How can we improve our firm's relationship with our employees?

Today's post features recommendations acquired from a few businesses about how to boost morale and not destroy good employees. Striving to keep the workplace positive should be of major concern to CEOs and bosses. Losing revenue and time is a huge concern. If workers are happy and like to come to work production grows. If they feel that they are integral team member and that they are appreciated they become invested to the company. Factory formed thank yous and anticipated pats on the back even raises and the same old bonuses or gifts or treats destroy their impact after awhile. In fact employees begin to bank on predictable gratitudes and gifts and treats. If you furnish donuts every Friday it becomes the norm and just a normal part of the work schedule. If you give a gift card for every 10 sales it becomes predictable and if you miss one you will get resentment instead of thanks for the gift cards you gave. Remember the movie with Chevy Chase in the Christmas movie where he counts on the yearly bonus from work and when it is not given one year the manager becomes the bad guy in everyone's eyes. In the movie and in real life people just expect the bonus, money gift, turkey, whatever is the norm every year. Often they order items or spend the money before it even comes in. For that reason organizations need to be very careful not to do the same thing week after week or month after month or year after year. Food treats should not be the same because they become anticipated and actually become rather boring. Some would say that cash is always the best way to go because everyone can spend it however they want. True, but it also can get repetitive. If you throw out a dollar at the weekly meeting one week for something, the next week you get a gourmet coffee cart. If you provide a grocery card for Christmas one year you need to deliver a gourmet gift basket the next year. If you provide lunch a day one month you need to do something diverse the next month. Most executives feel that this type of imagination is not a part of their tasks and it is not important. Morale boosters are very important. Creative gift giving are one of the best way to say thanks for a task well done and to encourage hard work in the future. Most of the time companies use administrative assistants to find ideas and put together the thank you. For women flowers and spa packages and gift cards work. For men beer tubs, hardware/home improvement gift cards are great. Restaurant gift certificates are good too. You just have to get creative. Corporate Gifts or Company gifts can be tricky when you are including a lot of people in one office--it could be a gesture of kindness or a thank you gift to a whole office or company. You either have food delivered or if you are worried about food spoilage send a huge corporate gift basket with various items. My company has put the burden on me, the administrative assistant, to come up with two new options each month to spend only $300 on the 20 employees. They said I need to find gifts of tokens to include everyone. I am looking for new tips for next month but this month we have seen a big difference in positive attitude around the office after my two appreciation gifts were done. The first was for each employee to find one dollar bills in various places during a week. This last week to thank them for their labors, we had a Coffee Gift Basket arrive to overpower the snack table. After hearing workers talking about the Aurora movie theatre shooting victims, we chose an Aurora gift basket company, Baskets by Rita and we were not disappointed. So remember to thank your employees and show gratitute for a job well done and to encourage really hard work.