Creating a positive, productive work environment begins with showing gratitude. Gratefulness in business environments can yield tremendous benefits. These include promoting your team’s well-being and job satisfaction. In turn, this can play a role in customer satisfaction, employee retention, business growth and more. What can you do to show and encourage gratefulness in business?
Be Grateful for Your Business’s Success
Gratitude in a professional environment begins at the top. As the leader of your small business, identify key factors that you are personally grateful for. Being grateful could mean reflecting on all the work that went into transforming a mere business concept into a thriving company. By being truly grateful as your business's leader, you can express a high-level of empathy and authenticity that both employees and customers will see and feel. In addition, when employees’ sense your visible gratitude, they may be more motivated to put in additional effort and have a higher sense of value in their own daily work.
Celebrate Wins
You may have specific goals for your business’s performance, the business's customer satisfaction rating and more. Celebrating business wins and accomplishments is essential for creating and maintaining a positive work environment that your team can thrive in. Acknowledging wins is a reminder that a well-thought-out goal-setting process works. Once you’ve hit a goal, it’s important to recognize those accomplishments. This may be done through something as simple as an end-of-month employee lunch when sales goals are met or sending a heartfelt thank-you note to someone that was an integral part of your goals being met. It may also be as significant as a profit-sharing plan, which provides financial value to employees and owners.
Show Appreciation for Your Team
While you understandably have invested blood, sweat and tears in the creation and growth of your small business, you also recognize that your team’s hard work and devotion play a role in business growth. Spreading gratitude for their efforts is essential for maintaining a positive, productive work environment. Make it a habit to personally greet employees with a positive word and a smile each day. Start team meetings by asking each employee to recognize another team member’s efforts or to state what they are grateful for at work. Offering flexible work hours or additional time off can make employees feel valued. Additionally, you can display your appreciation by hosting after work happy hours, or by paying for educational, career-enhancing workshops and conferences. You can also recognize your staff with team awards, individual recognition programs, fitness memberships, and by publicly acknowledging their work on your social media pages.
Gratitude and appreciation can have far-reaching effects on your small business on both a short-term and long-term basis. Even if you already show gratitude in some ways, there are additional ways to develop your organization by implementing additional layers of gratitude and appreciation for everyone’s accomplishments. Consider incorporating some of these ideas into your daily efforts to see positive impacts in your small business.
Part of being a successful business owner means having a sound understanding of your business finances. Sidekick Accounting walks alongside small business owners to help them meet their goals. Contact us today and let our team bring your small business to the next level.