Celebrate the Holidays Early!

by Compass Cleaning Solutions • September 12, 2016
Compass Cleaning Solutions

Well, Summer is officially over in nine days, Labour Day is behind us, and we are heading toward that ‘Holiday Time of Year’. The holidays are always a great time to celebrate. What kinds of things do you and your company do to celebrate your successes over the previous year? I suppose most companies will focus on Christmas and New Years to celebrate with coworkers, but I think now is a great time to celebrate the ‘wins’ without the clamour of all the hype that goes along with the traditional holidays.

Take some time to remind yourself and your staff how important they are to your company’s success. As a stand alone act of appreciation it will carry much more weight than as an ‘Oh, by the way…’ remark at a Christmas party. A hand written card left on a desk with no fan-fare will have a much greater impact. Or even better, don’t sign it, just give it anonymously and see what happens. Giving value to another person encourages them to work harder to live up to that assessment. In Daniel Pinks book Drive, he talks about what motivates us. He talks about employee autonomy, purpose and more but what struck me was our fundamental need for recognition. I know that when my effort is publicly valued I feel better about myself and give greater effort. Its called positive reinforcement.

Remind your co-workers that you are a team and that everyone is a key player. Recognizing your peers may be the single biggest thing you do in the next several months. Look, you and I appreciate being told that we did things right and so do your co-workers and employees. I challenge you to take the lead and don’t wait for the ‘right time’ because now is the right time. Recently I learned a great truth. If you don’t act on your thoughts of inspiration within 5 seconds you won’t get to it. Your budgets, and projects aren’t going anywhere, trust me. Send a text or an email that expresses sincere gratitude, start now. It will take maybe 60 seconds, but the residual benefit will last much longer.