Here at The Outlook Creative Group, we believe that creative thinking comes from all walks of life and that happy, talented, and passionate people deliver the highest quality of work.
We are big believers in showing the love to our people when they do great work, not just once or twice a year, but every Friday morning. And with Employee Appreciation Day on the 1st March, we’ve got some top tips how you can inspire and motivate your workforce.
Strengthen the bonds across all parts of your business by appreciating each employee not from the top down but from across all channels of the business. This encourages regular feedback that isn’t just hierarchal. Across The Outlook Creative Group, we merge together on all projects, whether that be client work or internal, helping establish bonds across all areas of the company, and what better way to say thank you than to ‘Show the Love’!
Appreciating your employees will create a sense of connection and commitment not only to each other but also the company. Some of our longest reigning employees have gone on to become shareholders in the company, emphasizing Outlook’s long-lasting commitment to its employees and, in turn, their commitment to us. A greater connection between employees will also allow for greater success within team building exercises, social evenings, conferences and in our case O’Fest!
Setting up a regular appreciation system within the company and committing to it will make for an easy measure of company happiness. Remember, once it has launched, it’s there for the long run! Our ‘Show the Love’ campaign launched a year ago and cards are still taking pride of place at our desks and flowing in and out of our magenta post box. It will make your employees aware that it’s not just the big wins that count at the company but it’s also the small things that makes us who we are.
Celebrating an employee’s success and progress with an award scheme will encourage work motivation whilst also allowing for bragging rights after the award is perched proudly on their desk. Our ‘Show the Love’ cards are just part of our award system that are delivered to our employees desks every Friday. Our annual Conference gives opportunity for further awards across the company. We have the ‘Team Award’ for the most hard- working project team from across the business and the ‘Magenta Pencil Award’ for the individuals that have stood out due to their commitment, motivation, collaboration and creativity. Having a recognition system in place will ensure drive and direction you’re your employees across the business!
In between our busy schedules, meetings and client work we like to make time for team building activities, often in the form of a physical activity. We utilise the very few warm days we get to develop our rounders skills and work on building inter-company relationships through various team building exercises. Of course, the weather helps, but we like to allow team building through other forums. Our ‘Friday Treat’ works as a weekly newsletter that updates the entire company on what everyone’s been up to throughout the week. Each department compiles their own section, so each area’s unique sense of humour has a moment to shine. It keeps all our employees in the loop and to celebrate the company’s successes in the week.
Our ‘Show the Love’ campaign was launched a year ago to help express gratitude, internally and across all channels. In our main reception area, we have a pull up banner in our main reception area. Here you’ll find our ‘Show the Love’ cards and envelopes along with our magenta post box. This area is where employees, throughout the week, will come and write their card expressing appreciation and recognition.
Employees can fill a card out at any point in their day across the week. The post box is then emptied on a Friday afternoon and distributed by our very own Events and Video Director. We usually display our cards on our desks!
The Magenta Pencil Award is given to the individual that has shown 100% commitment and dedication to The Outlook Creative Group across the year, through various client projects and across all channels internally. This award is presented at our annual conference in June.
Every June, we host our own conference that allows all employees to be aware of successes and our aims moving forward as an ever-growing business. It gives our employees a chance to reflect on some great projects and all share their success with the rest of the team.
O’Fest, Outlook’s very own festival!
After the formalities of the annual conference, we host a festival to say a further congratulations to all our employees and, most importantly, let our hair down and have some fun!
This festival includes live music, a bar (of course) and lot of food. We use this day primarily as a team building exercise and to also show our appreciation to all our employees for their hard work and dedication throughout the year.
In the wonderfully digital world we live in, it is so easy to send an emoji, text, WhatsApp, GIF, email or any other digital communication with a thank you message… I still believe there is something “special” about taking pen to paper. Taking the time to do this allows me to reflect on what the person means to me, the business and our clients. Alongside showing them that they mean more than a “thx” text, receiving a card and knowing someone has taken the time out of their busy schedule, to sit and right something meaningful, adds a gravity to what they are saying. It gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. We spend a lot of time with the people we work with, appreciating each other is crucial for a successful and collaborative work place.
John Lloyd, Client Services Director
Get in touch to see how we can help you ‘Show the Love’ to your employees!