In today’s world, there is a greater need for kindness, appreciation and empathy in the workplace. Here’s how to celebrate your employees, even if COVID-19 is a party pooper.
While Gemma Scott and the team at Wings and Wizards, a local touch-free, interactive exhibit, run around to finalise the last-minute details of the experience, she’s noticed a new, welcome trend. Companies are snapping up corporate and group sales tickets for their employees, as a way of showing their appreciation for the tough year that was 2020.
As we move into the third quarter of 2021, we’ve seen organisations brainstorming feverishly as to how to keep staff engaged and motivated after an exhausting year working from home. Even if employees took some extra time off to relax last holiday season, they most probably haven’t returned to work with a revived sense of purpose and drive that is typically associated with starting a new year. Instead, the first and second quarter of 2021 has felt like more of the same—long Zoom meetings, mental fatigue, and home and work lives thoroughly intertwined.
The importance of employee engagement, which refers to the employee’s level of commitment and connection to an organization, cannot be emphasized enough. According to Gallup, companies with an engaged workforce have 21% higher profitability. Engaged employees are also more productive, are less likely to change jobs, and are happier at the workplace.
Now more than ever, employees need to feel recognized. A reported 64% of employees feel that acknowledgment and recognition is even more critical while working from home. At the same time, only 26% of employees say their company has found the time to reward and recognize them since the pandemic began. With cancelled employee appreciation celebrations, get-aways, and other in-person gatherings, many of the remote workers feel isolated and underappreciated. The good news is, there’s lots of easy ways to turn this around.
You don’t have to invest a lot of time or money for a reward to be meaningful to your employees. Sincere, informed acknowledgement of employees’ efforts can go a long way, yes, but small gifts can be fun and heartful, too. For example, look at gift cards for a restaurant near your employees or send a fruit basket from a neighbourhood florist. Using a local store makes the gift seem more personal.
Especially good are rewards that will lighten workers’ daily chores—meal kits, an online fitness subscription, online entertainment or classes for children.
As reported in this article, Leaders at Talend, a data analysis company, hosted a weekly “lunch and learn” series that included everything from a donut-making course hosted by a chef to a financial education session led by a financial advisor to an exercise class run by an Equinox trainer. The management at Online Mortgage Advisor cleverly sent its team sunflower seeds. The team regularly shared the progress of their plants and even set up a contest for the tallest sunflower.
Wings and Wizards mixes mystical lore and technological artistry for a unique immersive experience
Tickets to COVID-safe indoor and outdoor activities and exhibits are very welcome, especially for those employees who have families. With kids feeling confined to their rooms, a touch-free magical experience like the aforementioned Wings and Wizards is just what the psychologist ordered. Wings and Wizards is an immersive interactive exhibit right in Vancouver, B.C., that merges world-building, art, tech, storytelling, and design to create a truly sublime magical adventure. The exhibit makes use of cutting-edge interactivity, such as motion tracking, proximity-based devices, lights, projections, props and soundscapes—all to weave a truly spellbinding narrative experience. With physically distanced, timed and staggered entry for pods of up to six people within the same social bubble, companies can purchase a corporate package of tickets for employees who then pick a date and visit the exhibit with their family or COVID bubble.
If you want your organization to reach its full potential, all of your staff need to know you respect their contributions. To do that, you need to recognize their labors regularly and enthusiastically. Celebrate not only impressive wins but the regular business-as-usual activities that are now being executed under extraordinary circumstances.
