Safely Celebrating Employee Appreciation Day in 2021

Your team rocks! They’re hand-picked, they’re great at what they do, they work hard, and they’re your greatest asset, so they deserve to be celebrated, but celebrating safely in 2021 isn’t always easy. A virtual gathering may be your solution. The best part? Virtual parties offer an essentially unlimited number of ideas for your appreciation celebration! From digital party games, to virtual poker for fun prizes, to board game night, raffles, talent shows, cocktail shakes, highlight reels, award ceremonies, video games, virtual painting parties, virtual escape rooms, and much much more, there really is no shortage of ideas when it comes to virtual celebrations.

Workplace celebrations are great for recognizing employees and showing appreciation, but they also help strengthen the sense of community, teamwork, and comradery in the workplace, and the best virtual celebrations are no different. While a virtual party may never be exactly the same as one celebrated in person, the best virtual activities are those that involve everyone, strengthen friendships, and, above all, are fun! The best part? Many of these activities are only practical or even possible in a virtual setting, so while it’s easy to get stuck thinking of virtual celebrations as a limitation, it’s important to remember that celebrating remotely can actually open up your options to a whole new array of possibilities. With endless possibilities, the hard part rapidly becomes narrowing down your choices! Deciding on an activity will largely depend on factors like the personalities of your team, their dynamic, the size of the team, etc. You can even vote on the activity or activities that your team most wants to try out, or read on to get inspired by some of our favorite ideas!

Digital Party Games

Party games have come a long way, and one of the biggest and best developments in recent years is the option for remote streaming! These days, setting up a round of digital party games is easier than ever. Some of them only require smartphones or a single host PC for streaming, and many offer cross-platform compatibility. Some popular favorites are Among Us and games from the Jackbox series like Fibbage, Quiplash, Champ’d Up, and Talking Points. These games are great for groups of 5-10, and are actually effective team-building activities that involve everyone, and which get people talking, laughing, and, most importantly, having fun!

Virtual Talent Show

Employee celebrations offer an excellent way for everyone to get to know one another outside of the typical working milieu. It can be great to show off and get to know the other side of a coworker’s personality. And what better way to do so than by giving them the opportunity to show off their talents! A lo-fi virtual talent show can be a lot more casual than one that is in-person, making the virtual option a far better way to get everyone involved. This option is great for workplaces that thrive on creativity and for teams which are outgoing and comfortable with performing for their coworkers. This isn’t the best option if you feel like it may leave some people out, but it can be great for smaller teams who are comfortable with showcasing their talents!

Virtual Cocktail Shake Party

Is everyone on the team of legal drinking age? If so a cocktail shake party can be a fun way to get everyone involved, while also providing employees with a cute gift, an activity, a learning experience, and, of course, a delicious cocktail! But what exactly is a cocktail shake? The concept is simple, but the possibilities are limitless. Essentially, a care-package is prepared for each employee and delivered ahead of time. This package provides everyone with all of the ingredients needed to make a cocktail, including any equipment like jiggers, stirrers, muddlers, and shakers – whatever the recipe calls for. And that’s the fun part. The recipe is entirely up to you or your team. You can vote on a cocktail ahead of time, or surprise your team with a fun and challenging cocktail they probably haven’t heard of. Then, everyone gets together for a virtual hang out and learns how to make the cocktail together! This more unique idea is great because it allows your team to experience something new, gives them a tactile activity that they will do “together,” and leaves plenty of room to chat and have a good time while they enjoy their creation!

The Best Reward Options

Rewarding your team with a night of fun is a great way to celebrate employee appreciation day, but another great way to do so is by giving your team a reward in recognition for their hard work, determination, and resilience during this difficult year. But this year has also limited the options for rewarding employees. After all, things like catered meals, office perks, sporting tickets, and even restaurant gift cards, etc. are all scratched off the list from the outset. The vast majority of employees report that recognition at work is a crucial part of their happiness. So even though a reward is more deserved than ever, it can seem harder to find the right one than ever. One that is effective at demonstrating how valued the employees are, one that is memorable, personal, and appreciated, one that is fair and not a logistic nightmare to distribute to everyone. Luckily, when we turn to actual employees to find out what rewards they most prefer, the top answers are still on the table: gift cards.

Prepaid gift cards are an easily distributable, valued, memorable, and appreciated gift, and with options for customization, they can also be personal as well. Remember, the goal here is to make sure employees know that they are valued and appreciated, and cash doesn’t cut it. It’s simply not as personal, memorable, or appreciated. And, while retailer-specific gift cards can end up being more associated with the eventual purchase, and offer the same opportunity for guilt-free spending, unlike cash rewards, it can be difficult to make sure that they will go appreciated by everyone.

The Big Picture

The COVID-19 pandemic has made this year one of the most difficult and unprecedented years in recent history for so many employees, and, at the same time, continues to make celebrating and rewarding those employees more difficult than ever. Luckily, with a little bit of creativity, there are still incredibly effective solutions for celebrating and rewarding your valuable employees. With this guide, you should be well prepared to blow away expectations and provide your employees with a celebration and a reward they won’t forget!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, flexibility is one of the most desired aspects that potential employees look for in the positions that they apply for, but flexibility isn’t just some throwaway concept to fetch new hires, but a practical and meaningful way to improve employee health and well-being. The simple truth is that every employee is different, but workplaces have been treating them as more or less the same since the industrial revolution! 

This doesn’t necessarily mean that employees should be given free rein to work however they would like (although with mounting adoption of versions of that philosophy from major companies, that idea may soon not seem so farfetched), but merely afford employees different ways in which they can exercise some measure of control over how and when they work. So you don’t need to make the corporate-wide jump to ROWI, but it can help your employees to have some agency in their working process. Stress is truly the silent killer, and it doesn’t just have a massive impact on the mental health of your employees, but it can also have an incredible impact on the physical health of your employees as well. 

Employees who work even a fraction of the time remotely tend to be both happier and more productive.  It can also increase creativity in the workplace.  It’s a win-win!  And when we add in additional ways in which employees can work how they prefer to, and the stress alleviated along the way, it’s really a win-win-win! 

Mental Health and Well-Being

While it’s easy to get stuck focusing on the physical health of your employees, one area that businesses can tend to overlook is mental health. The good news is that there are many ways in which you can be sensitive to the mental health of your employees and many subtle changes you can make which have a positive impact on their mental well-being.

The first thing you need to make sure that you’re doing is being open and straightforward when it comes to mental health. Speaking candidly with your employees about these topics is not only a great way to open up the discussion, but it also helps to de-stigmatize mental health issues in the workplace. A lot of employees and a lot of businesses are still laboring under the illusion that taking steps to look after mental health is something to be embarrassed about. Talking openly about these very real issues can help remove shame from the equation. 

You also need to make sure that employees are still afforded their privacy, confidentiality, and anonymity. Even though you should take steps to normalize the mental health conversation, you still need to work with care to ensure that no one feels singled out, or pressured to speak about something that makes them feel uncomfortable. And, if they do seek someone out to talk to, they need to be able to trust that these conversations are private. They also need to be given ample opportunities to communicate anonymously on the subject. 

Make sure that all employees have access to the tools and resources they might require. It can help to dedicate time to go over these resources with your employees or to bring in mental health experts who are qualified to speak to your employees about the resources available to them should they need them. The last thing you want to do is provide them with outdated or irrelevant resources. 

Finally, you want to make sure to promote mental wellness throughout your facilities and policies. While providing employees with flexible working options can help to mitigate stress, businesses should also make sure to promote strong social connections and support networks. The changes discussed in other tips are also shown to have a positive impact on mental health. 

Employee Recognition

Flexibility isn’t the only way to alleviate stress. Employee recognition and loyalty rewards can also help show employees that their hard work is appreciated. For many, working at all, no matter the type of work, the amount of flexibility afforded, or the stakes involved, is inherently an activity that involves stress, but one way to help alleviate that stress is to assure your employees that they are appreciated. Job satisfaction, productivity, and motivation can all be boosted while stress, anxieties, and presenteeism, are meaningfully reduced. 

Employee recognition should be taken on board as a regular part of managing your employees. Recognition doesn’t have to just be limited to loyalty rewards and incentive programs. While these are valuable pieces of the puzzle, so too are regular feedback and casual recognition. Even sending your employees a quick email letting them know that they’re doing great, or thanking them for the work that they have submitted and letting them know that you see it and appreciate it, can go a long way to removing some of the stress and anxiety from the equation. Once this is established as a regular part of your corporate culture, actual rewards will stand out even more. From individual recognition programs, like employee of the month, to structured incentive programs, to gifts that simply show employees that they are appreciated, these incentives aren’t just great for motivation and retention, but for helping to alleviate working stress and anxiety. 

Wellness Programs and Wellness Benefits

Standard healthcare packages are expected from businesses, but the ones that thrive tend to offer more than just the standard benefits. But what exactly are wellness benefits, and what is a wellness program? Are they the same? They are related, but they’re not exactly the same. Wellness benefits are generally defined as benefits that employees are offered that are non-typical and which offer voluntary ways for employees to take measures to improve their health. Wellness programs are programs that focus on preventative measures, rather than treatment options, for employee health. Basically, wellness programs are proactive programs to keep your employees healthy in the first place, rather than relying on healthcare to treat their health after the fact, and wellness benefits are the individual aspects of those programs which can be seen as a “job perk.” Not every aspect of a wellness program is a wellness benefit. For example, many wouldn’t consider smoking cessation education or health presentations to be a “benefit” in the typical usage of the word. 

Now that that is cleared up, how can you create a wellness program that works for your employees, and what wellness benefits should you provide? There are a number of wellness benefits that businesses can provide, from weekly massages, to onsite fitness centers, to smoothie bars in the breakroom. Which benefits you provide will largely depend on the needs of your unique office. For example, a working environment which necessitates long hours at a desk might call for providing employees with a gym membership so they can get up and get moving before or after work. 

Effective wellness programs should also go beyond flashy non-standard benefits and focus also on preventative care and education. Health risk assessments, stress reduction programs, nutrition education, health screenings, vaccination programs, and more, are all great places to start when crafting your wellness program. The basic principle you need to keep in mind is that wellness programs are a way to boost employee health proactively; anything that can help boost overall employee health rather than relying on reactive treatment for specific health problems, should be considered for your wellness program. 

Physical Environment

Of course, a gym membership isn’t the only way to combat the negative health impacts of sitting at a desk all day. Simple changes to the physical workspace, like providing workers with standing desks, can lead to huge benefits in terms of employee health in the long run. Ergonomic seating can also help avoid spinal stress and the back pains that come with it. However, while these are certainly the obvious places to look at to improve the physical environment for your employees, expanding your search area when looking for ways to improve is also important. 

Proper air filtration, for example, is an often overlooked area that nevertheless can have a huge impact on employee health and happiness. If your air is being circulated without proper filtration, allergens and even pathogens might be circulated around your office. 

Proper lighting, including natural light, is another area that should be looked into. While it’s not always possible to physically increase the amount of light that makes its way into your office space, lowering dividers, widening openings, removing unnecessary walls, even simply opening op the blinds, etc., can all make a huge impact on the amount of natural light available to your employees. Natural light can help boost vitamin D, ward off seasonal depression, and maintain healthy circadian rhythms. 

Of course, these are just some examples of how you can improve the physical working environment that your employees work in every day. The steps you end up taking will once more depend on the needs of your physical space and the needs of your own employees. From bike racks, to removing smoking areas, to adding indoor plants, reducing machine noise levels to be within a safe decibel range, etc., the ways in which the physical working environment can be improved are functionally limitless. Likewise, so too are the health benefits your employees will see thereafter!

Often the first place people look when trying to foster adaptability and encourage creativity in the workplace is the physical design of the workplace itself – and with good reason! Poor office design can inhibit even the most creative and adaptable teams, and offices that are designed well can inspire creative thinking and boost productivity. 

While each office is going to require a different design approach based on the work performed there and the needs of the employees, there are still several things that anyone looking to maximize the creative potential of their physical workspace should keep in mind. First, you should strive to inspire, but not distract. While video game lounges, ping pong tables, nap nooks, and other trendy design features certainly make it clear that creativity is the focus, they can often lead to more distraction or disuse rather than inspiration. Again, it’s all about what the needs of your office and your employees really are. If a game of ping pong is more likely to dislodge a creative block than it is to simply eat up 20 minutes of time every now and then, don’t let anyone stop you!

For example, while standing desks are shown to promote health and combat things that can inhibit creative thinking like backaches and presenteeism, that doesn’t mean you should run out and convert all of your employees’ desks into standing desks right away. While sit/stand desks are a bit less friendly to the budget, they’re a lot friendlier to the end-user, in this case, your employees, affording them the flexibility to choose when and how long they want to work standing. 

Another great way to prime your office for creativity is to brighten it. While you may not be able to make big structural changes to windows, you can, for example, open the blinds, lower dividers, and invest in better lighting. Even adding bias lights to workstations with simple RGBW LED strips, can reduce eye-strain, brighten up the office, and even give employees a chance to express their own creativity or lean into different creative moods.

Of course, changes to the office don’t have to be huge sweeping physical changes; they can be changes in attitude and perception as well. While the sleek, minimal, distraction-free desk with nothing but the necessities on its surface might seem like the way to go, it could also be inhibiting creativity. Encouraging employees to bring in mementos, pictures, desk puzzles, and a plant or two to take care of, will help avoid the environmental monotony that can quickly hamper creativity. Letting employees be responsible for their own workspace also affords them the opportunity to shape their own environment. And you can even provide clear guidelines if you wish, as long as they are given enough room to express themselves and provide themselves with a stimulating working environment.

With that in mind, it’s also worth looking not at just the workstations themselves, but at common areas. Sometimes employees just need a change of scenery, a chance to stretch their legs, have a chat, or work more comfortably for a moment. Creating areas that encourage a bit of social interaction and some new visual stimuli, and which offer a chance to recharge can boost creativity and adaptability whether there’s a ping pong table or not! 

You also, crucially, want to be sure that you are providing your team with the resources they need. While greenery, visual stimuli, and effective lighting can go a long way, the potential here may be wasted if employees don’t have the tools they need to experiment, the materials they need to prototype, and the technology they need to communicate their ideas and bring them to life. 

Provide Freedom and Flexibility

Providing freedom and flexibility by encouraging employees to personalize their physical environments is one thing, but that spirit of creative freedom should also extend to the work itself. One mistake that a lot of businesses make is getting caught up in how the work gets done, leaving little room for someone to find a better way of doing things. Once you provide employees with freedom and flexibility about that proverbial “how,” you may quickly find that they are capable of coming up with ways to do things that are not only faster, but can actually end up leading to better end results as well! Efficiency and productivity are great bonuses on their own, but creative methods of problem-solving can actually lead to solutions that outdated and rigid methodologies can’t.

It often falls to leaders to communicate the overall mission and vision, and to make sure that the end-solution accomplishes that mission and is in line with that vision, but leaders shouldn’t be spending too much time dictating how to get there. The more room you leave for additional voices, opinions, and creative solutions, the better. This doesn’t mean that managers and team leaders shouldn’t facilitate the movement between project phases, or lead discussions, or anything like that, only that they should try not to inhibit the exploration of different styles, methods, and solutions. The key here is to facilitate progress rather than dictate process. 

While standard practices and limits can certainly be put in place for good, well-meaning, reasons, they can also hinder creativity in the workplace. Worse still, most limits that are put on employees are done so unintentionally. While it might seem helpful to provide employees with directions, it’s often much more helpful to simply provide them with direction. Give them the tools they need, the flexibility they need, the freedom they need, and then get out of their way; let them do what they’re here to do. 

Encourage Creative Risk-Taking

Even if employees are afforded that utmost freedom and flexibility, no one is going to exercise either if they’re afraid of failure. Employees need to be assured that every experiment doesn’t have to result in perfection. Coming up with creative methods and solutions isn’t always guaranteed to work, but that’s part of the process. Employees need to know that it’s okay to fail, especially if they can take it as an opportunity to learn from their mistakes in order to inform their next attempt – that is, they should be instructed on how to fail wisely. 

Failure can be the greatest teacher. Consider how valuable producing a low-resolution prototype to share with the team or show to clients can be. Even if it turns out not to be the direction you want to take things, the insight you gain into why it doesn’t work can help everyone to understand those reasons in a much more tangible way, informing the success of the final product in a way that is often more helpful and effective than if that path were never explored. It also leaves open the possibility for that out-of-the-box solution to be one that works far better than typical solutions. These solutions, after all, are the reward that risks are taken in search of. Employees need not only to be encouraged to speak up when they have out-of-the-box ideas, but they also need to be assured that these radical ideas will be met with an open mind. When creativity and adaptability are at the heart of your business, creative risk-taking can be implied naturally, but that doesn’t mean that managers shouldn’t also proactively encourage the behavior, as well as make sure to be understanding if and when new avenues of exploration lead to dead ends. When one of those new avenues takes your team to a destination that would never have been discovered by treading down the same old paths, it will all be worth it!

Build a Diverse Team and Then Include Everyone

Fostering a creative and adaptable workplace is also about making sure you have the right talent for the job, but often creative teams can end up creatively homogenous. Leaders can tend to hire “in their own image.” Many businesses hire people who think, complete tasks, and solve problems the same way. While it’s certainly good practice to set criteria for new hires and to hire based on how good of a “fit” a potential employee seems to be, relying too much on that mindset can quickly limit the diversity of ideas that enter your workplace. Instead, the hiring process should focus on building a team of different skills and backgrounds, and with complementary strengths. 

For example, introversion and creativity tend to correlate positively, and yet teams often hire based on the myth of the “extrovert ideal.” In practice, true value comes from composing a team of a variety of personality types. After all, you logically won’t see all of the benefits of collaboration, brainstorming, specialization, etc., without teams that are composed of different people with different skillsets, different competencies, and different backgrounds. Difference itself should be celebrated and utilized as a powerful tool of discovery leading your team to solutions that any individual may never have arrived at on their own.  

But you also need to facilitate these differences. Not just in terms of moderating their debates and guiding their discussions, but in terms of being open to different methods of discussion. When your team is comprised of people whose personalities differ from one another, you may quickly find that the methods which are effective for some, are inhibiting to others. 

For example, brainstorming doesn’t have to be all at once. Breaking that process up can help to level the playing field between introverts and extroverts and ensure that no one’s voice is lost. Not everyone is comfortable shouting out the first thing that comes to mind. While this may seem essential to the brainstorming process, the benefits of that methodology can be quickly outweighed by the downside of not hearing from a meaningful portion of your team. Even a simple change like digitizing the process can help more voices to be heard. These differing voices will be necessary to find creative solutions to all of the many different challenges these teams will face together.  

Cultural Shift Toward Safety

Compliance with state and local regulations about workplace safety is one thing, and it’s certainly something your business needs to take seriously. But you also want to make sure that your entire workplace culture shifts to hold safety at its center. Your employees will notice if your compliance with guidelines is enacted begrudgingly. While no one wants to have their operations slowed down by safety measures, putting your employees and their health first is far more important. Being sympathetic about workstyle changes is one thing ‒ a good thing, in fact ‒ but acting inconvenience because of basic safety measures is only going to demonstrate to your employees that they aren’t valued, whether or not that’s the case. 

Instead, make safety a top priority, even if your workplace has shifted to remote work. Simple things like making sure the use of on-site equipment is pre-scheduled so that there isn’t any in-person employee overlap, or any ways that you can think of to increase safety beyond the call of duty to comply with all applicable guidelines, are going to meaningfully demonstrate to your employees that their safety is your top concern. 

Communication is Key

Moving to remote work is one of the best ways to continue to operate as a business while making sure your employees are as safe as possible, but it also means drastic shake-ups to longstanding routines and communication structures.  

You want to make sure to establish a clear communication plan for all of your teams and everyone on them. Start by working out what the best medium is for communication. A lot of teams are turning to applications like Zoom and Skype, of course, but that doesn’t mean that these are your ideal solution. Sometimes phone and email work just as well if that is what everyone is used to, as long as everyone is on the same page. This process could include some trial and error, and will likely result in a variety of communication methods being utilized, which, after all, is also the case for most traditional working environments. 

That said, while your team might be communicating with one another via whatever medium suits the given message being delivered (for example, email might be better for something that isn’t time-sensitive, and can include email attachments such as graphs or documents, while Zoom might be better if more than two team members need to link up at the same time) your methods of communicating to and with your team should eventually settle into some sort of regularity. Regular Skype meetings, for example, can be really beneficial. If you and your team know they need to allocate a specific time in their schedule every day, then there will be no time wasted trying to get everyone on the same page. Likewise, your standing meeting shouldn’t flip flop between communication mediums, because that too will only add confusion and wasted time to the equation. 

You also want to make sure that everyone knows how to use the selected platform effectively. While some people thrive on remote work, others may have a more difficult time adjusting. You want to make sure that everyone not only knows how to utilize your selected communication application, but you also want to make sure they are aware of the various additional functions that many of these applications have. You may, for example, run into a need for one employee to share their screen during a video conference. If your employee has been instructed on all of the functions of the application, this screen sharing can go off without a hitch and you won’t lose any time or, crucially, anyone’s attention. 

Make Sure Employees Have What They Need

Working from home sounds like a pretty good idea from the outset. Everyone gets to have their own workstation set up exactly as they see fit and in a way that is most conducive to their individual workstyle. The problem is that employees regularly rely on standard supplies, technologies, and processes that the office setting has to offer but that not every home office does. While it’s not necessarily required to make sure that all of your employees have the same level of resources in their home office as they would back at the office, it’s easy to see that if they find themselves in need of something that they don’t have access to, then the overall work is going to suffer. Still, if you don’t have the resources to provide everyone with, for example, a scanner or a photocopier, you can still set up a scheduling system to have your employees access these tools within the office without running into other employees. That said, providing your employees with the necessary resources to work as well as they would within the office can see a tremendous return on investment. It’s not at all uncommon for businesses to provide remote employees with a stipend to spend on home office supplies.  

Examination of Long-Term Goals

It may be some time before work can return to normal, and when the possibility presents itself, it might be the case that some work can actually be preformed better remotely. While remote work does have a host of advantages, from reduced costs to elimination of time wasted commuting, some businesses will find that not all tasks are able to be completed remotely. As remote work stretches on longer than some anticipated, many businesses that typically rely on in-person work are starting to realize the limits of remote work. That said, remote work as a concept isn’t always the limiting factor, and a lot of work that traditionally relied on in-person communication can now be completed remotely with the support of new tools, technologies, and adaptive thinking. Still, you will want to take stock of your long-term goals now in order to better plan your team’s workflow for not only the coming months but the coming years. Now might be the best time to fully invest in remote work, but it also might shine a light on the notion that not all work that your team does can be adequately completed remotely. So it’s time to ask yourself and your team what work is able to be performed remotely. 

If there is work that relies on in-person communication and collaboration, you’ll want to establish an action plan for performing this work safely. In the case that all work can be meaningfully completed remotely, you may want to consider establishing new habits now that will continue beyond the scope of this pandemic. 

Transparency

Transparency should be a through-line in your management approach to this pandemic. Be honest with your team not only about your expectations for them and their productivity, but also about the difficulties that you may all face together. Be open and honest about your safety measures and the reasons behind them. Keep everyone on the same page about the, in many cases, continually evolving communication situation. And don’t forget to individually touch base with your employees to understand how these changes and goals are impacting them. Finally, make sure that when you do establish your long-term goals, that your team is a part of that decision and kept in the loop during the process. 

Safety Protocols

Offices around the world have enacted various safety protocols in line with trusted health and safety organizations as well as national, state, and local guidelines. For many, this has meant a drastic change of pace in terms of the working environment. Whether your office has switched to a more remote workflow, a rotating schedule, or enforced social distancing and other safety measures, a party shouldn’t be an excuse to throw all of those things out of the window. Doing so will only make your party less safe while undermining the hard work and adjustment difficulties throughout the past several months. 

Traditional Parties

If you’re working with a small enough number of employees and a large enough space to accommodate them while maintaining proper social distancing guidelines, a social-distancing party might be possible. Some offices with enough space for every individual are still operating in-person during COVID-19. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that all such offices are equipped to host a party. Afterall, the socializing that goes on during normal office hours is tremendously different from the socializing that goes on at a party. 

The CDC warns that the more people an individual interacts with, and the longer those interactions last, the higher the risk of COVID-19 spread. So while your standard safety measures might be okay for casually saying a quick hello to coworkers during normal office hours, they may not work for the sort of extended conversations with multiple people that tend to take place at social gatherings like holiday parties, so you will need to up your game when it comes to safety measures. 

First, masks are a must. There’s little else that you can enforce that mitigates the risk of transmission as quickly and effectively as proper face coverings. No one wants to have a party in a mask, but, at the same time, safety should be your number one priority. Don’t relax your rules on facial coverings just because it is a holiday party, because, remember, the risks are even higher. 

Second, make sure social distancing is enforced. You have to have enough space to accommodate everyone and make sure they all have adequate space around them. Holding conversations isn’t always as fun when the chairs are six feet apart, but protecting your employees is far more important. 

Third, you may have to go without food and drink this year. Although parties might not feel much like a party without it, these things can really increase your risks. Not only is there still the chance for surface transmission when lots of people are, for example, touching the same selection of food, drink, and accouterment, but also eating and drinking makes wearing a mask impossible. Instead, consider getting your employees a gift card to a restaurant they all like, or, if they have varying tastes, consider getting them a prepaid holiday gift card in lieu of the typical party spread. 

Get Tested

Many companies are already doing regular testing.  So if you are planning to have a company holiday event, try to align it with your testing schedule.  If you’re not doing regular testing already, then put together a testing plan in the lead up to your event.  

If you can ensure all your guests test negative before attending the event, that can greatly increase the safety of it.  But keep in mind that testing isn’t foolproof, and just because you believe nobody in attendance has the virus doesn’t mean you can ignore safety measures.   Tests are not always accurate and it’s certainly possible for someone to contract the virus between being tested and showing up at the holiday party.

Be sure to test if you’re able to, and it’s a good practice for companies still operating on-site anyway.  However, if you really want to keep everyone safe, consider some alternatives to throwing an in-person holiday party this year.

Virtual Parties

Virtual parties are the safest option for your celebration. The CDC states that there is a higher level of community transmission in a physical area where a gathering is held and that virtual parties, unsurprisingly, come with the lowest risks. In fact, having a virtual party can avoid those risks entirely. Although virtual parties don’t offer the same experience as a traditional in-person party would, they can still be an effective substitute. 

Keep in mind that any in-person party these days will also not offer the same experience as a typical party of years past, with masks and other safety protocols altering the feel of the party anyway.  So a virtual party could easily be more “off the hook” than an in-person party with no food and everyone wearing masks shouting at each other from 6-feet away.

Besides being your safest option, virtual parties also open up a whole new world of possibilities for entertainment and activities. Digital party games can actually be a great way to make virtual parties more fun, while at the same time working as an effective team-building exercise. Video games can be great fun, such as “You Don’t Know Jack” quiz games or challenging multiplayer games like the Overcooked series.  Not only are these a blast to play and stream, but they also inspire cooperation and bonding. 

Why Not Postpone?

There’s no rule that says a holiday party has to happen in December.  Of course, you might miss out on the festive spirit of the holiday season, but there’s a novelty in recreating that spirit outside of its normal timeframe.  “Christmas in July” is a thing, after all, and you don’t have to put up with the cold weather.

Whether you rebrand it as a summer bash or decide to go the “Christmas in July” route, your employees might be safer if they can be patient.  Of course, we don’t know how long the pandemic will last and when things might be safe again to return to normal.  So this might be a difficult promise to keep in a timely manner.

Play It Safe!

The truth is throwing an in-person holiday party this year is not a great idea.  Your best bet is to avoid it all together by going virtual or simply postponing until next year.  Your employees will understand, and in lieu of a holiday party why not spend that money directly on them?  To make sure your employees still feel appreciated this holiday season, you could always give them a nice bonus or invest your party funds in employee holiday gifts instead.  

If you’re thinking about gifting your employees something nice in place of throwing a corporate holiday bash, holiday-themed gift cards are a great option.  It’s a gift that’s as versatile as cash, but more personal and special.  You can even customize them with your own messaging and pick a nice festive design for the cards.

We’re all in this together as the pandemic continues, people are used to making compromises.  The important thing is you find a way to give your employees a bit of fun and let them know their work has been appreciated, especially this year.

Are Annual Reviews Outdated?

The annual review is what springs to mind for most people when talking about employee performance reviews, but everyone has their own interpretation of what an annual review looks like. Usually, these are pretty boiler-plate conversations about job performance, goals for continued professional development, establishing new objectives, recognizing accomplishments, and discussing room for improvement. If this review process can indeed strengthen the employee-manager relationship, improve the setting and maintaining of goals, and remedy key shortcomings, it sounds like an effective, if not vital, process. The seemingly contradictory problem? This type of annual review might be at once too standardized and too subjective. Although ideally conversations about goals and performance, they can easily fall into the trap of being far too one-sided and grade-focused. 

The fact is, more than 9 out of every 10 managers aren’t satisfied with how performance reviews are conducted, and an equally large majority of HR leaders agree that the process doesn’t even yield accurate information. Within these same findings, we also learn that performance ratings don’t actually speak to real-world results, and are therefore altogether poor sources for informing decisions involving rewards and other employee dynamics. Furthermore, the frequency itself of the “annual review” is called into question, with mounting expert consensus that nothing occurring annually, goal setting, progress evaluating, weakness highlighting, etc. can be effective on such an infrequent timescale in such fast-paced environments. 

Overly Standardized and Subjective

To understand why performance reviews are so boilerplate today, we need to look back fifty or sixty years to their origins. Back in the ’60s and ‘70s companies began to really embrace methods of review like the five-point scale. This was, at the time, a seemingly effective solution to deal with the sheer scale of the new workforce as it exploded in those decades. It was simple. This method of evaluation could be widely doled out to a vast number of workers, and the straightforward data collected therefrom could be easily interpreted, crunched, and used to inform all manner of decisions. One major problem: it’s purely subjective what separates a 3 from a 4 or a 4 from a 5 when it comes to vague competencies that are only measurable subjectively like “assertiveness” or “dependability,” etc. 

Even if these grading scales are accompanied by descriptive rubrics that might detail that a 5 is reserved for “exceptional performance” while a 4 is used to denote “above-average performance,” those very concepts are themselves subjective. If one of the major goals of the employee review is to extract useful and accurate data, multiple layers of subjectivity are going to make your employee reviews incapable of meeting that basic goal. At the same time, even if there could be confidence that the data itself was indeed accurate by somehow surmounting both levels of subjectivity, how informative, after all, can a five-point grading scale really be? Is a grade of a number from one to five really capable of or even conducive to reflecting over improvements since the last review session? Recognizing specific accomplishments? Setting new goals? If an employee, for example, receives a grade of 4 out of 5 for “teamwork,” what, if any, are the prescriptive implications therein? “Next time try to go from “above average” to “exceptional.” And let’s say that there was indeed demonstrated improvement by that same employee, that doesn’t even necessarily mean that the grade will change. Likewise, just because someone receives a 5 in a certain concept area, it doesn’t mean that improvements can still be made, it just means that the grading scale is incapable of reflecting it if they are. 

These inherent problems are especially highlighted when we recognize that the same grading scale can be, and very often is, applied broadly to multiple different job categories. How can we expect accurate or informative data when we apply the same grading scale to a marketing team member as we do to an IT department head? There’s no built-in emphasis within rigid grading scales on the specific needs and responsibilities of the job itself. While both skills may be required by both parties to some extent, the former may need to be a team player far more than the latter, who may need leadership skills far more than the former. Experts suggest that, rather than rigid grading scales like the five-point scale, we should build the review from the individual job description up. Doing so can avoid the garbled data feed problem by removing the useless data altogether. Instead of trying to fit the round peg of subjectivity through the square hole of standardization, one answer to the ever more pressing question of data reliability for standardized reviews is to destandardize them. 

Of course, these reviews can become even more subjective, but now the subjectivity is useful, and not just for the manager, but for the employee as well. While it may be useful to neither party even to somehow accurately determine whether or not an employee rates as a 4 or a 5 in terms of “assertiveness,” for example, if instead the review process as a whole were structured around the job description itself, employee and employer alike could come to better understand how the employee is relating to the specific requirements, expectations, and core competencies of their own position. How is the employee setting and meeting the goals of the position? How have they exceeded expectations? How might we want to move on from and adapt the original job description if and as the work evolves? etc. Which brings us to another one of the common failings of the typical annual review. 

Too One-Sided

The current trend with employee reviews is ditching artificial performance ratings in favor of more authentic means of assessment. Rating employees with a number or by any other simple and rigid category ranking doesn’t just produce useless data, it can also be demoralizing. Essentially, the more one-sided your employee reviews are, the more likely that you will end up with the very opposite of your intended goals. Remember, an effective review process can help reward achievements and virtues, incentivize future accomplishment, identify room for improvement, and strengthen the employee-manager relationship and overall employee commitment, so the last thing you want to do is waste valuable time and resources only to adversely impact all of those key areas of employee growth. 

But the review process isn’t only something that can make employees anxious, it can also be a major source of anxiety for the managers who perform the reviews. The fact is, although communication and leadership skills are essential for organizational effectiveness, the majority of businesses aren’t regularly training their managers in these crucial skill areas. Of course, managers may tend to be more skilled in these areas than the average person depending on the rigor of the hiring processes or promotion criteria in each individual case, but we still need to depend on these managers to carry out performance reviews in a way that avoids easy pitfalls like one-sided evaluation. With so much of business being focused on the end result, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that the delivery itself can be as important as the content being delivered. Extracting data is far from the only goal of an employee review, and the process itself can have a meaningful impact on employee performance and growth outside of the mere information gleaned. Which is just one of the reasons why the style, structure, and language employed in the review process itself can help steer you towards those positive outcomes and away from the negative. 

Ideally, managers should be given opportunities to continue to strengthen their communication and leadership skills when necessary, which would have not only a positive impact on employee reviews, but benefits that can permeate the rest of their responsibilities as well. If continued training isn’t necessary, managers should still receive specific instruction on how to conduct employee reviews, namely that they should conduct employee reviews more like a conversation than an evaluation. Otherwise, encouraging goal-setting becomes a demoralizing list of demands, discussing shortcomings can feel like an attack, etc. On the other hand, if you guide the conversation naturally toward goals and areas that might need more attention, you can arrive at these conclusions jointly, and be that much closer to achieving the positive outcomes we all hope to achieve through employee reviews, and avoiding the negative outcomes that are all too common.

Not an Effective Frequency

Although a great number of managers still swear by annual reviews, one of the major reasons for their downfall is frequency. The simple fact is that reviews occurring annually are too far out of step with modern business to be effective. These days, business simply moves too quickly for annual reviews to be either informative or actionable. Goals set at the beginning of the year might be drastically different from goals even a few months later. Further, it can also be difficult to meaningfully discuss an entire year’s worth of employee performance all at once, and it’s easy for reviews to be biased toward recent memory, recent achievements, recent setbacks, etc. even though employee performance and engagement during the rest of the year is just as important. At the same time, you don’t want employees to feel like they’re under the microscope, or to be wasting the time of employees and managers alike by reviewing too often. 

The Frequency Solution

Knowing all of the problems of reviews that take place annually, the intuitive solution might be simply finding a comfortable middle-ground — a frequency that is neither too far apart so as to be impacted by recency bias and shifting goals, nor too rapid and thereby wasting time and resources and making workers feel micromanaged. It’s certainly possible to strike that balance so long as you are willing to dedicate the time and effort needed to hone in on what that balance is for your particular business and your particular employees. That said, whether you swear by the annual review, or think quarterly reviews work best for your business, there are ways to solve all of the inherent problems with review frequency through revitalizing your entire review structure, and layering your review process. What this means is that, whether you want to conduct the reviews themselves annually or more (or even much more) frequently, you should also go beyond the mere review. 

Full-scale employee reviews are a great chance to take a deep-dive into employee performance, engagement, and goals. But if they’re only taking place once a year, you’re going to lose out on a lot of the benefits therein, and might be fighting against shifting goals in a fast-paced business landscape. So, while you conduct your full-scale reviews once a year, you can also have shorter goal-oriented review sessions several times throughout the year, even within the same quarter depending on the nature of your business, as well as shorter, more casual check-ins about things outside of goals that may change throughout the year, or need to be praised or addressed without waiting for recency bias to set in. Finally, ongoing performance metrics/praise/feedback through incentive programs, email, or specific engagement applications will help you keep one finger on the pulse of your employees, as well as continually boost engagement and drive through ongoing incentivizing. 

Casual, more regular, meetings outside of the performance review can help acclimate employees to regular feedback and minimize the anxiety associated with the review process as a whole. This multi-pronged approach also leaves available the opportunity to conduct full-scale reviews more frequently in place, perhaps, of one of the shorter check-ins.

The crucial thing to remember is that this approach is modular. It’s adaptive. That should be your key takeaway here. There is, unfortunately, no golden ratio when it comes to review frequency, and many factors, such as organizational culture, manager-to-employee ratio, length of employment, and pace of business will all need consideration to inform your individual review frequency. 

In Summary: The Ideal Review Structure

Unfortunately, there is no perfect review structure. What one business swears by could be disastrous for the next. That said, there are some key things you should remember when formulating your new review structure or improving your old one. 

Ditch Grading Scales

Grading scales can leave your employees unhappy and your data inaccurate. Focus instead on more authentic forms of evaluation.  

Conversation over Evaluation

One-sided evaluations aren’t great for inspiring employees, but conversations, even those that arrive at the same conclusions, can help both parties work through the aspects of the review in a way that is much more conducive to positive outcomes. Feedback still should play a vital role, but if your employee review is limited to feedback alone, you will miss out on a lot of the potential of this process. 

The Layered Approach

The ideal review frequency may be elusive because the individual components themselves, such as offering feedback, setting goals, and incentivizing, have different ideal frequencies. One solution is to conduct a full-scale review, but then follow up with the component aspects based on the rate those individual components change/need to be discussed. 

Find Your Frequency 

A business that has been in operation for fifty years and is mostly staffed with seasoned employees is going to have different review needs than a startup that is continually adapting and responding to a brand new and ever-changing market. Don’t be afraid to hone in on a review structure that works for you. 

Reward Programs

These days, reward programs are a must even within traditional workflows. With those workflows now interrupted, and with many workers now having to adjust to working remotely, and with all of the associated changes to their routines and procedures, rewards programs are now more vital than ever as the perfect tools for remote engagement and motivation. The majority of managers strongly agree that rewards programs have a large positive impact on overall performance and are highly valued by employees.

The Virtual Prepaid Card Advantage

Virtual prepaid cards are quickly becoming one of the top ways to reward, motivate, and encourage employees, and, with remote work on the rise and continued social distancing practices, virtual prepaid cards are now the perfect solution for employee loyalty. Virtual Rewards are instantly deliverable, can be sent from and to anywhere, and are a great way to show employees you appreciate them and reward top performers.

Employee Appreciation and Incentives

With changes to workflow and working environment, employee appreciation is a great solution to keeping employees happy and saying “thank you” for working diligently through tough routine changes during difficult and stressful times, but finding the best way to show your appreciation during these times while also observing all of the social distancing measures can be difficult. A virtual thank you keeps your workers not just happy and feeling appreciated, but also healthy and safe.

For the same reasons, virtual prepaid cards are also the perfect modern solution to corporate incentives such as bonuses and rewards programs. Cash bonuses are one of the most effective and sought after types of incentives for employees, and managers agree that they are cost-effective and generate results. They can also be received nearly instantly, further increasing the impact of positive reinforcement.

With all of the advantages of virtual prepaid cards, it’s clear they are the perfect social-distancing solution to employee loyalty.

A New Normal

From hazard pay to moving work online, companies across the board have had to make sweeping changes to general workflow and employee structure. While some services were deemed essential, and other work was able to be completed online, many beyond that were simply out of work for the foreseeable future. This was the new normal. Furloughs, cutbacks, unemployment, and lots and lots of video conferencing. The problems begin to arise, however, when we see companies failing to adequately adjust to this new normal, failing to be sensitive to the fact that it is an adjustment, and failing to adequately compensate those essential workers who now have to work in potentially dangerous conditions.

The Bad

We’ve all heard the horror stories, companies ending hazard pay before the crisis has abated, businesses using small gifts and modest one-time store-credit rewards in lieu of hazard pay, even some companies requesting that employees pay back some of their hazard pay after being “over-paid” emergency pay previously provided to them. What’s the through-line here? It’s simple: companies that value a few dollars here and there over their own employees during a global pandemic are easy to spot and return an immediate reaction of disgust and distrust.

How To Do Better

If the common denominator problem is the clear valuing of employees below modest emergency benefits, then the inverse is the goal. And it’s a win-win. Investing in employees is one of the best things you can do to keep your workforce happy, motivated, and invested in the success of your company. Treating them poorly and nickel-and-diming their emergency pay will inversely keep them unhappy, unmotivated, and unconcerned with whether or not the business succeeds or fails. If your workers are essential, treat them as such. If your workers are having understandable difficulties adjusting to the new normal, be patient, be understanding, be instructive, and work through it together.

The Good

On the other side of things we have companies that have gone out of their way to show their appreciation for their workers. And this even applies to companies that have had to close their doors or alter their business practices. For example, many full-service restaurants have had to scale back to curbside takeout-only restaurants and, as a result, have had to let waitstaff, bartenders, and other workers go for the time being. What sets some of these restaurants apart however is often no more complicated than simple communication and small gestures. Some restaurants have been very open and honest to their workers about plans to reopen, the general state of the business, and what proposed reopening schedules at low capacity might mean for individual workers. Some of these businesses even go out of their way to provide a small appreciation reward. While these gestures will, by no means, compare to regular working earnings, they are still often very much appreciated. Not strictly because of the actual value of the rewards themselves, but because they show an appreciation for the employees and their understanding and patience.

With the increased need for social distancing, many businesses are trying to shy away from in-person interactions which means physical gifts can be an impossibility.  Fortunately, we now offer virtual gift cards which are a great way to show your appreciation without anyone needing to break quarantine or leave lockdown to enjoy.

A Little Appreciation Goes a Long Way

As we can see with the restaurant industry example, responding well to the difficulties that workers find themselves in isn’t always about increasing pay. Sometimes furloughs are simply out of the hands of the businesses. And while monetary rewards are always appreciated, open communication channels, and sincere demonstrations of the appreciation you have for your employees, and recognition of their value as both employees and as people, go a long way.

Performance Bonuses

Most businesses use bonuses and incentives in some form or another. Performance-based bonuses are distinct from general employee appreciation in that they reward the individual achievements, numbers, milestones, etc, of individuals or, sometimes, teams, groups, departments, etc. And they work! Most employees who are recognized for their hard work report feeling more engaged and a good portion of employees report that they wouldn’t be inspired to put forth an extra effort if there isn’t a promise of a tangible reward. That said, performance bonuses aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution to morale or productivity. And, although most recipients prefer cash-based or cash-value incentives, the reward itself is just one small part of the whole incentive program. Bonuses have to reward the things that suit your business’s individual needs as well as those that make a good and effective employee. There also needs to be a clear and direct connection between what is required to earn these bonuses and the bonuses themselves; that is, employees have to know and understand why they’re being rewarded/what specific behaviors and actions led to the reward. Therefore, it must also be understood before the fact exactly how the reward can be obtained. If there isn’t a clear understanding and equal attainability that alone can lead to people feeling left out.

Are Employees Left Out?

What we should be starting to see is that a “performance bonus” is a term that covers a huge variety of performance-based incentive programs, which each have their own rewards, reward types, methods of obtaining them, and equity of attainability. So, can performance bonuses make employees feel left out? Yes, if they’re done totally wrong. Everyone should have a level playing field when it comes to these bonuses and the performances that they demand need to be realistic and reflected in the bonuses themselves.

Reward, Don’t Punish

A bonus is supposed to be, well, a bonus. If your employees have to rely on bonuses and incentives, outside of commission-structured work, then these bonuses will stop feeling like a bonus and begin to feel like a necessity that demands, rather than rewards, extra work. You also want to be sure to strongly link the reasons for the rewards and the rewards themselves, and your program needs to be focused on long-term growth, not demanding short-term results that burn out employees. If the performance bonus is rewarded based on well defined, universally accessible, criteria, then you’re not likely to run into employees feeling left out. Of course, there will always be those who are less interested and less tempted by performance bonuses, but since your payment structure shouldn’t rely on those bonuses for fair compensation, the choice to participate is theirs to make, and they’re much less likely to feel left out. Employee appreciation is for everyone, but performance bonuses are necessarily for those who put in the extra effort. Sticking to the tips in this guide will help you craft a performance bonus program doesn’t leave anyone feeling left out.

Flexibility

One of the most popular words you’ll hear thrown around by people talking about how much they love their jobs is the word “flexibility,” and it isn’t too difficult to work out why. Who wouldn’t want to be able to decide, within reason, when, where, or for how long you engage in work-related tasks. The fact is, life itself isn’t always accommodating of your work schedule. Little Timmy isn’t going to consult your calendar to determine when the best time to get tonsilitis might be, nor are everyone’s circadian rhythms ready to be disrupted every morning at 6 am, and that’s without even talking about those who are married to a bartender or who have a standing board game night with their friends at 10 pm every Wednesday, or a who take care of their nieces on date night 45 minutes uptown. The fact is, everyone has a different home life, different social life, and different personal life, etc. so it’s becoming more and more difficult to expect everyone to have the same work life.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing for companies. In fact, the injection of a little more flexibility can be a great thing for all those involved. What’s more important to the end goals of any business? An employee who is at their desk for 8 specific hours, or an employee who produces results? Most people would say the latter, but most workplaces are geared toward the former. When your focus shifts to results, however, that’s what you’re going to see… Results! Think about the amount of time wasted throughout the day even with employees at their desks. Coffee breaks, checking the phone, setting up for the day. It adds up. And that’s without even mentioning the amount of time on the employee’s end spent commuting, getting ready, packing lunch.

We’re not suggesting that everyone makes the shift to work-from-home name-your-own-hours overnight, but a little bit of extra flexibility can go a long way, as can even a subtle shift in overall philosophy away from person-at-desk and toward actual measurable results. And we’re not talking about improvements just in terms of moral, reduction of employee stress, better work/life balance, and an increase in employee commitment. Although these are all positive changes you can expect to see. But we’re also talking about efficiency, progress, and work getting done.

So how can flexibility be brought in on a small scale? Try looking for the right tools to fit your individual toolbelt. There are a lot of powerful software options for fostering and measuring productivity in much better and more comprehensive ways than making sure everyone is staring at a computer screen for eight hours.

Focus on communication. This isn’t going to work if you simply leave everyone to their own devices. Not only do the same communication channels have to remain open and active, but communication should also actually increase. While you’re on your flexibility test drive (and will there ever be a better time to try it out than now?) make sure your employees and managers are communicating, learning what works and what doesn’t, getting feedback, implementing changes, learning about preferences for communication, and building trust. Remember, this is an exercise in flexibility. Don’t be afraid to be flexible for your employees as well.

Now that everyone is communicating with one another, learning from one another, and measuring the results thereof, it’s time to focus attention on those results, and hold people accountable for those results. You’re telling your employees you don’t care if they get it done at 7 am or midnight, but they do have to get it done. They have to deliver. If they don’t, well, you have those communication channels open for a reason, don’t be afraid to let them know that you expect them to do more with the flexibility and trust they’ve been given.

Employee Focus

When your employees come first, business thrives. At least that’s what seems to be borne out in the evidence after countless of the “best places to work” are shown to be incredibly employee-focused.

And maybe it’s no surprise that employees who are given a great employee experience will be able to turn around and deliver a great customer experience. But what exactly does employee-focus look like? Well, it starts all the way back with onboarding. Employees should come to understand on their very first day that they are part of a team that will listen to, respect, and value them as workers and as people. You’ve, no doubt, heard about the unending importance of first impressions. Well, the same goes for a new employee’s first impression of their new workplace culture, coworkers, and overall onboarding experience. From orientation to settling in, to getting to know everyone, this process should be prepared for and done right.

As employees continue to work and grow on your team, you also have to remember to pay attention to their individual needs, goals, and metrics for success. And it’s no surprise again that employees who have job-ownership and a real connection to their work and the people with whom they work will be more ready, willing and able to produce their best work.

Employee focus also looks like support. And a large part of taking care of your employees is giving them the tools and avenues to take care of themselves. Give them the tools they need to boost their own productivity, to foster positive working relationships, and the proper avenues to explore in the event that there’s a problem. Making problems easy to solve, and help easy to find, is great for everyone involved.

Employee focus also looks like employee recognition and appreciation. When employees are recognized for their achievements, they’ll feel more appreciated, they’ll be happier in their work, and they’ll be more satisfied with the work they’ve done. Not only that, but they will continue to strive to live up to that recognition. The same is true of employee appreciation. Taking steps to demonstrate how much you appreciate your employees individually and as a whole will only make them want to work harder and better in the future. Gestures of employee recognition on the individual level, group level, and as a whole are all great avenues to explore. Consider also employee benefits. Another one of the biggest things brought up by people who work for a “best place to work” is the benefits. Don’t look at employee benefits as something you have to give, but rather as another way to demonstrate how tremendously valuable these individuals are to your business as a whole. Good benefits can attract and hold onto better employees, which means more/better clients and customers, along with a happier and healthier working environment and team.