Thinking Ahead: How Are You Going to Improve Your Workplace Culture in 2024?
Yes, we are still in the midst of the end-of-year holiday season and all of the busyness that entails. But many leaders are also reflecting on this past year and asking themselves: “How can we make this next year better? What can we do to improve our culture – connecting people, making them feel valued?”
The issues and challenges we encountered in this last year are not going away anytime soon. Helping people stay connected while working fully or partially remote. Less interaction with colleagues. Feeling alone and out there on your own.
And it is clear – both from research and from personal anecdotes – that when people don’t feel connected, negative results follow: higher turnover rates, it’s tougher to get things done as a team, more miscommunication, mistakes and tasks falling between the cracks increase, and just an overall sense of “this is not going as well as it should (or did in the past).”
WARNING: More of the Same Won’t Get It Done
Doing more of what you’ve been doing (most likely, traditional employee recognition activities) won’t make much difference. They haven’t worked in making individuals feel valued and connected for 20+ years, why do you think doing more of them will change the result?
And be careful about pursuing some newly renamed “appreciation” activities that are actually the same recognition actions wrapped in a new package with a different name. How do you tell the difference?
First, true appreciation is about an individual person and is from an individual. Not from the company, not from someone in HR, not from a manager you don’t have a relationship with. Appreciation is from a person to a person.
Secondly, authentic appreciation flows from a sense of valuing the other person and is best communicated in specifics, not vague generalities or pre-designed emoji’s that have little (or no) meaning. For example, receiving a peer-to-peer message, badge, kudos of “Great job!” is not going to communicate that you truly value a colleague.
Consider Using Tools Created to Make the Process Easy for You and Your Team Members
I grew up in a family where the mantra was “we can do that ourselves!” which led both to a path toward learning and adventure, but also (at times, at least) resulted in frustration, wasting time and energy, and eventually purchasing the “store bought” version. I would suspect some of you may be familiar with this.
Let me encourage you: we have developed tools and processes over several years that are efficient, effective, and low cost and which lead to the positive results you are seeking. Our Appreciation at Work Implementation Kit has all of the elements you need for a turn-key training process: instructional videos, handouts, slide decks, email templates, and a facilitator’s guide that provides discussion questions, group activities and homework assignments. It also includes a simple, self-paced online training course (only 1 ½ hours long and can be done in segments) that walks you through how to use the training materials. The training can be done in a half-day (with supplemental material for another half-day) or in a series of 1-hour sessions, and used with multiple groups. Click here for more information.
While the cost is already among the lowest you will find for work-based training programs ($995), we are offering an additional discount of 20% ($199 off) until early January. Use the code 2023TRAINER at checkout.
Take Practical Steps to Create More Connection Among Your Employees Connection may become the word of the year for 2024 because the need is so great. The degree of connection you create between your employees (at all levels) will directly impact your ability to retain current employees, recruit new team members, increase engagement, decrease loneliness, and result in your organization becoming more successful in reaching its goals. If nothing else, have those on your immediate team take the Motivating By Appreciation Inventory so you can learn the specific ways they desire to be shown appreciation. Whichever route you choose, be proactive in creating a healthier, supportive workplace in 2024!
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Categories 5 Languages of Appreciation, Appreciation, Authenticity, Business/Leadership, Employee engagement, Managing By Appreciation, MBA Inventory, Remote Employees, Virtual teams, Workplace Culture
