Is the Great Resignation (and/or quiet quitting) still happening? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over four million workers have quit every month, creating an average employee turnover rate of ~47%, so the answer is yes. Some individuals are burnt out or looking for security or more money, but many just want to be valued and appreciated.
Have you heard the saying 'people don''t leave jobs; they leave bad bosses'? You don''t want to be that 'bad' boss taking your team for granted. Instead, be authentic and genuinely care about each of your team members.
Ways To Appreciate Your Team Members
You''ve empowered the team to change the world, and now they are working together and meeting the company''s plans and goals. Alfred North Whitehead said, 'No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of others. The wise and confident acknowledges this help with gratitude.'
There are many ways to show your gratitude and appreciation and to make the team feel valued and special. Note: It''s important to remember that everyone is different so tailor and customize to the individual''s preferences. For example, some won''t like public recognition so do something more private.
Below are some scenarios to consider:
When a new employee starts, do you provide a 'welcome box,' branded gear, branded backpack, and/or other swag on their first day? Scheduled lunch with the team?
Make new hire announcements on social media (such as LinkedIn) or newspaper.
Do you routinely walk around and greet each team member and see how they''re doing and feeling? See if they need anything.
Does the company announce major milestones such as promotions, work anniversaries, monthly birthdays, etc. on the intranet or company newsletter?
Work anniversary letter signed by the CEO/President.
Employee Appreciation Day is observed on the first Friday in March.
Do you provide positive feedback or other verbal recognition (often)?
When you''re wrong, do you apologize?
Can any employee submit a 'shout-out' for another employee on the intranet?
What do you typically do when the team successfully implements/completes a project or meets a major sales goal? Reward with a bonus or additional paid time off?
Do you celebrate personal development goal achievements? Holidays? TGIF? Or for no special reason?
If so, with food, certificates, cards, balloons, flowers, swag, or other items?
Gift exchanges like a white elephant or secret santa.
If you''re not sure, ask the team.
I love to bake cookies and other treats. For me, homemade = heartfelt.
Sincerity Is Key
The key is to be genuinely sincere. One of the easiest forms of appreciation is to simply say thank you. How often do you say thank you to each team member? Daily? Or when is the last time you handwrote a thank-you note? Yes, handwritten because for me handwritten = personal.
Remember how special you felt when your boss gave you a handwritten thank-you note'like a true Hallmark moment? These types of simple yet sincere gestures can go a very long way.
Years ago, I was interviewing for a job. As many of you know, when you go through the interview process, you start with the recruiter, and then you meet with the manager, and then you meet with some of your peersâif you’re lucky. Then, at the end of the interview process, you might meet with the highest-ranking executives. So in this case, I met with the CEO.
I knew I was doing okay because I was getting through each round of interviews. So, I go into the CEO’s office. I don’t know what to expect. It’s a startup company. He’s sitting there in a t-shirt and sweatpants. He’s eating cereal and has his feet up on his desk. He says, “Come sit down.” Then, he proceeds to interview me while he eats cereal, his feet still up on the desk.
There I am in my suit, answering all the questions, and, finally, he asks, “So do you have any questions for me?”
And I said, “Yeah. What keeps you up at night?”
“What Keeps You Up At Night?”
The CEO stops eating his cereal, looks at me, and says, “I’m sorry. What?”
I respond, “When it comes to this business, what is keeping you up at night about its success? And how will the job that you’re considering me for, how will the job that I do, impact the ability to solve for that?”
His face goes blank, he takes his feet off the desk, and he puts his cereal down. My heart starts to pound. Then, all of a sudden, he turns and looks at me. He leans in and says, “Hmm, let me think about that.”
Now I’m thinking, “Oh my gosh, I just blew it.”
Then, he gets really serious and starts to explain how this job impacts that ability. Then, he starts singing. Eventually, the interview ended and I went home thinking, “What did I just do?”
I got myself a job.
He told them that I should be hired because anyone who understands that their job impacts every level of the organizationâand that they should be thinking about that impactâunderstands the value of the work that they need to do, and would do a good job. That’s what he told the hiring manager. And the hiring manager told me.
So that gamble paid off. It not only taught me how important it is to ask questions in an interview but also how important it is to ask the right questions to the right people.
If you want to stand out in the interview process and land the job, try asking this question in your next job interview. It’s all about understanding and relieving an employer’s pain points.
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I read this article by Forbes magazine on the subject of delivering bad news and realized just how many companies fail to follow the steps outlined when they lay people off. I honestly believe the majority of corporations and management teams donât mean to do this incorrectlyâthey just havenât been trained in what it takes to effectively communicate whatâs happening. The result is an angry, vocal group of ex-staff members and a concerned set of clients who wonder if they should look for a new vendor.
Here are the most common mistakes companies make during layoffs:
1. Blindside Staff
I once worked at a start-up company that, unbeknown to the staff, was running out of funds. So, one day we walked in and saw at 10:00 a.m. a large group of people got up from their desks and went to the cafeteria for a meeting. The other large group got up and went to the conference room. Each had been sent an email on where to go. When they got to their respective meetings, the cafeteria group was told they were all being let go and to get their things, head home, and the company would be in touch with final pay. The other group was held hostage in the conference room and told they had to stay there until the layoff was complete. Needless to say, the fallout from that experience was significant.
2. Delaying The Inevitable
Iâm working with a woman right now whose company announced a layoff five months ago after they were bought out and merged with a larger firm. Absolutely nothing has happened since. She says the staff morale is at an all-time low. People feel paralyzed. They donât want to look for a new job if they donât have to, but they also donât want to walk in one day and find out itâs over. Productivity is down and stress-related illness is up from the fear of the unknown.
3. Covering Up The Truth
I have a friend who worked for a larger privately held company. One day he walked in and learned the company was âcutting expensesâ and laid off 20% of the staff. At the time he thought he was lucky because he kept his job. A month later, news came out that the owner of the company was going through a messy divorce due to cheating on his wife and had been using company funds to support his mistress. The layoffs were a way to save money so he could pay himself more to cover the alimony payments while still maintaining his current lifestyle. My friend found a new job, along with several of his colleagues who couldnât stomach working for the owner after that.
4. No Justifiable Explanation
Some companies announce layoffs due to âa decline in salesâ only to show an increase in earnings for shareholders in the same quarter. This sends a very confusing message to the world. You are making more money, so you are laying people off?
The best companies are clear as to why they are laying offâeven if the reason is unpopular. If you feel appeasing shareholders is more important than keeping people employed, then say so. You might catch a lot of heat for your choice, but at least you wonât look like a liar.
5. No Support For Those Affected
âNow that so many companies have conducted layoffs, it appears that HR departments and management teams have decided to scale back what they spend on outplacement programs (a.k.a. career coaching for those affected by the layoff). And, while their lack of effort to help those who have been working for them usually doesnât make the national news, it does spread like wildfire through the social community.
Today, layoff victims have a large platform for tarnishing the reputation of a former employer who throws them out on the street without help: social media. Companies shouldnât underestimate the negative impact failing to give proper resources to layoff victims will have on their reputation.
6. Not Addressing All Parties Involved
Some companies donât feel they have to explain their reasons for laying off staff to anyone but those affected. What they forget is that anyone involved with their company is affected! For example, employees that donât get let go have to deal with survivorâs guilt. Itâs not as if they wonât ever see or hear from their former colleagues ever again. So, what should they do? And, no matter how hard you try to hide it, customers will hear about the layoffs. Would you rather they hear about it from a disgruntled ex-employee, or from you personally?
In a time when transparency in business is being demanded, companies cannot afford to ignore their communication responsibilities to all parties involved. Otherwise, you can expect to lose the trust of the very people you need on your side to see through these challenging times for your business.
7. Fail To Provide Progress Reports
After the deed is done and the employees are let go, many companies try to rush back to âbusiness as usual.â Well, that doesnât work. Why? Because the layoff fundamentally changed your business so there is no going back to the way it was.
Instead, companies should offer weekly progress reports to show those who are still with the company the ongoing efforts they are making to ensure the decision to lay off workers will in the long run be the right thing for both the business and them. You donât stop the communications until you reach the point where you can show proof of success (i.e. stopped losing money, stabilized budget, etc.). At which point, you announce the new game plan to get the company back to its former glory.
8. Not Treating People With Respect After They Are Let Go
This is by far the most important. Iâm amazed at how many companies let people go and then try their hardest to distance themselves from them. Example: A company I know laid off 2,000 people recently. Not only did they not give them any outplacement services, but they also decided they would not allow anyone at the company to be a reference for those who were let go. As a result, the 2,000 workers had no way to give potential employers a reference to prove they were part of an RIF (reduction in workforce).
The company stated that given the size of the layoff, employers would know about it and wouldnât need references. Well, anyone in HR knows that these days references are very important. The company even went so far as to tell the employees who remained that if they got caught giving a reference, they would be fired. The 2,000 workers were forced to give an automated telephone line where it would verify pay and dates of employment as the reference instead. This created a lot of challenges for those workers who had been with the company for many years since they honestly had no live references they could provide during their job search.
Sharing This Article Will Help Future Layoff Victims!
I hope managers who are reading this article tuck it away so they can use it as a guide if the day comes when they need to conduct a layoff. I also hope anyone who has been affected by a layoff passes it along to their management team. Given how little training there is in conducting effective layoffs, we need to get corporate leadership up to speed on the right way to handle such a difficult situation. History shows that companies that manage the delivery of bad news and the need for change effectively are the ones that survive. So, the more senior management teams who read this and opt to follow the guidelines, the better, right? Do your part to educate your leadership teamâsend them a link to this article today!
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Check out Work It Daily’s outplacement services today! My team and I are looking forward to working with you soon.
The most common mistake I see people make after a few weeks or a month of job search is they turn inward. What do I mean by that? Well, the job search already feels really stressful to people, so you muster up the energy, you take time out of your schedule to do something you’re not really excited about, and you start putting yourself out there…only to get nothing back.
You apply for jobs. You don’t hear back. You’re not seeing the traction. So you turn inward. You go, “What’s wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? How can I fix this?”
If you could fix this yourself, you wouldâand you know that.
There’s this internal struggle that go on. There’s a fear. There’s a confusion. We turn inward. It is literally the worst thing you can do. And let me tell you why…
Turning Inward Will Make Your Job Search Longer
You’re going to keep turning inward, and you’re probably going to do that for another five months. I know this because the natural mark (we have studied this at Work It DAILY) where people finally break down and reach out for help is six months.
It’ll probably take you six months of job search failure before you’ll stop turning inward and having this internal struggle and say to yourself, “I need some help.”
Now, the sad part about this is a lot of people swing completely in the other direction because, for those six months, you were doing it by yourself, so now you think the answer is to have it done for you. Therefore, you might overpay to have your resume or LinkedIn profile written, only for that to not work either.
You see, in order for you to really solve your problem, you’re going to need to learn a few things to get the results you want in your job search, and they’re going to need to be slightly customized for your situation. The better solution is to get some help from a career coach who will do it with you.
A career coach is going to teach you what you need to do in order to land that job. You don’t learn these things in school, so you’re going to want that help. And this is knowledge no one can ever take away from you. As you learn these things, it’ll just make you a better job seeker. And every job is temporary, so you’re probably going have to do this at least one or two more times in your life, so why not learn it now?
Stop turning inward. It’s time to get some help so you don’t waste six months of your life not getting the results you’re looking for.
The number one thing people say to me when they join Work It DAILY is, “Why didn’t I do this sooner?” So don’t be one of those people, okay? Get some help. You don’t have to go it alone.
Check out my affordable career coaching options here.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the healthcare field is expected to be the fastest growing career field in the country over the next ten years. The right degree in healthcare could be your ticket to a great career in the field. But if you canât quit your job to go to school full […]