Five Ways to Acknowledge and Engage Employees

Acknowledgment by a manager means a lot for any employee, however, it means even more to the ones present on the frontline or part of a distributed team. Especially in these uncertain times, recognition from leadership can help make coming into work every day feel more worth it. Read these 5 tips to incorporate acknowledgment into your management style and engage your employees.

1. 1. Say Thanks. Simple, but incredibly effective; not forgetting to say “thank you” when someone closes on a project. It is very easy to forget some of the very basic gestures. Try to make it direct and individualized (via text, email, or safely face-to-face) to make every team member feel seen.
2. 2. Listen to (and act on) feedback. When an employee shares their concern, highlights a process that isn’t working, or praises one that is, listen and act. Use a tool like Butterfly to quickly gather insights and gauge how employees are feeling. You may need to make changes you didn’t anticipate to show your trust and investment in your employees.
3. 3. Join them in their day-to-day. Gathering feedback is incredibly important, but it can also help to see what they see and experience each day. Join employees in the thick of the workday to see the challenges and roadblocks that you might otherwise miss. Right now, things are changing quickly, so you may need to do this more than once.
4. 4. Celebrate them. After thanking your team members, take time to regularly call out your team to the larger company. It is very easy for other colleagues, who aren’t directly connected to your team, to be oblivious to your team’s wins. So make sure to not forget to shine a light on your team’s important work and impact for the overall company.
5. 5. Extend perks, if possible. While not everyone is in the office, it is easy to forget that perks that were once available to everyone, are now only for people back in the office. With the rise of the distributed and hybrid workforces it is of the utmost importance that you spend some time thinking about how to extend office perks to everyone across the company regardless of where they work.

In the end, any type of acknowledgment that shows your employees you understand and appreciate what they’re doing will go a long way. Butterfly gives managers what they need to know about how their people are feeling right now and empowers them to immediately follow up. The loop is closed in real-time with team members getting meaningful, best-informed actions from their managers. Every manager becomes a leader who knows their people and drives engagement, removing one more burden from the shoulders of HR and creating a happier workforce.