine solving a basic 100-piece puzzle. If you solve the same puzzle every day, then the challenge will quickly fade and you’ll be able to finish it without using much brain power.
Now picture swapping that puzzle out for a brand new 500-piece puzzle. You’ve never solved it before, which means that it’s new and exciting for you. This is what your employees will feel when they get new work to complete, which will inspire them to complete it with renewed vigor.
Treat Them Like People
It’s also important for you to treat your workers like the individual people that they are.
Sure, they have a job to do and they’re getting paid for it. But behind every employee is a human being with unique thoughts, feelings, emotions, and interests.
Everyone has a life filled with problems, achievements, and notable milestones. These all deeply matter to your employees and you must recognize this.
Showing your workers that you care about their well-being and what is going on in their life can begin to create a personal relationship with them. When your workers feel like they can speak to you on a personal level, they’ll place a greater priority on the work they do for you.
It’s one thing to do a favor for someone you don’t know, but you’re much more inclined to do it for a friend that you care about. Employees are being paid to work, but they’re still doing you a favor by doing it well and possibly exceeding expectations.
Foster Growth and Learning
You should also make a point to provide opportunities that will help your workers grow and learn new skills.
Doing this will create an environment where your employees are getting more than just a paycheck. Now they’ll be improving themselves and becoming more valuable as a worker in addition to being compensated financially.
Some jobs are considered dead-end because they only offer a paycheck without any other advantages. Working in that position long-term won’t make them any more knowledgeable nor marketable should they look for other work.
You don’t want your workers to view their job as having no room for growth or learning. This will make them feel miserable about showing up and it will translate to poor performance.
Offer Employee Benefits
One final thing you can do is to offer your employees tangible benefits.
This doesn’t necessarily mean providing health insurance, but if you can afford it, this is a great way of keeping employees for the long-haul.
Instead, you can focus on less costly benefits that are both useful and relevant for your workers. This can include things like offering a gym membership, snacks and refreshments, ample time off, and flexible hours.
These are simple things that don’t cost your business much but can make a world of difference for the employees that work hard every day. This will show them that there’s more to work than getting paid and will provide an incentive for continued effort.
Closing Thoughts
Making sure that your employees feel valued is incredibly important and worth taking the time to understand. It will result in excellent perks like greater loyalty, better performance, and shared ideas.
We mentioned five fantastic ways of making your workers feel important. This includes giving recognition and positive feedback, assigning challenging and meaningful work, treating them like a human being, creating opportunities for growth and learning, and offering them useful benefits.
While valuing your employees may seem minor, it speaks volumes about how much they enjoy their job and what they’re willing to do for your business. Figure out what makes your employees feel appreciated so that you can reward them for their hard work!